[ubuntu-art] hardy gtk theme

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen]

On 07/11/2007, Andreas Nilsson <nisses.mail at home.se> wrote:
>
> Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> > On 07/11/2007, *Troy James Sobotka* <troy.sobotka at gmail.com
> > <mailto:troy.sobotka at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     <SNIP>
> >     2) The heavy Crayola outlining of all buttons / tabs / etc. is
> >        completely counter any notion of elegance or grace.  It is
> perhaps
> >        the weakest element of Tango, and it simply makes work look
> >        bold and clunky.  Assuming a general audience, we can assume that
> >        they can find a button with a fine line.  Please let the caustic
> >        outlines of Clearlooks / Tango / et al die.  It is just weak.
> >
> >
> >
> > I somewhat agree with you. I think Tango is great, but I don't think
> > that it is "Ubuntuish" in any way.
> Hi Mikkel!


Hi Andreas! :-)

I'm not sure what kind of elegance you are looking for,


Right, I could have been more clear... I guess what I mean by "Ubuntuish" is
the more realistic (not naturalistic) look combined with small "monochrome"
(white+orange) notifications/emblems.

I guess the elegance I am looking for is something like (this goes for both
icons+gtk+metacity):

 * Touch of realism (not naturalism)
 * Simplicity
 * Minimal number of distinct features, both on a per-icon level and the
desktop as a whole
 * Something that you will instantly recognize as Ubuntu

Where I feel Tango takes another direction is specifically in points 1 and
4.

I am not saying that we cannot build something on top of Tango/Tangerine
that fullfills these ideas, but that was just not my first idea.

but a good point
> for giving a tango-styled icon theme a shot is that is what GNOME
> upstream is using and a whole bunch of 3rd party developers. [1]. I
> haven't seen another style for GNOME with the same coverage yet.


Granted, and that is a huge plus for Tango/Tangerine.

I think
> it would be really cool if we could start focusing on the final focus on
> the remaining bits instead of the 12-14 base icons over and over again.


Right, we should build on top of an existing icon set and polish it off to
fit our design goals.

Mike Beltzner recently pointed out that the interface unpredictability
> was the reasoning behind giving Firefox 3 the Vista look on Linux. We're
> working that issue out with them though.
> I find the Pages/Numbers interface [2] and the work of Jasper [3] quite
> nice and find it quite elegant.
> I guess what I find most attractive about Apple's interfaces is the fact
> that it's clean. No icons in neither menus or pushbuttons and smart
> designed interfaces.


While I do follow you on the no-icons-in menu (at atleast only for a select
few) is a good idea, implementing it might be harder.

I think it is possible to disable all icons in the menus, but it is much
harder to hack each and every app to only show for selected items.

I just want to throw in a frequently found thing in mockups around the web.
Monochrome notification icons. Like the ones I attached. I think it is a
great way to reduce the visual clutter. Perhaps we could use it even more
extensively than that - maybe replace a some of the "less important icons"
throughout the desktop with monochrome versions. That could be alternative
solution instead to disabling all icons in menus.

Is it possible to create monochrome Tango icons? I guess it is, but it is
outside the range of my artistic abilities.

Cheers,
Mikkel



> 1. http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Showroom
> 2. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Pages3.png
>     http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Numbers.png
> 3. http://www.jasperhauser.nl/icon/
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/attachments/20071107/419f9c55/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: gentle-gnome-mockup-panel.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 970 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/attachments/20071107/419f9c55/attachment.jpg