Re: New default theme

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Tuomas Kuosmanen <tigert gimp org> writes:

> On 30 Apr 2001 22:46:37 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > 
> > I just checked in the first major change to GTK+'s default theme
> > since the beginning of time.
> So is this gtk 2.0 or 1.x?
> > The new look is basically the Raleigh theme I did for GTK+-1.2, so
> > yes, it's boring and Windowesque, but I also think it's reasonably
> > attractive (especially for something done by me rather than a better
> > qualified artist), and plain enough to not get annoying too quickly.
> 
> Yeah, it's okay. I am using it on my desktop machine and it is pretty
> nice, doesnt bother and the widgets are clear on which is which etc.
> 
> > So, the major changes are:
> > 
> >  - Windows-style Check and Radio buttons. I didn't have a chance
> >    to do if (strcmp (uname, "timj") == 0) use_diamonds(), so Tim
> >    is going to have to suffer for now ;-)
> 
> Anything is better than those, especially since the checkboxes were so
> so so similar looking than radio buttons.. but you knew that already
> anyway :-)
> 
> >    (The several times the issue has come up, I heard no other
> >    requests for the diamond shape, so I'm inclined to follow
> >    my instinct and Windows here. Fairly convincing arguments
> >    have been made that a Mac/etc. style "button" is better
> >    than the Windows style indicator, but I haven't seen a
> >    way of drawing this that I really like. And the Windows-style
> >    indicators are certainly familiar to a lot of people.
> >    I'd consider this still an open issue.)
> 
> I simply dont care much. Besides, the windows and Mac style checkboxes
> and radiobuttons *are* fairly similar, both have the black dot or a
> checkmark as an indicator. Of course the mac ones look a bit more like
> buttons and windows ones just "have" or "dont have" the indicator in the
> "slot" (forgive my funny non-native-english terminology here :) - Still
> they are a lot more similar when you compare them to Motif or the old
> default Gtk+.

True.
 
> >  - Focus is done Windows (etc.) style with the focus being a 
> >    dotted line inside the button.
> 
> What about other widgets than buttons? It's been a while since I used
> windows so I dont remember how it works.. :-|

Well, it depends on the widget...

 GtkEntry/GtkTextView: No focus indication other than the cursor.
   (We probably will want to make the cursor blink by default, though
   the red cursor that testgtk is using now is pretty effective 
   too...)

 GtkCheck/RadioButton: Dotted line around the label

 GtkOptionMenu: Like GtkButton
 
> >    The default is now drawn as a black line like the old focus
> >    indication.
> 
> I hope this is strong enough identification for the default button for a
> dialog? I know MacOS draws a rather strong border around the default
> button. Hmm.

The representation is the same as windows - not all that strong, though
definitely noticeable if you know what you are looking for.

A thicker black border could be used, though you risk getting into
something really ugly at some point.

[...]

> > changing the visual language some more), areas that I think can be
> > touched up to advantage:
> > 
> >  - The scrollbar bevelling can still be improved some; the scrollbar
> >    thumb tends to look a bit slanted. Having looked at the Java
> >    Metal scrollbar in detail, I have some ideas of how this can
> >    be done better now.
> > 
> >  - I'm not completely happy with the arrows with the square base.
> >    I want to try using a equaliteral triangle with an anti-aliasing
> >    color instead.
> >
> 
> The scrollbars bother me a bit, as they make the theme look
> half-thinice-half-something else. I once did a mockup out of an early
> Raleigh screenshot, if you feel like hacking on the theme a bit more,
> feel free to have a look - I might have shown this to you though:
> 
>     http://tigert.gimp.org/files/screenshots/gtk-raleigh-mockup-tigert-5color.png 
>     (yes, it uses only 5 colors)
> 
> Just ignore my spinbuttons for now if you dont like them.. :o)

Something like that could definitely be tried and might look better
(though in earlier mockups of Raleigh I had something like that and I
felt that the slightly different bevel was more jarring than going
to a half-height bevel for the trough.)

I also want to try just fixing up the current appearance a bit. I think
that the visual left-right asymmetry may be more of a problem than
the different bevel trough.
 
> In particular, if we want to go to the flat route, we should make a flat
> theme from the ground-up. Microsoft seems to be doing it on some of
> their widgets (I guess it was some DLL's from winXP or something they
> shipped with their Office stuff or something, dunno and dont care much
> anyway) but the result was a mix of hard 3D (scrollbars and stuff) and
> very thin bevels which looks very mixed up in my opinion. So if we want
> to go flat, lets do a flat alternative theme engine. I really suggest we
> keep this either way but not mix stuff much. Some widgets might require
> flat bevels like the spinbuttons since there is not much space to waste,
> but I think the overall look should be consistent accross the theme.

I think a completely flat look could definitely be attractive (Jacob's
theme was definitely heading in that direction), but I'd have some
concern that controls like scrollbars might not be obvious how to
manipulate. I'm not sure it would be a good default.
 
> >  - The spinbutton is too busy. Removing the center line probably
> >    helps. Tigert has suggested making the arrows completely flat
> >    and on a white background, but I think this looks a little odd
> >    and it isn't clear they are buttons.
> 
> Yep, that can perhaps be a button. We could have a very "thinice" button
> here for the arrows. The problem is there is not a lot of space to use
> really.. 

The arrows in Raleigh's spinbutton are actually already much reduced
in border thickness from the normal buttons. As you say, there isn't
much space to work with.
 
> > Once we are happy with the rough outline, I'd also like to see someone
> > do a theme engine that takes the visual language, and softens, rounds,
> > etc, it for cases where the extra weight of gradients and a few
> > pixmaps isn't a problem.
> 
> This would be fun too. What if there was an engine that could draw round
> edges and one could give the radius in the gtkrc? So radius 0 would give
> a totally square theme, where radius 1.0 would give everything rounded
> corners. It might be interesting ;-)  (<- just a fun thought)
 
Regards,
                                           Owen