Re: Gnome Beautification "Movement"

[Andrew Johnson <andrew ajgenius us>]

On Fri, 2003-06-13 at 13:01, Mark Finlay wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-06-10 at 19:04, Andrew Johnson wrote:
> > What about GTK/Widget themes? I would say that is just as important as
> > icons and backgrounds,  and sadly lacking in the Gnome mainstream.
> 
> Sorry I took so long to reply to this.
> 
> It is important in the long run, but IMHO not half as important as 
> the icon theme at the moment. Icons have a very important usability 
> function and having bad ones as such have a negative effect on the
> user experience. As well as that, the gtk themes that come with gnome
> atm aren't totally crap. Would love to see wonderland in there though.

As for wonderland, it never will be included, because afaik RH has asked
it not be part of any of the gtk/gnome packages...

I am not debating icons. I agree. Icons are just as important, probably
more so. But at the same time the gtk themes are very much a part of how
people perceive gnome, consider how often people talk about using kde
because "it has better themes" they aren't usually talking about the
icons, they are talking about the widgets, since most of the best kde
icons are ported to gnome anyway. It isn't that gtk doesn't have some
decent themes, its that gnome doesn't include as many really good
themes. And since when it comes to gtk and icons, especially with the
default theme, there is supposed to be a tight integration, I feel it is
important to discuss along side these others. Good icons improve a good
gtk theme, but a bad gtk or only half-rate gtk theme can also have a
negative impact on the icon theme. 

Not to push this ahead of the icons at all, nor should it take priority
just that we shouldn't ignore it entirely. From what I have seen most
people are concerned with icons and icons only and push aside gtk themes
and there quality in favour of just using existing themes, I see a lot
of this in gnome-themes where a lot of themes, many I do not even
consider very good or which are incomplete, are included, and then never
fixed or improved, and currently I do not think any of them are all that
good and still fail to provide any that go with the default icons well.
I saw a lot of this in gnome-themes-extras, where the focus was on just
using the best existing theme and leaving it at that, as opposed to
truly focusing on tight integration, which is why I helped make new
themes, or modifying the existing themes for better consistency. 

Basically what I am getting at is this, when it comes to icons the
integration of all icons is a given, but as far as gnome is concerned
_all_ the themes are part of the conglomerate whole, the gtk theme is
one part of the whole theme, just as every icon is. To beautify the
GNOME default theme means taking all parts of the theme into account not
just the icons. IMO its like taking a theme comprised of all
square/harsh lined red icons like Smokey-Red without a home folder, and
then including a cartoony pink or aquamarine home directory from a
different theme, say Nuvola or Noia rather then make a new one, or make
it fit.

Andrew