[ubuntu-art] Borderless windows: Goods and bads?

[Dylan McCall]

Hi!

Sorry, this is a tad rambly, but I feel like pushing some thoughts...

I have spent a bit of time tinkering after discovering that I never use
Metacity's window buttons. Pulled them out by editing metacity's stuff
in gconf... I even tried removing the window titles by editing the
theme, but it turns out I can't live without those. Changed to a
different Metacity theme (Plano), although Human's theme was doing well
with shrinking down the title bar. I think the results were quite
striking. My thought was that programs usually have their own Close
buttons and don't need the WM one. I hate redundancy, so naturally had
to do it. (I also never use Minimize, instead bouncing windows to new
workspaces when I don't need them for the task at hand. Need a button
for that...)

The impact this fiddling has is kind of interesting: It makes me forget
about windows and just see a program's own interface. Although people
are pretty stuck in the crazy ways of window close buttons, I really
think "simple" like this is how window decorations should be. By all
means, they can add titles to my windows and work to keep them easy to
tell apart, but far too many themes are instead striving to be noticed.
Nobody cares about the window; it says nothing and is really just a
superficial adjustment. The important part is the interface inside the
window. Being noticable is the job of the GTK theme and only the GTK
theme.

Something else that interested me was the effect of not having a border.
Even with the same Human-Clearlooks GTK theme, having a different
Metacity theme really made a difference. It kind of opened up my
desktop, where the current Metacity theme seems to put everything into
enclosed tanks, this one gives programs all the space available. I guess
I could just go out and say "it looks Macish", although the same effect
is possible with a theme that doesn't have the trademark silver gradient
at the top. Besides which, the only thing Macish here is that it looks
plain amazing.

Back in time even just a little, this type of theme was impossible
because the way to get drop shadows was Compiz, but Metacity's simple
compositor is finally bringing drop shadows to the masses! With drop
shadows defining windows, we don't need borders except as little
resizing handles...

Simple screenshot to show off:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3945/yayfu2.png

Another notable thing there, in my opinion, is what that still does for
the GTK theme, even in its simplicity. This one is built to blend with
the GTK theme, thus creating flow like we have with the rest of
Clearlooks. However, this is finally a part of a window we can
completely expect to be there, which is not the same for toolbars and
menubars. With Human-Clearlooks, I can see trouble is being had in
creating a flowing gradient because of that lack of predictability, but
the effect can be achieved gracefully if the gradient happens with the
Metacity theme. In essence, Plano is built to simply close the rough
edges around GTK's presence, rather than to impose its own style on the
windows.

Anyhow, I guess my point is that Metacity themes are very powerful
things, and it would probably be worth pondering a fresh one for
Intrepid Ibex. Obviously wouldn't fit Hardy, since the aim is not for a
full theme re-imagining there and because Metacity's compositor is
experimental at this point in time. However, I think Metacity themes
could do with as much attention as GTK ones!

Bye,
-Dylan
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