[ubuntu-art] Progress update on the community process

[Michiel Sikma]

On Aug 13, 2006, at 5:17 PM, Who wrote:

> Michiel; Are you hacking now? the stuff you said about the desktop
> button suggested you may be playing with code...?

Haha, I wish. I was just trying to make that little button in  
Photoshop, when working on the mock-up that showed the full desktop  
along with some icons and a notification window.

> Looking at the latest samples I feel that it is heading in a 'bubbly'
> direction - I prefered it when it was flatter and slicker - for
> example, the scrollbars and handles on sliders now look very rounded
> and 'high' - in my ideal theme the gradients would be toned down a bit
> and the edges squared a little - I think this 'slickens' things
> somethat...

Good idea. That'll help tone down the saturation, too.

> When I get back to my PC I may get a mockup going - you said you are
> using photoshop - how are you doing it? is it easy? Could I use the
> gimp? - It seems to me to be a task more natrually done with vector
> graphics...

I don't see why one would use a vector graphics editor for this sort  
of thing, since the final product is a rasterized image. I prefer  
using a raster image editor (such as GIMP) because this gives me more  
direct control over every pixel. If I want to, I can just copy a  
piece of bevel, chop away half of it, then blur it and blend it into  
that bevel while masking it (I did this with the scroll bars and  
slider bars to add a little extra darkness at the edge of the  
bevels); I would have to go through some trouble to do that if I were  
working with a vector editor.

If you want to, I can send you the Photoshop source, although by now  
I'm already working in the sixth version file, with some of the  
things flattened. So if you want layers of a particular part of the  
mock-up, let me know so I can dig up which file contains them.

Michiel Sikma
michiel at thingmajig.org