Call for participation: an ubuntu default theme lead by the community?

[mozit]

Some followup feedback :

• The terminal look perfect now !

• Happy to see the selected color is the same everywhere

• The title bar in gedit look strange/thinner?! - is it font size related?

[ads20000]

What’s the reason for the purple in Files?

[c-lobrano]

Working on it
https://github.com/ubuntu/gtk-communitheme/pull/389

[ads20000]

Hmm, blue does seem very bright, I do think some sort of grey (like the sidebar grey) or the black from the title bar would make the most sense, and the Empty button can be red and the Restore button could be green, or something, though maybe it makes sense to have them in neutral colours because, whilst destructive, we don’t want to discourage emptying the recycle bin? But it’s still technically a destructive action…

[c-lobrano]

grey is complicated because we use it often with “disable” meaning. However, what you said about headerbar color triggered an Idea, since it’s similar to what we’ve done on gnome-terminal recently

[frederik-f]

HI everyone,

I gathered a progress snapshot in the theme-refresh section:

CommuniTheme Progress

Keep up the good reporting and creative ideas and let’s finish this theme to perfection

[mozit]

Keep up the good reporting and creative ideas and let’s finish this theme to perfection

“Let’s not rush it and let’s make sure it is perfect before we declare it done.” - Just a friendly warning.
With all themes I used over the years the best of them where those who gave the the best sou lotions to the exceptions.
There are ways to add exceptions in the code without creating chaos to the overall code. Firefox is one good example to it but not the only one. for me and others who know how to fiddle with the code latter on it’s less of a problem but
we are not the target audience. If we decide to make it just “good enough” and much better then what it was, it’s not
good enough, IMHO.

It may sound out of place but I feel it is important to say it before hand.
We have an opportunity to make Ubuntu the best usable good looking OS.
Perfection lays in the small details!
Cheers,
Paz

[jablonskilech]

Is there any plan to create KDE plasma theme based upon the development ?

Edit: found it now - https://github.com/tsujan/Kvantum/issues/189
It’s not perfect but looks good enough.

[jaggers]

I’m a little disappointed that we’ve lost the slight transparency on the top bar and launcher when the window is maximised… although I understand why. I guess it now feels like a lot of the same grey in terms of screen area. Whereas, before, the transparency let a bit of colour bleed through, which created visual interest.

If we’re having fully opaque elements here, how about the following suggestions:

• Try a slightly darker shade of grey for the launcher/top panel, to distinguish them more from the title of the maximised window;

• Change the border of the maximised window title to bright (@c-lobrano, I think you said there was a problem with a bright line, but on this occasion I mean just recolouring the line that’s already present - not adding anything new);

• Making the separator between top bar and launcher (if we’re keeping it!) the same shade as the border on the maximised window title, so they fuse to make a single continuous “T”.

In the following mockups, for the border on the maximised window title, I’ve tried the same shade of grey as the breadcrumb background in file manager:

EDIT: I think I put this in the wrong thread! I’ll correct it when I’m on my laptop.

[jaggers]

Actually, maybe this is the right thread - is the new one for designers to report progress? (Do we continue putting ideas in here?)

Anyway, surprise surprise, I tried the above without a separator between top bar and launcher… and I love it

[c-lobrano]

Try a slightly darker shade of grey for the launcher/top panel, to distinguish them more from the title of the maximised window;

that’s something we might try, @madsrh, @luxamman what do you think?

Change the border of the maximised window title to bright (@c-lobrano, I think you said there was a problem with a bright line, but on this occasion I mean just recolouring the line that’s already present - not adding anything new);

I do like the bright border a lot, however the problem is not about adding something, but changing the color from dark (unmaximized) to bright (on maximized). Menubar on GTK2 won’t be able to do that. Of course we can accept this limitation and do it anyway.

Actually, maybe this is the right thread - is the new one for designers to report progress? (Do we continue putting ideas in here?)

This thread is OK

Anyway, surprise surprise, I tried the above without a separator between top bar and launcher… and I love it

I think you need to convince only @luxamman here , even if, with the bright line, I like both ways.

[jaggers]

I do like the bright border a lot, however the problem is not about adding something, but changing the color from dark (unmaximized) to bright (on maximized). Menubar on GTK2 won’t be able to do that. Of course we can accept this limitation and do it anyway.

Apologies for lack of theme understanding - does this mean the menubar of the GTK2 apps will look like this, with the bright line failing to continue down the side of the menubar:

?

If so, I say give it a whirl it’s the same limitation we have now I think, but a different colour? (because the menubar doesn’t have a continuation of the current dark border).

[madsrh]

Try a slightly darker shade of grey for the launcher/top panel, to distinguish them more from the title of the maximised window;

that’s something we might try, @madsrh, @luxamman what do you think?

Indeed +1
I absolutely also have the feel that it’s hard to distinguish them, but as @c-lobrano said, it was a necessary fix.

Another more bold (and vastly more complicated) idea would be to make the headerbar brighter in general - keeping the current launcher/top panel color so they still are slightly darker.

Here’s a very quick mockup using #343434 for active headerbar and #424141 for backdrop.

[c-lobrano]

does this mean the menubar of the GTK2 apps will look like this, with the bright line failing to continue down the side of the menubar

Yes. I mean, I know why it would be that way and I could even accept that, but for any user that does not follow this discussion it would look incomplete and bugged

[c-lobrano]

I absolutely also have the feel that it’s hard to distinguish them, but as @c-lobrano said, it was a necessary fix.

Another more bold (and vastly more complicated) idea would be to make the headerbar brighter in general - keeping the current launcher/top panel color so they still are slightly darker.

I was even thinking about trying a darker transparency. I have not much hope on this, because the transparency in stable branch is already very limited (like 0.2, if I am not wrong), but who knows

[frederik-f]

+1

This would 1) be a solution for the desired differentiation between headerbars and top panel and
2) be a solution for non perfect lightning situations (take your laptop to the outside and lay some headerbars above each other and open a shell popup -> really hard for the eyes) like bright lights outside of the house or dark evenings - both extrem situations can “ruin” the current very dark headerbars.

[jaggers]

It seems there are a couple of challenges for fused header/menubars, mainly:

• Fewer options for GTK2 apps, which are still common - e.g., the problem with the border described above;

• The shade changing for the menubar at slightly different timings (or, for some apps, not at all) when you change focus in some cases - is this insurmountable? It makes it obvious that the header and menubar are two independent elements, that are only styled to create an illusion of being a continuous area.

After white menubars were (rightly) rejected, I mocked up some grey ones that I thought worked well and might neutralise these hurdles.

I’m not posting them because I want to make a strong pitch for this approach (I’m increasingly happy with Communitheme under current design choices), but because I made them, and they’re currently living on my laptop and nowhere else, and I think they deserve an airing. I might have posted one of these already but I think most of them are new to the thread, apologies if there are any dupes.

FWIW, here they are.

Mockup of an old app with my grey menubar, which (IMO) looks quite smart:

This actually isn’t an enormous departure because it makes the menubar visually c*nsistent with the approach taken for column titles in apps like Rhythmbox and file manager. I think my grey menubar evokes the look of “Name”, “Size” and “Modified” in the screenshot below:

IMO, this shade also works when it appears on the tab bar of apps like Chrome and Firefox. The difference between the dark title and pale tab background isn’t jarring to my eye, because, with this approach, I instinctively see the tab background as being joined to the main window area, rather than (as it is currently in Communitheme) fused with the dark title bar:

The only app I can think of that looks slightly odd with this approach is Terminal, but I could certainly live with the two-tone style here - it’s quite funky:

I think there are three possible advantages to this approach. Firstly, there’s less to worry about for this element, because you don’t have to style it to make a seamless join with the title bar.

Secondly, there’s less “gloom” at the top of the screen when you maximise. I think the gloom is something Communitheme has been fighting from day one. It’s a difficulty with Gnome 3 because there’s so much at the top of the screen for old apps.

Third, something I find really appealing: if you make the CSDs the same height as the legacy title bars, “un-darking” the menubar/tabs means you can standardise the height of the dark area for all apps, as follows.

…and that’s the last I have to say on the idea of pale menubars (it’s certainly the last of my mockups!).

[luxamman]

Top-bar and dock…

Yeah, it feels like jumping back to that discussion over an over again…

First I don’t understand here the step back to:

• Full opaque on max window
• no separation between top-bar and dock

After all the discussions… Some of you even sayed the liked it… Because just making the bars dark again and get rid of the separator isn’t resolving the issues with the elements at all IMHO.

The issues are, that we have a big, melting together dark/greyish wall next to the window content. At first, my mockups also were like this, but it turns out it is way too much and is definitely not eye-pleasing (especially for the ordinary user). For nerdy power users is this may be okay, but that is not our only target audience. At least, I hope we all want to design a system that can bring more people to Ubuntu.

When I open up Writer and look at the whole desktop - it is a whole lot of darkness. IMO there need to be a separation between window header and system bars. Also, the top-bar and the dock have no reason at all to melt together - this is just confusing and (please do not be offended) I just can’t see why this is a good thing at all. Different elements, different meanings and different work-tasks. It just seems that the word “Activities” has something to do with the icons in the dock.

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I’m sorry that I’m so picky about it, but this NEES to work for everyone, at least as just a little compromise. This is what everyone will see first, see every time and see every day. In every app, in every circumstance (not in fullscreen, I know…).

So I’m open for solutions - but not just jumping back and try to convince me again with something that isn’t working. When the top-bar and the dock are dark, the windows header should not be. But this turns out to be one of our major “design unique features” and a kind of evolution of the Ubuntu design. And I like the window design very much.

I was hoping for a “blur” effect to be able to make the top-bar and dock more transparent in max window mode, but seems it is still not implemented. Even if they seem to use a blur effect in the upcoming login for Gnome 3.30 (??).

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So yes, I will be the one who will complain as long as this isn’t looking right. And I will try to find solutions to throw in (even if I think we already had something that maybe wasn’t perfect, but working in the right direction).

So let’s again find something that’s working and please don’t just jump back to a solution, from a better working solution… (again IMHO) and try on different devices, screens, wallpapers and think about the ordinary, non expert user.
Thanks!

[jaggers]

@luxamman, apologies if the idea of removing the separator was a hot topic - I’ve been airbrushing it out of my mockups out of personal preference but can happily co-exist with it on my desktop IMO the main issue is, as you say, the wall of gloom.

[frederik-f]

The reason to revert it was not a because the design was not liked.
It was a multimonitor issue you can follow the discussion here: https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-communitheme/issues/173

Maybe if we can fix this issue with the multimonitor we can bring this much liked feature back? @didrocks