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

Can I also suggest, that whatever theme is chosen, that a Qt counterpart also be created? To create a Qt theme I strongly suggest using the Kvantum Qt engine. A Kvantum theme consists of an SVG file and a simple text config file. Kvantum already ships with Ambiance, Arc, and Adapta like themes, it is also (AFAIK) the only Qt theme that support real overlay scrollbars. Kvantum’s author is also very helpful. To ship a Kvantum based variant of the chosen theme would simply mean installing the theme engine, and having the SVG and config files in the correct place. e.g. if the theme was named ‘UbuntuNext’ the the folder contents would be something like:

/usr/share/themes/UbuntuNext/
  gnome-shell/
       ...
  gtk-3.0/
       gtk.css
       ...
  Kvantum/
       UbuntuNext.svg
       UbuntuNext.kvconfig

To automatically style Qt apps based upon the Gtk theme, as well as using Gtk3 dialogs in Qt apps, I also suggest using the QGnomePlatform Qt platform plugin. If this platform plugin is used, then it will attempt to set the Qt theme based upon the configured Gtk theme. For instance, it matched Gtk Adwaita with Adwaita-Qt. It will also check to see in a Kvantum theme is installed that matches the selected Gtk theme.

4 Likes

Nice new theme, sure will be top notch.

I think also is time to unify the themes so they can fully work in the others desktop too to unify the mark and feel across the envirmoents and ubuntu families.

2 Likes

That´s great news. I hope that the new design/theme is not limited to colors, fonts and icons. IMHO, the biggest flaw with the current theme is white-space, margins/paddings and alignments.

I’m not a big fan of OSX, but the attention to detail is stunning. I’ve tried lots of different Ubuntu themes, but after 3 clicks I´m already disappointed because of obvious inconsistencies.

Therefore, I’m looking forward and cross my fingers.

5 Likes

It seems pointless to make GNOME Shell themes while GNOME still has bugs like https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=694235 and https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755446

Edit: unless you are also going to make a suite of extensions…

1 Like

Apple does their design right, everything looks beautiful, clean, readable and unified, that is a big part of the overall Apple ecosystem appeal, not only it works well, but it looks fantastic. New Ubuntu theme needs to strive for such consistency.

5 Likes

Good call! We should find a way to rewite apps which don’t accept Gtk Themes like Synaptic or Bleachbit. Is that possible for the devs to unify all the thirds apps?

2 Likes

Do you have clearance from canonical to use the name ubuntu in your site? They may sue you for copyright infringement…

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/canonical-abused-trademark-law-to-target-a-site-critical-of-ubuntu-privacy/

1 Like

Moka icons.
https://snwh.org/moka

2 Likes

I never actually released it, but there are some pictures of it available: https://imgur.com/a/fNkkC

2 Likes

Not good in my opinion, low readability as too many UI elements blend too much with the background which causes UI elements to have low readability and cause eyestrain as well, colors arent easy on the eyes either (too much contrasting colors), suffers from same problems as the PopOS theme.

2 Likes

To save some digging for the curious - Most recent colors for Ubuntu Touch

In order of appearance:
Porcelain. Recommended for foregrounds.
Silk. Recommended for neutral action buttons and secondary text.
Ash. Recommended for subtitles and other tertiary content.
Graphite. Recommended for coloring dark themes’ background.
Slate. Recommended for text and action icons.
Inkstone. Recommended for foreground colors in dark themes.
Jet. Recommended for content coloring.

Orange. Recommended for branded elements, display progress and intensity, textual links on light backgrounds.
Purple. Recommended for proper nouns in list items.
Red. Recommended for negative and irreversible action buttons, errors and alerts.
Green. Recommended for positive action buttons.
Blue. Recommended for text selection and text cursor.

5 Likes

It was based on a very old version of Pop. The current version is much higher contrast (and the next version will be even better still).

1 Like

Please post a link to some screenshots when you are done, I am sure everyone here would like to see the progress on your theme :slight_smile:

1 Like

Good information, Ubuntu Touch and Unity 8 had some pretty neat design that should be fused with Charmander concept, Arc theme, United Gnome theme etc.

1 Like

Personally I think that all the work that has been done by canonical in the SURU icon theme for unity8 should be a starting point, while I think also the united-gnome theme is a quite good inspired theme, which might need some more love, but I like the idea of keeping this design alive.

6 Likes

Here’s a quick mod I did of the current Pop theme. You can see that the text and icons are much higher contrast, and the windows properly implement a backdrop state to help distinguish the foreground window from background windows.

8 Likes

This is certainly better and more readable, not a fan of borderless folder names in the toolbar though, I like it how Arc theme does that (puts a border around folder names in the toolbar for more readability). Perhaps you should use more Unity 8 colors for toggles etc? That would give it a more Ubuntu look, can you post a screenshot of some window (in the foreground) with toggles? I think that green color Unity 8 used for toggles looks really good, in this screenshot windows with toggles are in the background so I cant see how they look when in foreground, also you might want to turn on minimize and maximize buttons as Ubuntu Session uses them so people can see how they look. Good work though :smiley:

1 Like

I’m a fan of the “united theme” with suru .

2 Likes

I think we start to have a good list of people wanting to contribute here, it’s awesome! We should divide the needed work in some groups. Remember for that is only for theming, not for changing any behavior or extensions shipped, meaning:

  • we will still have Ubuntu Dock and indicator extension
  • we don’t want to deviate from GNOME: changing behaviors or paradigms, making it looking like Unity when it’s not, and such.

To reemphasize, we want GNOME Shell and applications looking like ubuntu :slight_smile:

So, rereading the thread, I have collected names of people stepping up, and it looks like we already have very talented and enthusiastic group of people here: United Gnome GTK theme, Pop/Popiance, “Finding Ubuntu” concept, individual designers and developers :wink: Also, we contacted Sam for the Suru icon theme who is up to the challenge, I’ll try getting him posting here :slight_smile:
I think from that point the most effective is to create subgroups and start lining up something like a plan.

Current team

My suggestions, from the names I saw above (please shout if I forgot anyone):

Designers:

@luxamman
@madsrh

The designers will create new mockups for the Shell, GDM, and popular applications to represents main interactions and what they look like on the GTK theme. Of course, I think theme developers will help them in that regard and telling what’s possible and what is not, while we keep all in mind this should respect the ubuntu feeling and color palette. :slight_smile:

Theme developers

@godlyranchdressing
@c-lobrano
@Merk42
@isantop
(and I can give a hand myself as needed ;))

This is the group who is primarly going to turn the mockups to reality, and will review external contributions :wink:

plumbing: CI/Project preparation

@merlijn-sebrechts
and I can give a hand there too.

  • Preparing the branches (Shell, GTK, icons) for easy rebasing on upstream changes
  • Wire up CI to upload any new commits in master to a ppa so that people can check progress
  • Maintaining the system and keeping it working :wink:

icon theme

Sam answered by email and I’ll trick him to post here :wink: He’s happy starting from his Suru work
@rodrigostucker

Of course, as I was expecting, this post has a lot of great suggestions and ideas :slight_smile: I suggest (no punt intended :p), that we keep them going on this topic.

Thus, we did create a hub subcategory available for reading to everyone, but restricted to writing for the above group (and new contributors coming along). That way, people who are just interested in seeing how the project progress can see in a concise way the advancement, and people working on the project can take into from this topic, and discuss more quietly on the other one.

I have created some bootstrapping topics to get our first phase move (getting the branches up) while designers can work on the mockups. You can check them on Theme Refresh - Ubuntu Community Hub. The icon discussion will come as soon as I get a hand on Sam :wink: I’m going with @willcooke to London in a week and half, and we will discuss with our design team to get some inputs and having them contribute as well.

Of course, that doesn’t prevent anyone else to contribute as well, we’ll have PR and look at them, as a team.

This is exciting times!

12 Likes

If I can help in any way please let me know. I am not designer, have some skills in coding. But I could be of help in testing. If I can get early access I can use the theme with an array of application (both GTK+ 2/3, Qt, Java) and see how they all stack up with the theme and report back.

1 Like