Improving Access to Themes etc.

[Vesa Paatero]

Hello,

I upgraded to Edubuntu 12.04 recently and encountered the following 
shortcoming regarding desktop themes:
    By using the normal settings programs to configure the desktop, I 
could only see four themes to select from, two of which were 
high-contrast themes and the other two being Ubuntu themes with orange 
activation colors. So, the choices we narrow, there were not really
any different styles to select from.
    As I couldn't find a better solution then, I went to tamper with the 
color settings of GTK and, after some late evenings' work, managed to 
eradicate the oranges and bring about a satisfying look & feel.

It seems that crux of the matter is not so much a lack of themes because
there are some themes available in the repositories (using e.g. 
Synaptic) and a lot more on some GTK or Gnome-related web pages. It is 
more about how to make the themes accessible to Ubuntu users, especially
new users some of which might just go away if they can't change the 
default color scheme reasonably soon.

What I suggest is adding some theme packs to Ubuntu Software Centre.
It already has a category called something like "Themes and 
Customizations", but it seems not to contain any packages with desktop 
themes.
	Another possibility would be to add some sort of "Welcome to Ubuntu" 
window when you first boot Ubuntu, giving helpful links to some basic 
things such as setting your default browser, finding the applications 
you want and changing your desktop theme.

Thanks for considering these ideas,
Vesa