Gnome widgets, "white space", and themeability

["Justin Ross" <opiskin hotmail com>]

I'm a user and certainly not a programmer, so tell me if what follows is 
unnecessary or impractical or already implemented.

Looking at the screenshots of gnome apps, I've noticed that the spaces 
between text strings, buttons, tabs, the window edge, etc.,all vary 
quite a bit.  I find this aesthetically displeasing.  Very often there 
is too little white space around the interface elements, making them 
seem busy and too full-up.  

My immediate thought was, hey, why don't we take a tool from the 
typography people.  As I understand them, the Em and En units in 
typography are spacers, chosen for their pleasing proporitons.  Em and 
En spacers, of course, vary in size proportional to the typeface's size.  
If gnome had standard smallish, medium, and larger spacers, all of which 
scaled to the font you were using, the interfaces would be far less 
resolution-dependent.

For instance, take a file open dialog.  Let's suppose that an 'Em' 
space, by convention, separates window contents from the outer window 
edge.  The 'Ok' and 'Cancel' buttons on the bottom are separated by a 
smaller 'En' space.  The path text box rides one Em space above this row 
of buttons.  Now, Em is defined as, say, 2/3 the point value of the 
labels' font.  En is defined as 1/2 or 1/3.  When you set the font to 
18, the whole dialog, I presume, would become larger.  

The advantage to theme makers, besides the aesthetic, is to make the 
positioning of interface parts predictable.

Looking at this now, the complexity of this may make it not worthwhile.

Thanks,
Justin


 

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