Re: [gtk-list] Re: Gtk look and feel

[Ivan Jager <ivanjager bigfoot com>]

Antonio Campos wrote:
> > Well, a good idea. The (dreaded :) Motif also has those two modes and
> > switches them automagically. If you click and release mouse button
> > on a menu, it is driven by explicit clicks, and if you click and
> > drag mouse, submenus pop up on pointer rollover. (But still it
> > hasn't timeots in the latter case :). So that automagical behavior
> > is not new.
> >
> > Leon.
> I think that this automagical behavior is the one to follow. The only
> thing to add
> to this is allowing the user to set the timeout of the panels you define
> on the
> Desktop for its menues to pop up. Simply put a timeout slider on the
> configuration
> part of the panel. That should make everyone happy. But that is
> something apart
> from the window manager or from gtk, it only has to do with the desired
> behaviour
> you want to put inside gnome or kde panels.

Why only the panels? IMHO it would be much better if it afected all GTK
menus. If it only worked for the panel it might be considered a bug with
either the panel or all the other programs. I thought tool kits were
made to avoid inconsistencies between applications aside from making
programing easier.

> Another eye-candy thing that could be added to panels is the ability to
> pop up menues and submenues in the way Windows 98 does it. I mean that
> panels could be configured to show up the menues either directly, either
> with a little smooth scroll (that should be easier when GTK+-1.4 is out,
> because efforts are being put on GTK for being more smooth). The
> velocity of this scroll could be indicated in the configuration part of
> the panel and the option to do scroll or not, obviously.
> Again, I repeat, that in my opinion, these options have nothing to do
> with GTK or the window manager. They are only related to the panels of
> gnome or kde.

Again, why only the panel? It is obvious that they don't have anything
to do with the window manager. If you like Win98 (I don't) then you
should want all the menus to be animated. (at least Micro$oft made
something consistent)

> And letting my mind go beyond the purpouse of this mailing-list, I'm
> thinking that could be a good idea to divide GNOME THEMES into TWO
> THEMES:
> * One is the GTK THEME, that is related only to how gtk draws things on
> the screen (that the way it is now, I don't know exactly).
> * Other is the BEHAVIOUR THEME (let's call it that way :-)), that is
> related to how fast the panels show up or hide, the timeouts of panels,
> if the movement of the windows is opaque or not, etc... This behaviour
> theme could be a way to normalize the configuration of window managers
> friendly to GNOME. I mean that it could be a resource file (.rc) like
> gtk themes are.
> 
> So, when you configure Gnome themes, you are configuring the two themes
> at the same time. More easy for users, I believe... That doesn't mean
> that you can't modify the behaviour after you have set one theme. If
> only a matter of going to one panel and changing the timeouts...

If you configure them at the same time, what is the reason for
separating them? It would be easier (yes, IMHO) to put a separate file
in the same theme, gtk/feelrc for example. That way the theme will be
backward compatible and you still have only one download, and it
shouldn't make the theme too much bigger. You could put a checkbox
similar to "Use custom font," and a button to let you use the feel from
a different theme. Is that understandable?

> The good thing about this is that you could totally emulate MACOS or
> BEOS behaviour through an unique theme.
> 
> Criticism is welcome...
Constructive criticism of course. :)

-- 
Ivan Jager