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

[eaglers]

I will also express my opinion about the icons of Suru and the theme of Yaru.

When I first saw Unity 8 in a YouTube video, I was amazed at the beauty and modernity of this shell. I imagined that Ubuntu would become more popular than Windows, and Microsoft would go bankrupt.

But the development turned and decided to go to GNOME. I thought that Ubuntu would fall below the baseboard and become a simple fork of Debian GNOME with 5% of changes.

Put the dock. Thanks for that. Somehow, it allocated Ubuntu from Debian.

I learned about the Suru project from Sam Hewitt, who at that time was also developing the Paper iconpack (also very cool, but Suru is more beautiful). Then I found out about the Ubuntu redesign project. Then the theme was called Communitheme.

About Yaru

If you compare GNOME with Yaru and Unity 8, you will notice that the style of windows in Unity 8 is different. The frames were black, the “Close” button had no background. He appeared when you hover the mouse, and then he was red, not orange.

HeaderBar was separated from the frame of the window and was white. And the headlines are not bold, but thin.

The dock and the top panel were black, even without windows.

The application menu did not open to full screen (although it cannot be changed using the theme)

About Suru

Go to the electronics store, go to the stand with smartphones by different manufacturers and check what kind of icons there are. Are the Google icons changed except shape?

Non-third-party applications are those applications that do not have their own names (Firefox, Rhythmbox, LibreOffice) are meant only to have common names (Music, Podcasts, Screenshot). The exceptions are applications by Canonical, such as Amazon, LXD and others…

After the Rhythmbox icon appeared in the Suru style, I fell into the hell of a perfectionist. I had a feeling that I was using some kind of unofficial “Ubuntu X GNOME+Unity8 Edition” or some kind of amateur distribution like ZorinOS.

Ubuntu is the most popular Linux based OS. Do not believe DistroWatch, which collects information only on page views about distributions. Only fans come there.

View Google Trends statistics. Everybody uses Google.
Even without logging into Google Trends, go to Google in incognito mode and type one letter “u” and you will understand everything yourself.

I believe that the Rhythmbox icon should be removed from Suru.

[frederik-f]

@eaglers

About Yaru

If you compare GNOME with Yaru and Unity 8, you will notice that the style of windows in Unity 8 is different. The frames were black, the “Close” button had no background. He appeared when you hover the mouse, and then he was red, not orange.

HeaderBar was separated from the frame of the window and was white. And the headlines are not bold, but thin.

The dock and the top panel were black, even without windows.

The application menu did not open to full screen (although it cannot be changed using the theme)

Yaru is not a unity8 clone, I’ve written:
“And since Yaru continues with the design ideas of Unity8, …”
Best would be if you would read the threads in the Theme refresh section again if you are interested in how this all came together.

I think this very thread is becoming to an infinite loop. This is the 1797 posts and most people will not read the whole thread anymore no matter how much beer and snacks they bought.

[ads20000]

In future it’s probably best to link people to the wiki, additional justifications should be added there as necessary, then we can just link to that if duplicate questions/criticisms come up?

[frederik-f]

Good idea!

We really need to update this after 18.10!

[jaggers]

@eaglers

After the Rhythmbox icon appeared in the Suru style, I fell into the hell of a perfectionist. I had a feeling that I was using some kind of unofficial “Ubuntu X GNOME+Unity8 Edition” or some kind of amateur distribution like ZorinOS.

I don’t think there’s any harm in being practical here. I’m not sure a typical first-time user thinks, “I wonder if Rhythmbox is installed?” (I’m including Linux novices in this scenario). They think, “So how do I play mp3s?”

For that reason, I think it’s fine for Rhythmbox to have a Suru icon, and I actually have a mild personal preference for the generic music player icon (white notes on a pink background) if that won’t alienate the Rhythmbox developers. If nothing else, it’s an extra bit of colour on the launcher

In either case, it’s not one I feel strongly about. But I do think it’s a slightly different case to something like Firefox, where the average new user will have feelings about specific web browsers, and benefit more from instant brand recognition.

More generally, I do know what you mean about the danger of the amateur/unofficial feeling. I felt the same when I looked back at my work-in-progress version of LibreOffice Writer. If you take the theme too far, it might feel like a hobby project to “pimp” the desktop, rather than a credible OS, where established brands show up in their familiar forms. I don’t think that’s much of a danger with Rhythmbox, though. For that app at least, it’s more helpful for users to get a clear clue about how to play mp3s.

[mpt]

@frederik-f

Ubuntu users would love to have all their pre installed applications to use the same style of icon.

@frederik-f

No one wants to override the firefox brand.

Normally, “squaring the circle” is a figurative expression for an impossible task. Here, it’s a literal description of the problem.

@frederik-f

Also, there are other bigger distros who use icon themes, that are far more “radical” than ours. Rarely I have seen any uproar (though I do not consider some loud minority to be an uproar) for those distros.

More people use Ubuntu than all the other “distros” combined. The icons that Ubuntu ships matter far more than any other OS’s icon theme (and far more than the upstream Gnome theme). Inconsistencies aside, you’ve all done a great and valuable job.

[jaggers]

If Ubuntu made more use of folders to organise the app grid, there would be an opportunity to do something slightly new, rather than falling back on the traditional groupings which (IMO) aren’t always helpful.

I suspect there are a small number of “task categories” that users instinctively view as separate. Speaking for me, three of my personal categories are:

• Doing work and admin chores (office, spreadsheet, “things to do”, etc.);

• Being creative (even for people who do this for a living, I think graphics and music production software are conceptually different to the above);

• Watching or listening to entertainment (listen to a song or podcast, watch a video, etc.).

Because these are distinct in my mind, I wouldn’t group (say) an mp3 player like Rhythmbox with my music-making app, just because they’re both “music”. I’m either in a mood to listen to music or make it, and those are completely different moods in terms of how I navigate my desktop. So, organising my own desktop, I’d put Rhythmbox with a video player, a radio streaming app, an e-book reader, etc., in a folder called “Entertainment” or something. I might put my music production software with GIMP and Inkscape in a folder called “Creativity”.

Of course, that’s just me, and that might be confusing/rubbish for the average user But I wonder where the traditional app groupings came from, and if they were informed by user experience research?

Because the Gnome app grid makes barely any use of folders, introducing some could be a great opportunity to start with a “blank slate”, and either implement the latest research or - if there isn’t any - actually do some, rather than falling back on the old categories from Gnome 2.

For instance: in the year 2018, does anyone still think of “Internet” as a separate category? Is “Office” a helpful folder name, that conjures up a specific category of task, or is it confusing - because it narrowly evokes only Microsoft Office and its clones?

Does the average user think that all the music apps belong together, or do all the “being creative” apps belong together - and so on.

[d0od]

@frederik-f

I can speak for the Yaru team, that we do not plan to remove the Suru icon theme for 19.4 …and we will probably never add more icons…

That’s a mildly worrying statement to read.

This is an evolving process, surely? When Suru ships, if there are issues, or if people don’t like it, if some of the usability issues MPT has flagged up become wider issues, then the potential to revise or revert the decision if in the interest of actual users should be paramount. Personal tastes or pre-emptive plans by the Yaru team on long-term use shouldn’t come in to it.

And while “endless discussion” over a decision your team has taken is perhaps fruitless, explanations and justification for some of those decisions wouldn’t go amiss.

Right now the decision you’ve taken with regards to Suru as default seems wooly. Why is Suru now the default icon set of an operating system used by 22+ million people? This is not, after all, the sort of decision that ought to be taken lightly or based on perceptual anecdotes, vague attributions to even vaguer use-cases, or any other reasons

So, for clarity, and as something that would be worth adding to @ads20000’s wiki suggestion, add some detail as to why is Suru the default icon set of Ubuntu 18.10. Because Unity 8 was going to use it? Because user testing shows it’s the better icon set? Because you wanted something new? Like, what’s the design and usability justifications etc? Background goes a long way

Another point which could do with some clarifying, certainly based on the exchanges above: the new “Yaru team” is now maintaining a semi-soft fork of Suru to fix the issues that upstream/Sam Hewitt doesn’t want to fix/doesn’t think need fixing, correct?

Now to me, as an Ubuntu user, I worry that choosing to default to an icon set that the team say won’t get new icons or tweaks going forward, and is solely reliant on the whims of a lone upstream designer maintaining a set which isn’t his primary concern, is the wrong choice. That goes double in light of the fact that a new upstream icon set (which is being created by long-time and highly respected open source designers, with end users in mind, with lots of input and feedback, including from app stakeholders, and which will stay continually updated and maintained going forward) is soon to be available.

I shan’t be the only one banging that drum going forward, fwiw.

Lastly, if this thread is the go-to port for relaying decisions it might be nice to read an update on the issues @mpt flagged up with the icon set a few weeks back. His advice and pointers are, as a design professional and someone who’s worked in open source design for so long, surely of more merit than most peoples.

[jaggers]

Apologies, that wasn’t a controversial post that I regretted - I accidentally sent it after the first sentence.

I wanted to say that, even in OSes and themes with non-uniform icons, it’s not uncommon for a shape and style to be sustained across a “family” of apps. Examples:

Microsoft Office

https://assets.pcmag.com/media/images/413553-microsoft-office-365-home.jpg?width=405&height=228

LibreOffice

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/thumb/6/65/LibreOffice_icons_256.png/200px-LibreOffice_icons_256.png

Adobe Creative Suite

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/76/Adobe_CS5.5_Product_Logos.png/220px-Adobe_CS5.5_Product_Logos.png

Obviously LibreOffice is a major player for Linux, and many people who use the default (non-uniform) Gnome icons will still have a subset that are the same shape and style.

I guess the logic behind the use of Suru is to make a “family” of the generic apps that ship with Ubuntu, which are mostly system tools, generic desktop gadgets like the calculator, or “executive toys” like Aisleriot. I don’t think that’s a bad thing?

A lot of commentators are people like me, who moved their existing desktops to Yaru when they already had a lot of third party apps installed. I think the experience will feel more natural to new users, who get a system full of generic “Ubuntu” apps - with a small number of essential branded ones - and then start to individually add the third party ones they want. Then the visual distinction might be more intuitive. But it’s a different situation when you’ve had your laptop so long you don’t really remember which apps were default and which you installed, if you switch to Yaru and see that only some of them have Suru icons.

[jbicha]

@d0od

That’s a mildly worrying statement to read.

I agree. There are a significant number of GNOME “generic” apps that don’t have Suru icons yet and should probably get them. For instance, there’s no reason why we couldn’t use a generic icon for GNOME Chess or for many of the other GNOME games.

[c-lobrano]

@d0od

So, for clarity, and as something that would be worth adding to @ads20000’s wiki suggestion, add some detail as to why is Suru the default icon set of Ubuntu 18.10

That’s easy. It’s been decided by Canonical since the beginning of the project.

The last couple of weeks saw a lot of work to patch some undesired situation due to the limited time and effort the official Suru maintainer was able to dedicate to the icon set and to the imminent release of Yaru as default in cosmic.
So basically we forced the situation to provide a better experience in a very short amount of time and with a team even shorter due to some other issues.

Ideally, the rest of the work on the icon set will pass through upstream and then to Yaru.

[jaggers]

@jbicha

For instance, there’s no reason why we couldn’t use a generic icon for GNOME Chess or for many of the other GNOME games.

Let me at 'em!

I’m currently engaging upstream with the new icons one at a time. I’m starting with Aisleriot and Mahjongg but can certainly have a pop at any outstanding Gnome games too.

[madsrh]

Lastly, if this thread is the go-to port for relaying decisions it might be nice to read an update on the issues @mpt flagged up with the icon set a few weeks back. His advice and pointers are, as a design professional and someone who’s worked in open source design for so long, surely of more merit than most peoples.

I have the highest respect for the work of MPT and we love all the feedback we can get. I consider his feedback the “official” Canonical feedback. But this forum post showed up after UI freeze in the second cycle we’re working on this theme It has started some great and highly relevant discussions, but IMHO wayyyyyyyy too late.

Another point which could do with some clarifying, certainly based on the exchanges above: the new “Yaru team” is now maintaining a semi-soft fork of Suru to fix the issues that upstream/Sam Hewitt doesn’t want to fix/doesn’t think need fixing, correct?

As Sam has announced, he doesn’t have the time to work on this.

We (as in the Yaru team) CANNOT take on the task of developing an entire icon theme (there’s enough for us to work on with GTK3 + the Shell, not to mention GTK2 and soon GTK4).
What we’ve done and the reason that we have a soft-fork, is simply a last resort to push the icons we wanted. We don’t have an icon-designer in our team, but Jaggers has kindly stepped up to the challenge in the eleventh hour and has done a ton of awesome work!
Sams icons are beautiful and IMO the best solution would be if Canonical would take some of the money donated to desktop developmentnt and just hire Sam (again).

As you can see here the initial distribution of tasks no longer apply because noone is really committedly working on the icons. It’s a huge task and apparently not one that can be lifted as a community project (except for Sam and Jaggers putting out fires).

[didrocks]

To summarize the situation, we all know this is an evolving process and we won’t get everything perfect in the first shot (even ever, does perfection really exists? :p).
This was also one of the reason to not ship Yaru (at the time, communitheme) by default on a LTS. Most of ubuntu users are LTS users, and shipping it post-LTS gives room to evolve the theme based on feedbacks and so on.

Basically, this isn’t the end of the road, so do not let the whole (and small) development team down please. I think we should rather appreciate and praise what was realized in very few months! I wasn’t expected that we would go so shortly to such a great theme I’m enjoying daily on my laptop. Well done to everyone devoted to this real community effort again!

Of course, as mentioned, it has little issues there and there (which, IMHO have been raised too late in the cycle to fix most of them), but this is basically the first draft of our painting leading to the next LTS!

Speaking of release. Final Freeze is on Thursday. I suggest to @c-lobrano that we cut the finale release (apart if there are stop gap theme releated issues for the ISO) on Wednesday. I’m aiming to package and upload it on that date. Does this sound realistic?

[c-lobrano]

@didrocks

Speaking of release. Final Freeze is on Thursday. I suggest to @c-lobrano that we cut the finale release (apart if there are stop gap theme releated issues for the ISO) on Wednesday. I’m aiming to package and upload it on that date. Does this sound realistic?

Yes it is

I’ll start again today to review the current state so I plan to have a look at this issue only https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru/issues/895
If I can make it for tomorrow at the most, fine, otherwise we can ship current master, I believe.

Does this sound good?

[didrocks]

+1 for me! Note that James is working on getting some 3.18 GTK compatible version, but it may be SRUed.

[madsrh]

Can we include this one also? https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru/issues/881

Seems like a minor bug fix to me.

[didrocks]

+1, it’s indeed a minor bug fix to me as well

[c-lobrano]

This one is very minor as well, to me, https://github.com/ubuntu/yaru/pull/903
+1?

[didrocks]

Answered on the PR, but yeah, basically +1 with the fixes