[ubuntu-art] Using the Emerald window decorator (was Re: Human 2 .deb)

[Dylan McCall]

On Sun, 2008-07-27 at 10:05 -0700, shadowh511 wrote:
> this might sound like a stupid question, but why have we switched to emerald?

Adding to that question: /When/ did we switch to Emerald? Are the
developers with capacity to implement this change aware that we want to
switch window decorators? Will there be a fix for the resulting
confusion with Metacity themes in Appearance preferences changing
nothing right now?
There is a distro these need to be deployed on, and I don't see that
happening with Emerald unless there is a solid plan well in advance. In
that regard, I have found one blueprint on Launchpad for Ubuntu, named
emerald-integration. The compiz-integration spec also touches on this
lightly.

Assuming I have not missed anything, I am concerned that building themes
to Emerald instead of to Metacity will have an unsatisfying conclusion.
Emerald is not the default right now, it is in flux and its accepted
theme manager is not nice to use. Metacity has changed a lot in terms of
capability, so I think right now is a good time to look into using it
for powerful themes. If the appropriate theming features that should be
available with a composited window decorator are indeed not present, we
need to file bugs and see to getting them implemented for GNOME 2.24 so
they can be used.

We must keep in mind that 'most users' will use Metacity themes, be it
via Metacity or gwd, so that is what needs to look right.

Having said that, I love that Emerald is so easy to work with so people
can come up with themes and have working examples instead of just
mockups. It would be nice if Metacity didn't use such a bizarre system
itself. Perhaps it should split out window decorating to another
application like Compiz can...
Just checking in that nobody has lost sight of the target.


-Dylan McCall
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