[ubuntu-art] New Wave Theme

[Anton Kerezov]

В 09:39 +0200 на 04.05.2008 (нд), François Degrave написа:
>         
>         >  Unfortunately I have to admit that I don't have a slightest
>         idea of how
>         >  to code a theme but I do know to code in C so I can learn
>         it over time.
>         >  Is there a theme we will base New Wave or we will have to
>         make a new
>         >  theme engine like clearlooks, murrine and aurora? I think
>         the theme we
>         >  are trying to make is very close to clearlooks so we can
>         make a fork and
>         >  implement our own theme style (the buttons shape & color,
>         the other
>         >  widgets).
>         >
>         >  I would like to ask the ppl from the list if they could
>         help with the
>         >  decision on the engine problem (esp. Troy, and Who).
>         >
>         
>         
>         Well, I would say a few things first:
>         The energy that is required to generate a new theme engine is
>         pretty
>         high. Before you start I would be sure that the style you are
>         aiming
>         for is not available from one of the newer engines (esp.
>         Murrine -
>         which is very configurable and also supports transparency as
>         that
>         theme requires).
>         Before doing ANY work on a new style like that, get some more
>         design
>         done - the single image isn't really enough to know how the
>         theme is
>         going to hold together, what is going to make it *work* as a
>         theme.
>         This sort of area is where Troy's advice is great, and there
>         are
>         certainly many others on the list more able to comment on
>         design
>         theory than me!
>         
>         Techincally, it looks like you could get a lot of what you
>         want with
>         Murrine and a custom metacity. If you know a lot of C and have
>         some
>         time to get to grips with a theme engine, tweaking it as you
>         like
>         should be possible: but like I say - be sure you know where
>         you're
>         going... Get  a .gtkrc that gets a theme engine as close as
>         possible
>         to your desired look before you start hacking. Then do some
>         review of
>         the design before you go too far: is it usable? Does it feel
>         nice to
>         use? Etc. Then you can move forward into making the engine do
>         a bit
>         more.
>         
>         On the other hand, braver people than I would use the pixbuff
>         engine:
>         It allows you to define all the elements of a theme with
>         images.
>         Performance isn't crazy-good, but it isn't crazy-bad either.
>         To my
>         knowledge, pixbuf isn't doing alpha yet (on the other hand -
>         you could
>         well find during your usability testing that alpha isn't the
>         way you
>         really want to take things.). With pixbuff the key is to look
>         at an
>         existing theme, and build your one from there.
>         
>         As far as usability testing goes, pixbuf can be a good way to
>         beta
>         test styles: A single GTKRC can use multiple engines (this
>         isn't
>         advisable in a final theme, as you take a memory hit...) so
>         if, for
>         example, clearlooks did everything except the scrollbars the
>         way you
>         wanted you could test JUST the scrollbars using images and the
>         pixbuff
>         engine, using clearlooks for all else. Then, if you really
>         like it,
>         patch clearlooks to get what you want. If your code is good
>         and your
>         change is optional, you might be able to get your code
>         upstream to be
>         able to avoid having to maintain a branch...
>         
>         That's a bit of a theming braindump - hope it makes sense.
>         
>         You can use gtkperf to benchmark themes (in a fairly basic
>         way)
>         
>         Happy design.
>         Who
>         
>         
>         
> 
> Hi!
> 
> Maybe that's a good theme to start from:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Intrepid/ComicGel
> 
> It is not that far from that:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Intrepid/NewWave
> 
> It has no glow, it uses transparency... I think there are not so many
> things to change to get it done: first of all the taskbars, their
> buttons, icons and menus (that will be the most difficult part I
> guess), then make the windows less rounded, changes theirs buttons and
> colors (find a way of removing the border on unselected ones). Its
> icons are really not bad, we should try them, and also try making them
> gray/black like on the last screenshot
> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Intrepid/NewWave?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ubuntu_intrepidDARK.png).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> François

Hi all,

There is one issue with New Wave that bothers me. How can we make a dark
panel and keep the background of the windows light? Even if we use image
the text colour have to be dark (light background).

I looked the Murrine configurator and think the engine it will be of no
use for our case. I'd rather prefer modifying clearlooks. Here is my
current progress (no programming yet):

http://img162.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=04668_NewWave_test_01_122_948lo.jpg

This is the clearlooks-human theme that comes with Hardy. I've changed
the colours a bit and made Emerald look like the New Wave's titlebar. I
think it is possible in metacity, too.

One more question: how can I make the selected file's color area to be
transparent. What I mean you can see in the image above by looking at
the avatar.png file. The blue rounded rect. has transparency. I'm asking
because I have saw this in a theme but don't remember it. I attach a
screencast if it can make it clearer. 
 

 
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