Re: New default theme

[Tuomas Kuosmanen <tigert gimp org>]

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+.

>  - 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.. :-|

>    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.

>  - No more triangular buttons. Arrows are universally represented by a
>    black arrow on a square button (or flat, for menus). Similarly, the
>    weird Motif option menu tab is gone, replaced by a double arrow.
> 
>  - Slider and scrollbar troughs are now half-depth, giving a bit  
>    of a lower-contrast / thinice look.
> 
> Assuming we don't make major changes (and I'm not opposed to still
> 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)

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.

>  - 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.. 

> 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)

Tuomas


________________________________________________________________________
 
Tuomas Kuosmanen - Art Director -
Ximian - tigert ximian com -
www.ximian.com