1457761
story
Eugenia writes
"The Gnome Project announced today that the ClearLooks theme engine will be the default theme for the Gnome 2.12 (to be released around September). This was a much needed refresh of the Gnome default desktop (old theme, new theme screenshots)."
Wow (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
It one of the main reasons why GNOME visually irks the hell out of me, regardless of the theme.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
To each his own, I suppose.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't it make you wonder if each of us is missing some obscure setting somewhere?
Correction (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Actually, my first thought was Windows XP...
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Allmost noone ... (Score:3, Interesting)
KDE made a good job choosing Keramik as the default theme, before that, they allways shipped the ugliest one.
ALMAFUERTE
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Keramik is ugly and nearly unusable, and makes KDE look like a big piece of shit.
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Keramik, on the other hand, was a massive mistake that seriously damaged KDE's reputation. I've heard on various boarda about how KDE looks like a hyperactive 12-year-old girl drew it. That's only half-true. Keramik looks like a hyperactive 12-year-old girl drew it. KDE can look incredibly good if you're
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:1, Informative)
Plastik is a dramatic improvement on Keramik, but it's still a tad too flashy for my tastes, and the bloody huge window decorations are just a waste of space.
Reduce the font size for the title bar text. The only reason the buttons are that big is because the title bar has to be enlarged for the text.
I knew it wouldn't take long... (Score:2, Interesting)
The whole point of themes is that you customise them to how YOU want them to look.
So if you think it's fugly, change it. :-)
I've been a big fan of Gnome since ~1997 and used to hate KDE with a passion, but recently as an experiment I took the time to customise a KDE desktop to look almost identical to my Gnome desktop, and found it actually wasn't that bad (in some respects superior to Gnome), so I actually now use KDE more often.
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
Even Keramik would be tolerable if they switched to Bitstream Vera fonts by default.
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, Bitstream is Free and Georgia is not, but that doesn't change the fact that I find Georgia
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
It looks great to me [curtman.mine.nu].
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....
I hate hate hate hate hate the Bitstream Vera fonts with a burning passion. They're horribly ugly and they take up far more space than any font should be able to. I tried using them once and all of my screen real estate disappeared--the size of everything on my screen had to be doubled to accomodate those horribly wide fonts.
I've found that Luxi Sans (for sans serif), Times (for serif), Termina
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
That's okay, I hate people who hate things with burning passion. So now we're even.
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
I never said I hated you. I said I hated those horrible fonts
Re:Allmost noone ... (Score:2)
hmmm (Score:2, Troll)
Re:hmmm (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:hmmm (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, big news here (Score:2, Insightful)
Copying windows will not get you anywhere. Innovate, damnit!
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:1)
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:1)
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:2)
Well, yes and no. Mac OS X has two different styles, and they're selected by the developer of the application. You have brushed metal look, and the other, aqua look.
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:2)
It also makes us wonder what kind of taste you have. Mac OS X looks like shit. There are themes like Aqua for both Gnome and KDE and very few uses them. If OS X where skinable 90% of the users would go for something less vulgar.
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:5, Insightful)
Copying windows will not get you anywhere. Innovate, damnit!
So uh, what version of windows does that look like? The one with the hideous malformed "start" button, the one with a cartoonishly unprofessional colour scheme, or the one that doesn't exist yet?
To me it looks a hell of a lot more like OSX than it does Windows, if you get beyond the widget set. But there is a hell of a lot more to Gnome than the maximize window widget, for example the open/save dialogs and desktop preferences are quite different from the windows methodology. To judge a desktop entirely by three widgets is just foolhardy...
Re:Oh, big news here (Score:1)
Great Windows... (Score:2)
When do they ditch the muddy, dull and visually abhorrant icons? Look at the dialog for Keyboard Preferences. The red/white "Help" next to the Avacado/Harvest Gold [newsday.com] horror that is "Accessibility". The moldy folders...
It doesn't have to look "flash". Garrett LeSage did a half-decent job with the Bluecurve icons.
Re:Great Windows... (Score:4, Informative)
A great step up.
Re:Great Windows... (Score:4, Insightful)
If these are set as the default icons, I will swiftly change them.
I gotta say (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I gotta say (Score:5, Insightful)
Can i just make a few modifications to the windows source and pass it over to a friend?
Compared to the scope of the second question, the first one is irrelevant.
Not everything is about functionality, remember, it's not called "Faster Software", nor "Slicker Software", it's called "Free Software", because it's goal is to bee Free to all it's users, and let the users be free to do whatever they wan with they computer without relying on big corporations managing their lifes and ideas.
Would you trade your freedom for nice icons?, I value my freedom a lot more than that.
Re:I gotta say (Score:3, Insightful)
Compared to the scope of the second question, the first one is irrelevant."
No not really. Maybe to you but to most people software is a tool not a religion or a political statement.
Even now what percentage of Linux users will ever compile a program much less modify the source code to the kernel?
Software that is hard to use no matter how "free" is still bad software.
Re:I gotta say (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe to you software is just a tool but to many others it's a core component in their business.
Software is not really like a tool at all. No other tool integrates so tightly with your business processes, your other systems, your data, and your policies. Consider all the companies that have found themselves stuck with Exchange, or Notes, or Groupwise, and due to the lock-in nature of the software they are unable to migrate to anything else. This isn't a "tool". It's a system with hooks into almost every aspect of the enterprise. Tugging at even the slightest part of the system causes breakage elsewhere, often in non-obvious locations. Those hooks might be a tiny programming language that HR decided to use to implement their timesheet system (Notes), or it might be the calendaring system that has turned into a building meeting room manager (Exchange). Whatever the hook, it ties you to that product and becomes a core part of your business. Changing it isn't easy. Sometimes changing it is impossible.
The reality is that it's pragmatic to use and only use free software. Putting your business software in the hands of a proprietary software vendor is naive. You are hoping that the vendor doesn't screw you; either by deprecating the softare, or breaking it, or raising the price, or whatever. But to the very nature of capitalism, the vendors are constantly thinking of new ways to screw you!
Irrelevant. How many people will run for local office? Very few, but that doesn't mean democracy is a failed concept. The benefit of free software isn't that I personally can modify the source, but that anybody is free to do so.
Yes, but like the grandfather poster, I often use "bad software" that is free in preference to "good software" that is not free, for certain values of "good", "bad", and "free". For example, I use Linux and GNOME instead of MacOS X as my desktop. As a counter-example, I use IOS instead of Linux for my routers.
It's a balancing act. For my desktop I'd been burnt so often by vendor lock-in and forced upgrades that I finally got sick of it and migrated to Linux (back in 1992). Now MacOS X is tempting, but not tempting enough that I'll give up the freedom I enjoy with Linux. However with routing the value of IOS so exceeds the potential value with Linux that I'm willing to compromise freedom, secure in the knowledge that IOS is at least standards compliant.
nah, linux isn't there yet (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but I disagree. I understand you can see things both ways, but if you are speaking of 'Linux on the desktop' then the above poster is right. Most people (as in non-tech-savvy joe doe users) just use their puter as a tool; to chat, to work, to download, etc. Some basic tasks is all they need, and they need it in a clear and user-friendly way.
They do not want, nor need nor even would like to try 'com
Re:nah, linux isn't there yet (Score:2)
No modern Linux desktop requires the user to compile things. You are being dishonest.
ahum... (Score:2)
Well, make it yourself easy then, and say I'm dishonest about all the rest I said. I do not know what you read into it (I didn't say people had to compile anything to install Firefox, for instance), but my statement as such remains valid, whether you 'require' compiling or not, let alone installing libs. That would depend entirely on what you try to do on your box, or what you are trying to run.
"Well, don't take this th
Linux on the desktop (Score:2)
Yes, games is another matter. And I know it could be claimed that it's not the fault of Linux. And, while I agree for the large part, for joe doe that doesn't change all that much.
Yes, linux could be good enough for 'my granny'; if my granny only wants to browse and email, and not try out some new progs found on the N
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
I despise proprtary systems, particulary protocols and file formats, as well. That's the main atitude I got out of co
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
No, that's not all you lose. You also lose your freedom. You become tied to a single vendor with their proprietary software. Sure, it's UNIX, but before Linux I ran another proprietary UNIX. It's n
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
Yeah. If you don't want to use the proprietary apps anymore. You can get most of your settings out via the XML
Will all your apps continue to run?
Well I just converted my debian laptop to macosx, and with some minor conversions, (XBEL to nsHTML bookmarks, recompilation of locally developed apps, some path conversion, etc.)
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
"Maybe to you software is just a tool but to many others it's a core component in their business."
Since I am a software developer I can say that you are WRONG. Software is a tool no different than a hammer for a carpenter or an anvil for a blacksmith.
I love open source. I use Netbeans, FLTK, Postgresql, MySQL, PHP, Perl, OpenOffice, Thunderbird and Firefox. My office is standardizing on Firefox and Thunderbird and dumping IE and Outlook. But had to use software is bad software. Making open source easy to
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
Wow. I'm a software developer too and I say you are wrong.
Now that we've exhausted that brilliant line of reasoning and reached a stalemate, what else do you have to offer?
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
That's not excuse for substandard software, and too often it is. People want software that works, so they can do what they want to do. This simple fact is lost on to many "free" softw
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
Yeah, what an alien concept. It's like relying on unaccountable masses of citizens to determine the leadership of a country. That idea will never take traction!
It is far easier to let the monarchy make all the decisions. Why should we spend all our time
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
And the answer is pretty simple, the USA citizens think that USA = Freedom and all that stuff that they listen to in the CNN, but actually the USA is far, far away from being a Free Country.
Let's compare it to what happends on
Re:I gotta say (Score:2, Informative)
That's okay. I use Linux on my desktop and have for most of the last five years. I don't really need a "year" of the desktop. All I needed was for it work on my desktop and it's been doing that quite nicely for some time.
When is cut and paste going to be even supported across applications in KDE or GNOME?
Well, text works okay...
Re:I gotta say (Score:4, Informative)
I just went into kview, copied part of a picture, and pasted it into the GIMP. Then I went into kpdf, copied part of a page, and pasted that into the GIMP. Then I copied part of a page in kpdf, and pasted it into a konqueror window, and it asked me what filename I'd like, and turned it into a PNG image.
I don't have any sound editing software, so I can't test anything there.
Without configuring 20 various text files?
I haven't used text files to configure printers in a long time. With CUPS and KDE, you can just use their printer install wizard. It's about the same as installing a printer on Windows.
Re:I gotta say (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I gotta say (Score:2)
Why this is usefull: (Score:1)
2. Public teminals. Hopefully these do not let you change the theme.
3. Other people's computers. Not everyone will have the sense to change a theme.
Hehe (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hehe (Score:3, Informative)
A Mac User's Perspective (Score:1)
rounded corners of the windows (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:rounded corners of the windows (Score:5, Informative)
Also I made the icons smaller in the latest release of the metacity theme, you can get it here:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?con
I don't think it's perfect yet, the main focus has been on the Gtk engine.
Re:rounded corners of the windows (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:rounded corners of the windows (Score:2)
A clickable version: http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=212 37 [gnome-look.org].
what's the difference? (Score:2)
It saddens me to think the announcement of the change was big enough to hit the slashdot front page.
It saddens me more to see they are only as original as Windows (which is only as original as Apple, ad infinitum). Doesn't anyone do innovative UI research? (Longhorn doesn'
Re:what's the difference? (Score:1, Informative)
This theme is different from the old one because:
Old: Kinda grey
New: Almost orange, yellow, and XP Green(TM)
Old: Lines and bevels
New: Curves and gradients. And lots of rounded corners.
Re:what's the difference? (Score:2)
The last automobile I had came with this truly incredible and innovative UI. Instead of the depressingly boring copies of Henry Ford's steering week and brake/accelerator pedals, you sat in harness and controlled the vehicle by leaning left or right. Pushing forward hard on the dash (a very intuitive action) caused braking.
I really can't understand why nobody else likes this radical new automobile UI. I'm waiting for mine to get back from the repair shop so I can
darwinports (Score:3, Informative)
factoid (Score:5, Informative)
Please read this [gnome.org] for more information.
Less is definitely more. (Score:4, Interesting)
When I look at the latest screenshots, I am blown away with the finite details that the UI designers have gone through. Most importantly, they seem to have stuck with the minimal real estate impact that I have come to love with OSX.
Real estate is where Microsoft have failed in the past with XP sytles and from what I have seen with their replacements, they are only getting worse with tons of real estate taken up by oversized and over spaced text on pretty but poorly contrasted backgrounds.
Keep up the good work Gnome
JsD
Side bit - L&M of car manufacturers.
Honda (Apple)
- Less but works more but better
General Motors (Microsoft)
- More but works less and worse.
Re:Less is definitely more. (Score:2)
Huh? If OS X doesn't do it for you, and your main beef with Windows is aesthetic, you're not gonna be happy with GNOME...
Re:Less is definitely more. (Score:2)
I played around with OSX for a while (I normally use an x86 box, so it was a novelty), then flipped over to debian with gnome. Honestly, and I'm as surprised as anyone else, I found that I liked it better. Obviously, being used to it has a lot to do with it, and compared to Windows 2000, OSX looks amazing, but...well...I gu
Re:Less is definitely more. (Score:2)
Windows interfaces have always and will continue to suck well into the future.
Also, in most large corporate environments, having a mac is considered a joke although I totally disagree. In such cases, Linux is a possible alternative to either expensive Unix boxes or crappy win32 boxes. When linux is the option, I will be selectin
Bluecurve... (Score:1)
Re:Bluecurve... (Score:2)
rounded windows (Score:2)
WTF? You mean.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay... When did people stop using this great Emacs? I mean... Graphical interfaces? Wow! Who'da thunk it. Thats just a totally innovative and novel idea.
What? I can change the way my interface looks so it suits my own personal tastes and preferences? OMG! Someone get on the phone and tell Microsoft, they're gonna want to embrace that idea. They already do? Damn, they're on the ball. What? They got the idea from KDE and Gnome? OMG! Isn't that like stealing? Xerox? Apple Computer? Who are they again?
</>
It amazes me to see how so quickly the whole fight between KDE and Gnome sprang up over something as simple as the new DEFAULT THEME for Gnome being announced. Its not like people can't change the theme for either KDE or Gnome if they don't like the defaults. I thought the whole Keramilk issue was put to rest a long time ago. Guess not. Must've missed that memo. Sorry, didn't mean to stay out of the fight for so long.
Come one people. Get real. Personally, I think it looks good. Its clean, open, totally uncluttered (like some KDE shots I've seen recently) and its functional. Its pretty easy to navigate and it keeps with the K.I.S.S principle I have always liked in Gnome (KDE was always too cluttered with too many bells and whistles presented to the average end user. Might be fine for advanced users, but generally the newer users prefer not to get a whole heap of stuff thrown at them when all they want to do is configure their desktop).
But who cares? If you use Gnome and you don't like this theme, install a different one. There are so many available out there. Hell, I even went as far as making my own (*GASP*) so that my desktop looked and felt the way I wanted it to so I was more productive and it was useful to me.
Damn... Lets badmouth a clean and easy on the eyes interface simply because it bears some resemblance to Windows XP. Damn... Last time I looked, every Window Manager had 3 buttons at the top of their windows for minimize,maximize/restore,close. Even OS X.
If it really is that much of an issue, don't you dear look at FVWM. Maybe you should go check out Enlightenment again. Its not dead you know. In fact, some of use still use it every day. Then you can really make your desktop look any and every way you could possibly want it to. Amazing that.
Gotta love the fact that you can choose what interface your desktop has. In fact, if you really wanted to, you could set your .xinitrc to pick a different one at random every time you started X. Now theres a really far out idea.
Re:WTF? You mean.... (Score:2)
Don't forget to love the fact that you can choose what desktop your OS has
Now... you CAN choose your desktop, right?
Use the XFCE one (Score:2)
Wait, this is KDE... I KNOW this! (Score:2)
Hmm. This new GNOME looks awfully darn similar to KDE's Plastik theme [osdir.com], the new default for 3.4.
In fact, there are a lot of features [gnome.org] in the upcoming GNOME that KDE already has. Many of them have even been around for a long time. Let's look at a few:
Just one thing.. (Score:4, Informative)
All spelled out here. [gnome.org]
Subtle, but pleasant - drop shadows (Score:2)
Just get your X server up to snuff and you can enjoy them too....
[May or may not be useful....]
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-doc-list/200 1 -December/msg00107.htm [gnome.org]l
http://www.xfce.org/gtkmenu-shadow/ [xfce.org]
http://www.gnome-look.org/ [gnome-look.org]
Re:I know it's just personal preference... (Score:2)
You're not the only one to be annoyed by this.
Overly flat themes have always bugged the hell out of me. I like lots of bevels and hard edges, and anything other than that tends to annoy me.
Re:Can't Gnome just die? (Score:1)
Currently KDE has to be the best desktop environment (looking at 3.4rc1, I'd have to say they did a really good job). Theres several problems though, its slow , bloated, and still not completely integrated. Mac OS X does a much better job.
And my reasoning for slow: What exactly you have here is Application on top of KDE lib on top of Qt lib on top of X11 lib on top of X11 server on top of Linux, 5 steps. Windows? Application on Windows API on Win32 GUI on Win Kernel, 3 steps. Mac OS X? Application on Cocoa
Re:Can't Gnome just die? (Score:1)
Re:Can't Gnome just die? (Score:2)
Re:Can't Gnome just die? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay.
Windows? Application on Windows API on Win32 GUI on Win Kernel
Wrong. You left out MFC, or whatever equivalent overlay on top of the Windows API you're using. Most people don't program in the straight Windows API anymore, and even if they don't use MFC, they write their own wrapper around the Windows API.
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of stuff in the KDE libs is just KDE standard widgets that aren't part of Qt. So it's more like kdelibs + Qt is one layer if you're developing KDE applications. It's just artificially split in some ways. It's a lot like how some widgets are in the Gnome libs, and others are in GTK+. In fact, I believe some widgets get pushed from Gnome libs into GTK+, because they are more generally useful.
The number of "layers" is irrelevant. For example, Qt can be split into a section that deals with GUI widgets, and a section that deals with making C++ programming nicer. If Trolltech chose to market them separately, would you call that two layers, and say that KDE must be even slower because of this?
By the way, was that your explanation of why you believe the slowness you have actually perceived is happening, or were you saying that "5 layers is too many, therefore it must be slow"? I'm unsure on that point. KDE isn't slow on my computer, and it's more than 3 years old (the computer, that is). What are you running it on?
Finally, I'm curious: What isn't integrated about KDE? And have you filed bugs/wishlists to alert the developers?
Re:Can't Gnome just die? (Score:4, Insightful)
I use the Gnome desktop, file manager, and some small utilities, but third party apps for most work. Gnome has Epiphany; I use Mozilla. Gnome has Gcalctool, I use Qalculate. Gnome has gedit, I use XEmacs or Leafpad.
Re:Gaaahhhd !!! (Score:2)