[ubuntu-art] Help make the LTSP ldm theme for Jaunty

[Kenneth Wimer]

Hi all,

LDM needs a shiny new login screen for Jaunty...certainly someone is 
interested in helping out?

Questions or help can be sent to this list, myself and Stéphane directly.

--
Ken


----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: LTSP ldm theme for Jaunty
Date: Friday 27 February 2009
From: Stéphane Graber <stgraber at ubuntu.com>
To: Kenneth Wimer <kwwii at ubuntu.com>

Hi,

So as we discussed on IRC here is a more complete description of what 
I'd need for LTSP's default background in Jaunty.
That background would be displayed on each thin client login screen in 
the default setup you get after installing LTSP from the Ubuntu 
Alternate cd-rom.

Thin clients monitor range from very small 800x600 to big 1600x1200 for 
4:3, we also get some standard 16:10 1280x800 to 1680x1050 and netbooks 
are also sometimes used as thin client with 1024x600 or similar resolutions.
I'd say that the most common is currently 1280x1024 for 4:3, 1440x900 
for 16:10 and 1024x600 for the netbooks.

What I'd like is something that generally matches the desktop's artwork 
so it integrates well with the user session that it'll then open.

Here is a screenshot tweaked a bit with gimp showing how alignment is 
done and how part of it is completely broken in ldm (like vertical 
centering of the label and input box) but fixing it is my problem :)
http://www.stgraber.org/download/ldm.png

Limitations of ldm and thin clients are:
  - Positioning of all widgets are static, we can't move them as you'd 
with gdm's themes.
  - Text is black and can't be changed to another color.
  - Most thin clients are limited to 16bit for speed reason so be 
careful with gradients.
  - ldm doesn't crop the background but scale it down. It's not possible 
to provide different backgrounds for the various screen ratio.

Here are a few screenshots of what we did for Intrepid at Revolution Linux:
  - http://www.stgraber.org/download/bruno.png (16:10)
  - http://www.stgraber.org/download/demo.png  (4:3)

The main issue with this one being the light bar we added at the bottom 
that doesn't work well on really small resolutions (like netbook's 
1024x600) making the Preferences button bigger than the bar.

A few examples taken from the incoming wiki page:
  - http://www.stgraber.org/download/bruno-jaunty6.png
  - http://www.stgraber.org/download/bruno-jaunty3.png
  - http://www.stgraber.org/download/bruno-sarusaslu.png

The logo is a separate .png file that's then added on top of the 
wallpaper, this one can also be changed.
http://www.stgraber.org/download/logo.png

As an extra, I also ship backgrounds for kubuntu and xubuntu so if 
someone wants to spend some time on these I can integrate them as well.

PS:
  - The prefix for the screenshots are just the name of the station in 
my office.
  - The screenshots are in french because it's the default setup on that 
network, the UI uses gettext for translation.

Thanks for all the help.

-- 
Stéphane Graber
Ubuntu developer
http://www.ubuntu.com

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