Jaunty Artwork

[Pasi Lallinaho]

Here is the current state, a quick recap of discussion on the ML and IRC
and decisions this far with featured comments. I *definitely* missed
something, so again, please kick me if something is missing or wrong.

1. gdm theme

The gdm theme is coming up nicely. The final look will be much like
jaunty-gdm-mockup-3.png [1]. (#2 is possible as well.) I will hack on
the actual gdm theming (possibly this weekend and) next week. I need
somebody to test the theme in his/her computer later that week. I'll let
you know then.

2. Icon theme

The current suggestion is still GNOME brave [2]. There has been little
discussion about this and I NEED YOUR OPINIONS.

3. GTK+ theme

There has been a lot of discussion about this. The three themes
currently under investigation are MurrinaStormCloud (which is the
default at the moment), Murrina-Tangoesque [3] and Shiki-colors [4].

In addition to good-lookingness conversation, speed issues have been
raised at #xubuntu-devel. Both Murrina themes seem to be about the same
speed, but Shiki (which runs the Clearlooks engine) is notably slower.
Having rounded corners or not doesn't seem to affect much speed-wise.

Below is some kind of chart of comments, pros and cons this far.

*MurrinaStormCloud*
+: reliable
-: used so long as default (3-4 releases?), too much contrast, "looks bad"!

*Murrina-Tangoesque*
+: a bit more fresh than MSC
-: way too little contrast (big problem with old monitors/graphic
cards), "just awful"

*Shiki-colors*
+: looks fresh, fits really well with the artwork, designed to work with
GNOME-colors icon theme(s)
-: SLOW, has some problems with Firefox (fixes at [5]), Emerald

It seems that any of these would need some modification if decided to
use in Jaunty.

Thanks for George for pointing out I should copy the theme to
/usr/share/themes rather than ~/.themes. That fixed the problems
mentioned earlier.

4. xfwm theme

Everybody seem to be satisfied with the default in Jaunty/Xfce 4.6. I
have contacted Olivier Fourdan, the creator of the theme about some
minor issues in it. Jannis suggested OF is keen on improving his themes,
so we should get those modifications easily to Jaunty.

5. Wallpaper

The wallpaper will be something like the current mockup,
jaunty-wall-mockup.png [6]. People seem to like it so it will most
possibly only change a bit until Jaunty release. Charlie pointed to some
contrast issues with the Xubuntu logo on the background, those will be
addressed.

6. Usplash / Live CD boot menu

These need updating. We have the new "official" logo which we want to
use consistently, so it is clear what the graphics would be. Who is
willing to handle the technical side and sit down with me for some time?

7. Yelp theme

We are making Yelp look Xubuntu [7]. I installed ubuntu-docs, but i
can't see the ubuntu banner used anywhere, so I can't reliably test how
the Xubuntu graphics would work. Jim, maybe you can help me with this? :]

8. Packaging issues

We can't add new packages to Jaunty anymore, so any icon/GTK+ theme we
want to add have to be added to an existing package, most possibly
xubuntu-artwork (even this would not be the correct solution).

00:39  knome: so anything we use must be already packaged?
00:39  cody-somerville: either that or stuffed into any existing package
00:41  cody-somerville: we could stuff it into xubuntu-artwork or something

9. For your reference...

[1] http://emonk.fi/open/xubuntu/jaunty-artwork/jaunty-gdm-mockup-3.png
[2] http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/GNOME-colors?content=82562
[3] http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Murrina-Tangoesque?content=66200
[4]
http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/Shiki-Colors+for+xfwm?content=88913
[5] http://userstyles.org/styles/10822
[6] http://emonk.fi/open/xubuntu/jaunty-artwork/jaunty-wall-mockup.png
[7] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-doc/+bug/332687

-- 
Pasi Lallinaho
Xubuntu Marketing Lead
Web-designer, graphic artist
IRC: knome @ freenode