Hi all,
With my design team hat on, I have been working on finalizing the branding and logos for each of the products, and thought that because we are the only product that is using the login screen, that to reinforce that to the user that it is fedora workstation that is being used, the plain "Fedora" logo on the GDM screen should be replaced with the Fedora Workstation branding.
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
thoughts? ideas?
cheers, ryanlerch
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Ryan Lerch rlerch@redhat.com wrote:
Hi all,
With my design team hat on, I have been working on finalizing the branding and logos for each of the products, and thought that because we are the only product that is using the login screen, that to reinforce that to the user that it is fedora workstation that is being used, the plain "Fedora" logo on the GDM screen should be replaced with the Fedora Workstation branding.
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
thoughts? ideas?
I like it. Do you have similar plans for the plymouth animation? Maybe fill in the standard Fedora logo, but the final "flash" animation shows the workstation logo (or vice versa)?
josh
Hi
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
I like it. Do you have similar plans for the plymouth animation? Maybe fill in the standard Fedora logo, but the final "flash" animation shows the workstation logo (or vice versa)?
I like the branding ideas in Plymouth and GDM but this isn't where anyone is going to spend much of their time and since I use encryption on my laptop which requires me to enter a password on boot anyway, I auto login and don't even see GDM. Branding while you are logged in is likely going to have a much bigger impact
Rahul
On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 14:12 -0400, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
Hi
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Josh Boyer wrote: I like it. Do you have similar plans for the plymouth animation? Maybe fill in the standard Fedora logo, but the final "flash" animation shows the workstation logo (or vice versa)?
I like the branding ideas in Plymouth and GDM but this isn't where anyone is going to spend much of their time and since I use encryption on my laptop which requires me to enter a password on boot anyway, I auto login and don't even see GDM. Branding while you are logged in is likely going to have a much bigger impact
Well, it depends on the environment. For example, if we are powering a computer lab in a school or office setting, then this branding will be highly visible.
Your concern is based entirely on a single-user system, but I think we're *hoping* that Workstation will be useful in multi-user environments, particularly those cases where the machine is joined to a domain (so auto-login is not really an option, since you will need to authenticate against a domain controller to get SSO credentials).
That being said, yes I think some post-login branding is also a really good idea, but there are fewer places we can put that in Workstation, given its commitment to minimal chrome.
The only thing I can think of would be modifying the background image to include (an overlay of?) the Product logo over the image.
Hi
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Stephen Gallagher < wrote:
Your concern is based entirely on a single-user system,
Not "entirely", no but even on a multi-user system, users are going to be spending more time using their system rather than booting up or looking at the login screen, right?
The only thing I can think of would be modifying the background image to
include (an overlay of?) the Product logo over the image.
Vertical bar in the user menu, overlay in the overview, small logo in the hot corner ... there are lot of possibilities to consider
Rahul
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 11:00 PM, Rahul Sundaram metherid@gmail.com wrote:
Hi
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Stephen Gallagher < wrote:
Your concern is based entirely on a single-user system,
Not "entirely", no but even on a multi-user system, users are going to be spending more time using their system rather than booting up or looking at the login screen, right?
The only thing I can think of would be modifying the background image to
include (an overlay of?) the Product logo over the image.
Vertical bar in the user menu, overlay in the overview, small logo in the hot corner ... there are lot of possibilities to consider
Rahul
-- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
Sticking logos where they don't belong is not a good idea.
Hi
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Elad Alfassa wrote:
Sticking logos where they don't belong is not a good idea.
Branding isn't limited to just logos. They don't necessarily belong in a boot splash or login screen either. It really depends on how much value you place in the product vs whatever upstream provides.
Rahul
Hi,
Sticking logos where they don't belong is not a good idea.
Branding isn't limited to just logos. They don't necessarily belong in a boot splash or login screen either.
I agree with you guys on both counts here. I think logos are an "easy" way to brand the desktop, but they're also somewhat of a cop out. prominently placed logos are a bit like prominently placed ads. But our users have already "bought in" (so to speak) so we shouldn't be showing them ads for our product. When it comes to the zen of logos and brand identity, less is more, in my opinion. The user knows they're using Fedora, and if they like Fedora they'll "sell" it to their friends and colleagues for us. The brand is picked up implicitly through osmosis merely by using the desktop.
You can argue that logos will help us differentiate our product from other distributions, and while that's an important goal, it's also a little short sited. In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better developer story. If we can get a share of those developers that currently aren't using linux at all, we'll win against all the other distributions anyway, since there are so many more of them.
I'm not saying we should have no logos, but they shouldn't ever be in the user's face. They should be a subtle signature of our masterpiece not an ad for our product.
--Ray
Hi,
On 10/02/2014 10:38 AM, Ray Strode wrote:
The user knows they're using Fedora
This is a flawed assumption. A few cases to think about:
- Stephen's aforementioned lab situation use case. I'm sitting down to work in the computer lab. I didn't install the machine, I have no clue what it's running.
- Developer use case, I have multiple VMs I'm working with; maybe I'm testing software on different OSes. I'm trying to locate the correct VM. (This works in the physical case too. I'm a lowly sysadmin who has been told to go 'reboot the Fedora machine' - which one is it?)
- This is just a modified version of the lab situation case - but when I'm doing outreach with the Girl Scouts or at local schools, often the kids go home with a live USB of Inkscape and Gimp and all the software they learned how to use. We didn't talk about the OS much at all. Maybe their parents or friends want their own cweet USB key setup too. What are they using? What do they Google for? How do they figure it out?
, and if they like Fedora they'll "sell" it to their friends and colleagues for us.
Last use case above - they are trying to sell it but don't even know what it is that they have.
Even worse - they have this thing, they don't know exactly what it is, and they don't know how to get help for it. If you're a girl scout who took an Inkscape class with me 6 months ago today, and you run into a problem with your LiveUSB stick - where do you even start to go for help when all you have is the desktop / stick itself (if you're lucky and it's still booting?)
The brand is picked up implicitly through osmosis merely by using the desktop.
But it's not, because other distros use GNOME shell, and even if it's not the default desktop, it gets shipped configured as the default in these use cases (outreach program producing Live USBs / other media, lab workstation situation.)
The only Fedora-specific thing on the desktop is the wallpaper, and we don't put the logo on that (more for legal reasons than anything else - we openly license the artwork and we can't do that if it contains trademarks.)
You can argue that logos will help us differentiate our product from other distributions, and while that's an important goal, it's also a little short sited. In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better developer story. If we can get a share of those developers that currently aren't using linux at all, we'll win against all the other distributions anyway, since there are so many more of them.
I'm not saying we should have no logos, but they shouldn't ever be in the user's face. They should be a subtle signature of our masterpiece not an ad for our product.
Yes, like the "Ford" emblem on a car. Not like the "Ford" emblem on a sponsored NASCAR. Big difference, and I really don't see ANYBODY advocating the latter.
~m
hi,
This is a flawed assumption. A few cases to think about:
- Stephen's aforementioned lab situation use case. I'm sitting down to
work in the computer lab. I didn't install the machine, I have no clue what it's running.
- Developer use case, I have multiple VMs I'm working with; maybe I'm
testing software on different OSes. I'm trying to locate the correct VM. (This works in the physical case too. I'm a lowly sysadmin who has been told to go 'reboot the Fedora machine' - which one is it?)
- This is just a modified version of the lab situation case - but when
I'm doing outreach with the Girl Scouts or at local schools, often the kids go home with a live USB of Inkscape and Gimp and all the software they learned how to use. We didn't talk about the OS much at all. Maybe their parents or friends want their own cweet USB key setup too. What are they using? What do they Google for? How do they figure it out?
So how would you solve the problems noted in these situations?
The only Fedora-specific thing on the desktop is the wallpaper, and we don't put the logo on that (more for legal reasons than anything else - we openly license the artwork and we can't do that if it contains trademarks.)
I think we both agree that fedora has/should have more differentiators than the artwork, right?
--Ray
On 10/02/2014 01:14 PM, Ray Strode wrote:
I think we both agree that fedora has/should have more differentiators than the artwork, right?
I don't think we can both agree, at least not at my current level of understanding of what you are trying to say. What differentiators do you have in mind?
From the perspective of someone using the system who isn't writing systemd scripts or anything terribly technical, the differentiators on my end are:
- Wallpaper - Latest GNOME packaged in a reliable manner (which I wouldn't have any appreciation for without knowledge many desktop users don't have) - Logo on login screen
If we expand differentiators out from what's available on the actual system to the community around it, there are many in terms of the community philosophy, people, approach to things, etc. but a lot of that stuff is completely disconnected from the system itself. Like I brought up before - ask.fpo is completely disconnected from the system. The Fedora documentation and manuals are completely disconnected. You can't access them from within the system. You have to know they exist and know the URL or know what to search for in a general internet search.
I have a vague notion you may be trying to talk about how we are differentiated from OS X and Windows, which is absolutely a different conversation than how we are differentiated from our actual competitors who are in the same market share league (other distros.) The main differentiator from OS X and Windows is of course freedom.
~m
On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 7:35 PM, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On 10/02/2014 01:14 PM, Ray Strode wrote:
I think we both agree that fedora has/should have more differentiators than the artwork, right?
I don't think we can both agree, at least not at my current level of understanding of what you are trying to say. What differentiators do you have in mind?
From the perspective of someone using the system who isn't writing systemd scripts or anything terribly technical, the differentiators on my end are:
- Wallpaper
- Latest GNOME packaged in a reliable manner (which I wouldn't have any
appreciation for without knowledge many desktop users don't have)
- Logo on login screen
Well there is one more thing ... pretty much everyone (developer, artist, "home user", gamer, whatever ....) browses the web. We do have a default branded homepage. We could make it more useful than just showing blog posts (maybe link to aks.fedoraproject.org that you suggested earlier) and other stuff.
On Thu, Oct 02, 2014 at 07:37:40PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
Well there is one more thing ... pretty much everyone (developer, artist, "home user", gamer, whatever ....) browses the web. We do have a default branded homepage. We could make it more useful than just showing blog posts (maybe link to aks.fedoraproject.org that you suggested earlier) and other stuff.
This is in progress too, by the way.
On 10/02/2014 01:37 PM, drago01 wrote:
Well there is one more thing ... pretty much everyone (developer, artist, "home user", gamer, whatever ....) browses the web. We do have a default branded homepage. We could make it more useful than just showing blog posts (maybe link to aks.fedoraproject.org that you suggested earlier) and other stuff.
Every release there is an attempt to decommission that page. It feels like it's always on the chopping block. So I don't know that it's the best way.
~m
Okay me and Ray grabbed a whiteboard a few minutes ago -
On 10/02/2014 12:15 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
This is a flawed assumption. A few cases to think about:
- Stephen's aforementioned lab situation use case. I'm sitting down to
work in the computer lab. I didn't install the machine, I have no clue what it's running.
- Developer use case, I have multiple VMs I'm working with; maybe I'm
testing software on different OSes. I'm trying to locate the correct VM. (This works in the physical case too. I'm a lowly sysadmin who has been told to go 'reboot the Fedora machine' - which one is it?)
Ray's answer here was that the users can do the following (using a vague GOMS-like approach to describe the path here):
- click upper-right corner (1) - scan menu (2) - click unlabeled settings icon (screwdriver + wrench) (1) - scan menu (2) - click "details" (not "about this computer" not "help" not "system information" etc, just "details") (1) - view Fedora logo and 'fedora 20' under it (2)
If we attribute 1 point to clicks and 2 points to scan the weight of this path is 9 points. Which is high, and not as casual as the logo on GDM is (which is essentially 0 points for both the first boot case and any subsequent fresh logins, particularly in the lab case above.)
We don't have the market share or even anywhere near the market share to rely on our users awareness of our identity latently.
Anyway, assuming we'll keep the logo in GDM, the computer lab case is served fine but the developer / sysadmin trying to identify the machine case is still a real pain.
- This is just a modified version of the lab situation case - but when
I'm doing outreach with the Girl Scouts or at local schools, often the kids go home with a live USB of Inkscape and Gimp and all the software they learned how to use. We didn't talk about the OS much at all. Maybe their parents or friends want their own cweet USB key setup too. What are they using? What do they Google for? How do they figure it out?
, and if they like Fedora they'll "sell" it to their friends and colleagues for us.
Last use case above - they are trying to sell it but don't even know what it is that they have.
Even worse - they have this thing, they don't know exactly what it is, and they don't know how to get help for it. If you're a girl scout who took an Inkscape class with me 6 months ago today, and you run into a problem with your LiveUSB stick - where do you even start to go for help when all you have is the desktop / stick itself (if you're lucky and it's still booting?)
For the "need" help case, Ray mentioned that on first run GNOME help pops up. My concern isn't for the first use case though - it's for say the student who's had their USB key for a while and suddenly, let's say a mysterious dbus error message pops up (since that's happened to the students in question during class) -
The error messages themselves can't be relied upon to provide guidance to an appropriate place for help. Sure, they don't know what support system is best for me, whether it's a particular corporate help desk, a particular distro commnunity, or the upstream community for that app in particular. But also, there's no standard for error messages, a lot of apps have very bad ones, and sometimes the app is in such a state it's difficult to even display anything useful to the user. So that's out as a venue to guide the user.
If the user needs help today on our desktop, what can they do? The only way I know to get help from the desktop is to:
- trigger activities overview (1) - type 'help' (2) - scan help screen (2)
(5 pts)
The problem with GNOME help, at least from the Fedora Workstation user context:
- If I need to talk to a human being via chat or message or forum, there's no referral here - It talks about GNOME. It doesn't talk about Fedora. So then I'd start Googing around for GNOME help (if I didn't know what the computer was.) If the error I had was an SELinux issue or a kernel panic, looking for help with GNOME won't help me. - If I type "dbus error" in the help app it gives no results. It has a limited and static set of information as far as I can tell. - If I type "dbus error" and no results are given, I am not offered the opportunity to ask a new question to get help
This is assuming that the system functions enough for the user to be able to navigate to help. If the user doesn't know what it is that they are running and they need help, they need to know what to look for. If the system is so messed up they can't even boot it or can't use it (frozen screen), there is no answer.
Anyway, an idea Ray and I talked about is to have a direct link to the Help app from the system menu in the upper right corner, which would at least knock it down from 5 points (which include knowing to type 'help'), to 3 points (click on menu, scan). It would make help more prominent in that it would be visible under casual circumstances during normal usage of the desktop (vs in the huge almost never browsed stack that is the set of apps available in the app list.)
Does anybody have thoughts about that as a potential improvement?
Even better would be an intermediate help panel which would explicitly outline your venues for help. And this could be overridden by repackagers, again think corporate desktop. So for Fedora you might get pointed to ask.fedoraproject.org but for a corporate respin you might get pointed to another URL.
We have some great resources within Fedora to get help, like ask.fedoraproject.org - but there's no link to these resources from the actual system itself. None.
~m
On Thu, Oct 02, 2014 at 01:22:06PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Even better would be an intermediate help panel which would explicitly outline your venues for help. And this could be overridden by repackagers, again think corporate desktop. So for Fedora you might get pointed to ask.fedoraproject.org but for a corporate respin you might get pointed to another URL.
Heh -- this is exactly what I was thinking when I read your message. Possibly with ask.fpo as a gnome web app (and maybe in the future, with FAS id linked with GNOME Online Accounts....).
I would even go so far as to suggest that a "Fedora Help" icon of some sort is worth putting into the incredibly valuable space as a top-level icon on the top bar, because getting help is something that should be as little effort as possible.
(I suppose this could be done as a Fedora Help shell extension?)
On 10/02/2014 01:39 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
I would even go so far as to suggest that a "Fedora Help" icon of some sort is worth putting into the incredibly valuable space as a top-level icon on the top bar, because getting help is something that should be as little effort as possible.
I think that in terms of real estate, that may be a little too prime. I'd like to leave that decision to the designers who are more involved in the shell to weigh in on the exact real estate placement.
However, if the user needs something related to the system, I do believe they are going to go to the system menu in the upper right. I just don't think a screwdriver/wrench icon is going to map to "help" in a lot of folks' minds. So that seems like a reasonable suggestion in my eyes although again, I'm not fully cognizant of all the design issues / future plans / tradeoffs in the shell itself.
(I suppose this could be done as a Fedora Help shell extension?)
See extension is a cop-out to me, because the very users who need this the most are the type of users who don't install extensions...
~m
On Thu, Oct 02, 2014 at 01:44:12PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
I think that in terms of real estate, that may be a little too prime. I'd like to leave that decision to the designers who are more involved in the shell to weigh in on the exact real estate placement.
That's fine -- I just want to weigh in as considering the functionality _really valuable to our users_ as input to designers weighing the options.
(I suppose this could be done as a Fedora Help shell extension?)
See extension is a cop-out to me, because the very users who need this the most are the type of users who don't install extensions...
Oh, one we'd package up and install by default, I mean.
On Thu, 2014-10-02 at 13:47 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Thu, Oct 02, 2014 at 01:44:12PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
I think that in terms of real estate, that may be a little too prime. I'd like to leave that decision to the designers who are more involved in the shell to weigh in on the exact real estate placement.
That's fine -- I just want to weigh in as considering the functionality _really valuable to our users_ as input to designers weighing the options.
(I suppose this could be done as a Fedora Help shell extension?)
See extension is a cop-out to me, because the very users who need this the most are the type of users who don't install extensions...
Oh, one we'd package up and install by default, I mean.
On the user menu in the upper-right, there are currently three icons at the bottom with a LOT of whitespace between them, they are: * Settings: The Screwdriver and Gear * Lock the screen: A padlock * Shutdown/Reboot: The universal power logo
What if we were to add a new icon into that available space? I'm thinking maybe a profile or a human with a thought bubble and a "?" in it. That could indicate "help" or "I have a question that needs answering."
On Thu, 2014-10-02 at 15:29 -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On the user menu in the upper-right, there are currently three icons at the bottom with a LOT of whitespace between them, they are:
- Settings: The Screwdriver and Gear
- Lock the screen: A padlock
- Shutdown/Reboot: The universal power logo
With GNOME 3.14, if you have an accelerometer in your computer (e.g some newer laptops), then there will be a fourth button, to lock automatic rotation of the display.
Not that it prevents your idea at all, but it means there's just a little less whitespace than you think in such cases.
On Thu, 2014-10-02 at 15:29 -0400, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
What if we were to add a new icon into that available space? I'm thinking maybe a profile or a human with a thought bubble and a "?" in it. That could indicate "help" or "I have a question that needs answering."
I think it has already been pointed out that the space is already taken, for an 'screen rotation lock' icon.
What we have done in RHEL is to put yelp on the dash. That does not address the fact that yelp is all about "GNOME Help", not about "Fedora Workstation" - which kinda goes back to our earlier discussion of shipping Fedora specific documentation / release notes on the image, and in what form. If we ship it, we can probably make it show up in yelp.
I think that helping users to get in touch with Fedora the project (ie find websites, irc channels, forums, etc) can be better achieved by a default page in the browser, or as part of the initial setup (some form of 'system registration / account setup' step).
Some things I noted while playing with this:
- To get to yelp, you just go to the overview and type 'help' - this is explained in one of the 'welcome tour' videos.
- To find out what OS you're running, you can similarly go to the overview and type 'about'.
On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 11:37:35AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
- To find out what OS you're running, you can similarly go to the
overview and type 'about'.
Would it be possible to have some basic Fedora Workstation branding (including a link to that 'about' app) show up _before_ you start typing? I don't think knowing you need to type "about" is very discoverable.
I'd also really like the presentation-at-a-conference case to be covered; that _isn't_ covered by anything you have to go out of your way to do.
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 11:52 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
I'd also really like the presentation-at-a-conference case to be covered; that _isn't_ covered by anything you have to go out of your way to do.
Depending on what you mean by this case (has this been spelled out earlier in this thread ?), I'm not sure I want to 'cover' this, tbh. When I am using my laptop at a conference, I want it to help me give a polished and professional presentation. That includes:
- Detect the projector, and show a unobtrusive image until I'm ready to start my presentation
- Support me by offering presentation mode in the application that I'm using (most likely LibreOffice or evince), and make it come up on the projector without manual fiddling, and in fullscreen without distracting desktop chrome
- Prevent me from a 'pants down' moment by not showing my regular desktop contents on the big screen
- Don't interrupt my presentation with notifications
I don't think it includes the equivalent of an advertising banner while I am presenting.
The best possible advertisement for the tool (ie the OS) in this scenario is to get a question in the QA like "This was really smooth, what OS are you using on your laptop ?".
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 12:15 PM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 11:52 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
I'd also really like the presentation-at-a-conference case to be covered; that _isn't_ covered by anything you have to go out of your way to do.
Depending on what you mean by this case (has this been spelled out earlier in this thread ?), I'm not sure I want to 'cover' this, tbh. When I am using my laptop at a conference, I want it to help me give a polished and professional presentation. That includes:
- Detect the projector, and show a unobtrusive image until I'm ready to
start my presentation
So... perhaps a middle ground here. Assuming you setup your laptop prior to plugging it into the machine, you could have the lock screen contain a logo. When you plug into the projector, it displays this and people see a nice subtle logo. Then you unlock and you're ready to present.
Having the lock screen contain the logo might be a nice unobtrusive way to get in some branding in any case. It would also cover computer lab situations, etc.
josh
On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 12:15:26PM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
- Prevent me from a 'pants down' moment by not showing my regular
desktop contents on the big screen
I'm thinking more about meetups and live demos given during more technical presentations, where the regular desktop (although perhaps not your regular personal account, or perhaps that account in a presentation mode) is actually shown on purpose. I've gone to quite a few talks where this is the case.
I also like Josh's idea of something that gives some subtle brand identity even in the slideshow-only situation.
The best possible advertisement for the tool (ie the OS) in this scenario is to get a question in the QA like "This was really smooth, what OS are you using on your laptop ?".
I agree that this is nice, but because we aren't the dominant desktop (yet?), people's basic assumption when they see nothing special will be that it's just one of the dominant desktop choices — because all of them _can_ do all of the things you described. That's a missed opportunity. Unless we plant people in the audience, it's unlikely anyone will think to ask.
HI
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
What we have done in RHEL is to put yelp on the dash. That does not address the fact that yelp is all about "GNOME Help", not about "Fedora Workstation" - which kinda goes back to our earlier discussion of shipping Fedora specific documentation / release notes on the image, and in what form. If we ship it, we can probably make it show up in yelp.
Right. Another possibility is to provide a "web app" (GNOME Web pointing to a url) for Ask Fedora or Fedora online documentation site, possibility a new landing page that would guide users to getting the kind of help they want
Rahul
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
What we have done in RHEL is to put yelp on the dash. That does not address the fact that yelp is all about "GNOME Help", not about "Fedora Workstation" - which kinda goes back to our earlier discussion of shipping Fedora specific documentation / release notes on the image, and in what form. If we ship it, we can probably make it show up in yelp.
Oh, that's a much better spot for it. I think having yelp there and shipping the Fedora docs with yelp would go a long way.
I think that helping users to get in touch with Fedora the project (ie find websites, irc channels, forums, etc) can be better achieved by a default page in the browser, or as part of the initial setup (some form of 'system registration / account setup' step).
I think then we need to drop the pending change of dropping start.fpo for the Firefox default 'recently visited' or maybe Rahul's suggestion of an ask.fpo icon. (Or maybe better, an ask.fpo search provider so people can type stuff like, "gvfs crash blah blah blah" and matches from ask.fpo could pop up? (or is this not the way it's meant to be extended?)
Some things I noted while playing with this:
- To get to yelp, you just go to the overview and type 'help' - this
is explained in one of the 'welcome tour' videos.
Right. This is a lot easier if you know there's something to find. If you don't know that there is a help app (and how would you?) then this is a bit more of a leap of faith.
It's not something that's used intentionally (nobody wants to have to use help; it's always ancillary to another task that is way more important to a user). Think about how subway cars all have signs about the emergency telecom and fire equipment. Those signs are not like the ads on the subway, but everyone's read them and knows where they are and that the safety equipment exists if they ride the subway with any regularity. (And of course the air mask / seatbelt dance is way too over the top but the card in the seat back pocket on a plane is similar - it's visible, not in your face, if you ever needed it you'll know where it is and have easy access... rather than wonder if any such thing exists when you get in a pickle at which point you might be too panicked / upset to think straight enough to find)
But if there's a help icon in the dash then I think that addresses this - it'll be in a place users will see and they'll know it's there (and they can easily pull it off the dash if they don't want it in the dash.)
- To find out what OS you're running, you can similarly go to the
overview and type 'about'.
This falls under the same above. It's not latently visible, you have to intentionally seek it out. But if you don't know it exists, you're less likely to try. And it's similar to help in that nobody wants to have to look for this.
~m
On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 07:39:29PM -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
I think then we need to drop the pending change of dropping start.fpo for the Firefox default 'recently visited' or maybe Rahul's suggestion of an ask.fpo icon. (Or maybe better, an ask.fpo
I would really like to keep start.fpo -- it drives a lot of traffic to the magazine, which proves that people are really using it. And I think it's right that most people will turn to a web browser for help these days.
HI
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 8:36 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
I would really like to keep start.fpo -- it drives a lot of traffic to the magazine, which proves that people are really using it. And I think it's right that most people will turn to a web browser for help these days.
Sure but the main idea here is add a web app to favorites list that points them to a place where they can get some help. If that is start.fp.o instead of ask.fp.o thats fine as long as the start page provides them with the things they might need when they are looking for help. Combine that with a search provider in GNOME Shell and it would be really nice. The problem with doing it as a extension is that extensions keep breaking between major GNOME releases.
Rahul
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 20:57 -0400, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
HI
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 8:36 PM, Matthew Miller wrote: I would really like to keep start.fpo -- it drives a lot of traffic to the magazine, which proves that people are really using it. And I think it's right that most people will turn to a web browser for help these days.
Sure but the main idea here is add a web app to favorites list that points them to a place where they can get some help. If that is start.fp.o instead of ask.fp.o thats fine as long as the start page provides them with the things they might need when they are looking for help. Combine that with a search provider in GNOME Shell and it would be really nice. The problem with doing it as a extension is that extensions keep breaking between major GNOME releases.
Well, if this was an extension maintained by GNOME developers (like the extensions that produce Classic Mode) I think that would be less of an issue. I like the idea of making this an extension because (obviously) other GNOME distros would not want to be using ask.fp.o for their questions.
That said, I'm not sure exactly how the search extensions work; they may be a more stable API than the gnome-shell extensions. Someone who understands that better is welcome to chime in here :)
On 6 October 2014 13:26, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
Well, if this was an extension maintained by GNOME developers (like the extensions that produce Classic Mode) I think that would be less of an issue. I like the idea of making this an extension because (obviously) other GNOME distros would not want to be using ask.fp.o for their questions.
That said, I'm not sure exactly how the search extensions work; they may be a more stable API than the gnome-shell extensions. Someone who understands that better is welcome to chime in here :)
Shell extensions that provide search capabilities all broke (again?) with the release of GNOME 3.12 when some major refactoring was done to Shell's search sub-system. It looks to me that the API for extensions to register as search providers has been neglected a bit: there are some Shell functions that were broken the last time I looked and had been for quite some time.
The implication is that the preferred way to implement a search provider now is to build an app that implements a SearchProvider interface (over D-Bus) and can be launched via D-Bus. How stable the interface is I don't know, but I'd imagine that implementing a search provider this way is less likely to break with each GNOME release since messaging via D-Bus is that little bit further removed from plugging-into Shell's JavaScript API.
On Mon, 2014-10-06 at 14:04 +0100, Richard Turner wrote:
The implication is that the preferred way to implement a search provider now is to build an app that implements a SearchProvider interface (over D-Bus) and can be launched via D-Bus. How stable the interface is I don't know, but I'd imagine that implementing a search provider this way is less likely to break with each GNOME release since messaging via D-Bus is that little bit further removed from plugging-into Shell's JavaScript API.
Yes, the search provider API is stable and not going to change on you. That would be way better than writing a shell extension that needs to be updated every six months.
Keep in mind the privacy concerns of a search provider. If you provide the user with results in the overview, you need to use TLS and validate the server's certificate to ensure searches aren't leaked, and also field complaints from users who don't want all their searches for personal files sent to ask.fedoraproject.org. A better approach would be to always display exactly one result, like the Epiphany search provider, that launches the search only when selected.
Also, search providers are supposed to be associated with applications and launch results in the associated application, so you'd want to install an ask.fedoraproject.org web app.
On Mon, Oct 06, 2014 at 08:57:54AM -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
Also, search providers are supposed to be associated with applications and launch results in the associated application, so you'd want to install an ask.fedoraproject.org web app.
... which I'd love to see in any case.
Hi
On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 8:26 AM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
Well, if this was an extension maintained by GNOME developers (like the extensions that produce Classic Mode) I think that would be less of an issue.
Possibly yeah but since workstation is bound to get more users who use extensions outside of the core ones, this is a general problem that needs to be solved as well. Some of these have functionality that could perhaps be merged into GNOME Shell itself but others are quite niche and need to remain as extensions.
I like the idea of making this an extension because (obviously)
other GNOME distros would not want to be using ask.fp.o for their questions.
It could be a configurable default that distributions customize. Needn't be extensions
Rahul
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 19:39 -0400, Máirín Duffy wrote:
- To find out what OS you're running, you can similarly go to the
overview and type 'about'.
This falls under the same above. It's not latently visible, you have to intentionally seek it out. But if you don't know it exists, you're less likely to try. And it's similar to help in that nobody wants to have to look for this.
Oh yeah, I agree. This is just an easter egg. But I found it neat that 'about' works, thats why I mentioned it.
On 10/02/2014 10:38 AM, Ray Strode wrote:
In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better developer story.
To this point, Apple has a monochrome apple in the upper right corner of the OS X desktop.... unless it's been taken away very recently?
Windows 8 appears to have one in the lower left corner, but I don't know enough about it to know how much this screenshot differs from the default config: http://fishingforedtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Screenshot-12.png
That being said, the new Windows logo is essentially a representation of the tiles UI, so the tiles UI itself is a form of a logo sort of. It's definitely more integrated a brand than OS X.
I agree with what you're saying here, but I don't think that translates to "so we must have no logos ever, at all on the desktop"
~m
On 02/10/14 09:21 AM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
On 10/02/2014 10:38 AM, Ray Strode wrote:
In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better developer story.
To this point, Apple has a monochrome apple in the upper right corner of the OS X desktop.... unless it's been taken away very recently?
You mean monochrome apple on upper left.
----- Original Message -----
On 10/02/2014 10:38 AM, Ray Strode wrote:
In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better developer story.
To this point, Apple has a monochrome apple in the upper right corner of the OS X desktop.... unless it's been taken away very recently?
Upper left.
Windows 8 appears to have one in the lower left corner, but I don't know enough about it to know how much this screenshot differs from the default config: http://fishingforedtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Screenshot-12.png
That being said, the new Windows logo is essentially a representation of the tiles UI, so the tiles UI itself is a form of a logo sort of. It's definitely more integrated a brand than OS X.
I agree with what you're saying here, but I don't think that translates to "so we must have no logos ever, at all on the desktop"
In both cases, the logos are actual buttons, not simply fillers (like the Red Hat logo is in RHEL's gnome-shell). If we had a "GNOME menu" in the default UI, we would be comparing things properly.
We already ship a downstream patch to the control-center's "Details" panel to show information about the Fedora variant in use.
I don't think we should have a logo in the default shell chrome, as it would dilute the goal of minimal chrome, and take attention away from the already present UI items.
Cheers
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:15:19AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I agree with what you're saying here, but I don't think that translates to "so we must have no logos ever, at all on the desktop"
In both cases, the logos are actual buttons, not simply fillers (like the Red Hat logo is in RHEL's gnome-shell). If we had a "GNOME menu" in the default UI, we would be comparing things properly.
What about making the Fedora logo an active button? It could:
a. go to the overview of the existing "Details" window, b. go to a new applet (or local web page displayed as an app) describing more about Fedora overall, or c. just go to the left of the Activities menu and act as part of that.
For "C", we could package and slightly modifiy the existing Activities Configurator extension, although finding some elegant way to do B is my preference.
I don't think we should have a logo in the default shell chrome, as it would dilute the goal of minimal chrome, and take attention away from the already present UI items.
I understand that goal, and especially for upstream it is laudable. Clean, elegant, and minimal are ideals. As a distro, though, we have to balance those ideals with other goals, including promoting identity. It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere. Help us figure out how.
On 10/13/2014 11:03 AM, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:15:19AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I agree with what you're saying here, but I don't think that translates to "so we must have no logos ever, at all on the desktop"
In both cases, the logos are actual buttons, not simply fillers (like the Red Hat logo is in RHEL's gnome-shell). If we had a "GNOME menu" in the default UI, we would be comparing things properly.
What about making the Fedora logo an active button? It could:
a. go to the overview of the existing "Details" window, b. go to a new applet (or local web page displayed as an app) describing more about Fedora overall, or c. just go to the left of the Activities menu and act as part of that.
For "C", we could package and slightly modifiy the existing Activities Configurator extension, although finding some elegant way to do B is my preference.
I don't think we should have a logo in the default shell chrome, as it would dilute the goal of minimal chrome, and take attention away from the already present UI items.
I understand that goal, and especially for upstream it is laudable. Clean, elegant, and minimal are ideals. As a distro, though, we have to balance those ideals with other goals, including promoting identity. It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere. Help us figure out how.
AFAIK, one of the reasons why we never have the Fedora Logo on the default background is that we want the wallpaper to be Freely Licenced, and this runs into issues if the wallpaper has a logo in it.
However, if we do want to brand the "background" -- this could be done with a GNOME shell extension that puts the logo on the desktop in a set position that we allow for in the background design.
This could easily then be turned off (or even changed) depending on the user's preferences.
just a thought, ryanlerch
On October 13, 2014 11:03:19 AM EDT, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
I understand that goal, and especially for upstream it is laudable. Clean, elegant, and minimal are ideals. As a distro, though, we have to balance those ideals with other goals, including promoting identity. It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere. Help us figure out how.
I'm new here (been using Fedora for a few months, and lurking on this list a few weeks, and looking for ways to get involved ). Here are two ideas I like:
- a small watermark-like effect in the Gnome overview would to be both unobtrusive and hard to miss.
- I like the 'know your rights' notification you get the first time you use Firefox. Perhaps there could be a "Thank you for using Fedora Workstation" notification message, with the option to dismiss or learn more about what makes Workstation different, and it only appears the first time you log in to a box.
----- Original Message -----
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:15:19AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
<snip>
I don't think we should have a logo in the default shell chrome, as it would dilute the goal of minimal chrome, and take attention away from the already present UI items.
I understand that goal, and especially for upstream it is laudable. Clean, elegant, and minimal are ideals. As a distro, though, we have to balance those ideals with other goals, including promoting identity. It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere. Help us figure out how.
Yeah, because Fedora users definitely don't want the same clean nice desktop that other distributions would get.
Sarcasm aside, you're not going to win users by displaying the Fedora logo in places where it shouldn't be, quite the contrary.
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:59:11AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I understand that goal, and especially for upstream it is laudable. Clean, elegant, and minimal are ideals. As a distro, though, we have to balance those ideals with other goals, including promoting identity. It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere. Help us figure out how.
Yeah, because Fedora users definitely don't want the same clean nice desktop that other distributions would get.
Honestly, I think that you're setting up a false dichotomy. There must be a way to indicate who we are with pride, rather than considering our brand identity something that would interfere.
Sarcasm aside, you're not going to win users by displaying the Fedora logo in places where it shouldn't be, quite the contrary.
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 12:38:41PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:59:11AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I understand that goal, and especially for upstream it is laudable. Clean, elegant, and minimal are ideals. As a distro, though, we have to balance those ideals with other goals, including promoting identity. It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere. Help us figure out how.
Yeah, because Fedora users definitely don't want the same clean nice desktop that other distributions would get.
Honestly, I think that you're setting up a false dichotomy. There must be a way to indicate who we are with pride, rather than considering our brand identity something that would interfere.
Sarcasm aside, you're not going to win users by displaying the Fedora logo in places where it shouldn't be, quite the contrary.
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
Is the login screen not a good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.
The Apple logo referred to earlier doesn't seem like a good comparison. This menu is used for a lot of choices that relate to the hardware and system. GNOME doesn't have a comparable menu except for the system details, which has a Fedora logo (also if you type "about" during an Overview search).
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:57:13PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
Is the login screen not a good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.
Not necessarily, in a number of cases. One is in institutional use, where the system may log into a shared account automatically. Another is in conferences or other places where Fedora may be seen in use. If someone is giving a demo at a meetup using Fedora Workstation, that doesn't need to be all obnoxious, but it'd be nice if it were easy to notice.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 2:37 AM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:57:13PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> Find somewhere it should be, then, please. Is the login screen not a good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.Not necessarily, in a number of cases. One is in institutional use, where the system may log into a shared account automatically. Another is in conferences or other places where Fedora may be seen in use. If someone is giving a demo at a meetup using Fedora Workstation, that doesn't need to be all obnoxious, but it'd be nice if it were easy to notice.
+1. The conference scenario is a common one. I use an add-on [1] just to add Fedora logo by the Activities menu because I want to show people that I'm using Fedora, and there is no other way of doing that during a presentation/workshop.
Also I don't think the "Upstream doesn't put a logo" is a good argument. We are not just distributing upstream. We are building a product (Workstation in this case) and we can decide on our own what's best.
[1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/358/activities-configurator/
~nikos
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:10:02AM +0300, Nikos Roussos wrote:
+1. The conference scenario is a common one. I use an add-on [1] just to add Fedora logo by the Activities menu because I want to show people that I'm using Fedora, and there is no other way of doing that during a presentation/workshop.
Yeah, in absence of any other solution (Ryan's idea with the wallpaper overlay could work too), I think this is a decent approach. We could fork the Activities Configurator extention to show the Fedora Workstation logo (and perhaps the words "Fedora Workstation") if fedora-release-workstation is installed, and the Fedora infinity logo (and "Fedora") if it's not.
Also I don't think the "Upstream doesn't put a logo" is a good argument. We are not just distributing upstream. We are building a product (Workstation in this case) and we can decide on our own what's best.
Absolutely. We want to align technology and effort with upstream as best we can, but our goals (and therefore needs) aren't dictated by upstream, and sometimes they will diverge. A _cosmetic_ change like this isn't a big divergence in any way — but *is* a big deal for Fedora.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 08:29:51AM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:10:02AM +0300, Nikos Roussos wrote:
Also I don't think the "Upstream doesn't put a logo" is a good argument. We are not just distributing upstream. We are building a product (Workstation in this case) and we can decide on our own what's best.
Absolutely. We want to align technology and effort with upstream as best we can, but our goals (and therefore needs) aren't dictated by upstream, and sometimes they will diverge. A _cosmetic_ change like this isn't a big divergence in any way ??? but *is* a big deal for Fedora.
What I find troubling is that every few months there is this whole branding debate driven by a 'this is Fedora, our needs are different from upstream' ideology. Once it was the login screen, then it was the logo in 'about' or Settings -> Details, and now it is about the default shell chrome.
I find it troubling that Fedora's need to exert its brand is increasing so quickly, and the lack of acknowledgement that such needs have been granted so far.
Beginning to look like a slippery slope.
Cheers, Debarshi
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 11:40:54PM +0000, Debarshi Ray wrote:
Absolutely. We want to align technology and effort with upstream as best we can, but our goals (and therefore needs) aren't dictated by upstream, and sometimes they will diverge. A _cosmetic_ change like this isn't a big divergence in any way ??? but *is* a big deal for Fedora.
What I find troubling is that every few months there is this whole branding debate driven by a 'this is Fedora, our needs are different from upstream' ideology. Once it was the login screen, then it was the logo in 'about' or Settings -> Details, and now it is about the default shell chrome.
I don't think that's a fair representation of the trajectory. The Fedora logo was in all of those places in previous Fedora release, including prominently in the toolbar — the "chrome".
Our need for that hasn't gone down; the change is that these brand identity points have gone away upstream. That's where the idea that needs are different comes from — it's not meant to be an antagonist or divisive ideology, just a reflection of what seems to be reality. And, we have different defaults from many upstream projects we build the distribution from and around, so I don't really quite see why it is such a hot topic.
I find it troubling that Fedora's need to exert its brand is increasing so quickly, and the lack of acknowledgement that such needs have been granted so far. Beginning to look like a slippery slope.
"Needs have been granted" probably isn't the best wording.
Our need to exert our brand certainly isn't decreasing whether or not there are places to demonstrate our identity in GNOME. In fact, yes, it is increasing, but it's intentional, not some sort of "slippery slope". The Fedora Workstation effort as part of Fedora.next is a specific choice we've made as a project to work on and showcase stronger branding.
On Sat, 2014-10-18 at 11:35 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
Our need to exert our brand certainly isn't decreasing whether or not there are places to demonstrate our identity in GNOME. In fact, yes, it is increasing, but it's intentional, not some sort of "slippery slope". The Fedora Workstation effort as part of Fedora.next is a specific choice we've made as a project to work on and showcase stronger branding.
Let me be blunt: before we 'exert our brand' any more, maybe it is worthwhile to investigate briefly what connotations the wider public actually has with the Fedora brand.
I can make some guesses:
- Bleeding edge - Broken updates - Selinux breakage - Slipped release dates
Maybe we should spend less time debating where to put the logo, and more time on how to turn those perceptions around ?
On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 09:00:47AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Let me be blunt: before we 'exert our brand' any more, maybe it is worthwhile to investigate briefly what connotations the wider public actually has with the Fedora brand.
I can make some guesses:
- Bleeding edge
- Broken updates
- Selinux breakage
- Slipped release dates
Except for "bleeding updates", these guesses are generally wrong, based on my interactions with the public and press.
There is certainly room to improve; we have a whole new marketing effort around doing that. But, yes, let's spend less time debating where to put the logo. Let's put it somewhere sensible and clearly visible and move on.
On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 09:00:47AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Sat, 2014-10-18 at 11:35 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
Our need to exert our brand certainly isn't decreasing whether or not there are places to demonstrate our identity in GNOME. In fact, yes, it is increasing, but it's intentional, not some sort of "slippery slope". The Fedora Workstation effort as part of Fedora.next is a specific choice we've made as a project to work on and showcase stronger branding.
Let me be blunt: before we 'exert our brand' any more, maybe it is worthwhile to investigate briefly what connotations the wider public actually has with the Fedora brand.
I can make some guesses:
- Bleeding edge
- Broken updates
- Selinux breakage
- Slipped release dates
Maybe we should spend less time debating where to put the logo, and more time on how to turn those perceptions around ?
The above problems actually are being actively worked on, via development like new Bodhi, taskotron, etc. So I hope the people working on those things aren't going to feel undervalued by the above comments. As for slipped release dates, to be fair they're almost always due to our higher quality release criteria which goes directly to combatting the "bleeding edge" reputation. Certainly the fact that numerous reviews have called the F21 Alpha as or more stable than some distro final releases (yes, including some Fedora releases) is not lost?
I would really like to see some brand expertise involved that could help us better define the problem. To me that problem isn't "where do we put the logo" but "How do we ensure that people know what they're seeing/running".
On Mon, 2014-10-20 at 09:50 -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 09:00:47AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Maybe we should spend less time debating where to put the logo, and more time on how to turn those perceptions around ?
The above problems actually are being actively worked on, via development like new Bodhi, taskotron, etc. So I hope the people working on those things aren't going to feel undervalued by the above comments.
Right. I didn't mean to dismiss any of these efforts, I'm sure they help to improve the situation. But perceptions are sticky - people _still_ associate pulseaudio with 'broken sound', although it has been working flawlessly for many years...
I would really like to see some brand expertise involved that could help us better define the problem. To me that problem isn't "where do we put the logo" but "How do we ensure that people know what they're seeing/running".
If you put it that way, lets discuss situations in which people might end up in front of a Fedora Workstation machine without knowing what the OS is. I can come up with:
- School lab. In this case, you probably see the login screen first thing, which has the workstation logo on it.
- Conference presentation. This it Matt's favorite's example. I've talked about it before; I'm not really convinced that intrusive advertising is called for here - the presenter is using Fedora as a tool to do his job, he's not there as a Fedora ambassador
- Public kiosk. Not a use case the workstation is targetting, currently. Even if it was, the organization running the kiosk may very well want to use the available space for slapping its own logo on...
Anything else ? I can't really come up with many other scenarios. In any scenario where the user installed the system himself, we should assume that he can remember what he installed.
On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 10:05:39AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Anything else ? I can't really come up with many other scenarios. In any scenario where the user installed the system himself, we should assume that he can remember what he installed.
Reviews and screenshots shared online. From just yesterday: http://lifehacker.com/five-best-linux-desktop-environments-1648022755 Check out the first comment, where someone wonders what the header image is. When we're prominently displayed on one of the very top sites on the Internet, people shouldn't have to ask.
Now, admittedly, that is about desktop environments, not distributions, but Linux Mint and Ubuntu/Canonical actually get namechecked and hyperlinked. (Fedora only gets mentioned under Cinnamon!)
As you've suggested, this isn't just about where to put a logo. Next year, I want Lifehacker to be writing about Fedora Workstation and talking about how great it is. As great as GNOME is (and make no mistake: I do think that it is great), we need our users to feel like Fedora Workstation brings them something special, not just happens to be the vehicle by which GNOME was delivered.
On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 4:21 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 10:05:39AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Anything else ? I can't really come up with many other scenarios. In any scenario where the user installed the system himself, we should assume that he can remember what he installed.
Reviews and screenshots shared online. From just yesterday: http://lifehacker.com/five-best-linux-desktop-environments-1648022755 Check out the first comment, where someone wonders what the header image is. When we're prominently displayed on one of the very top sites on the Internet, people shouldn't have to ask.
Now, admittedly, that is about desktop environments, not distributions, but Linux Mint and Ubuntu/Canonical actually get namechecked and hyperlinked. (Fedora only gets mentioned under Cinnamon!)
As you've suggested, this isn't just about where to put a logo. Next year, I want Lifehacker to be writing about Fedora Workstation and talking about how great it is. As great as GNOME is (and make no mistake: I do think that it is great), we need our users to feel like Fedora Workstation brings them something special, not just happens to be the vehicle by which GNOME was delivered.
Just put it on the background. Those screenshots are pretty much always created with the default wallpaper.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 5:10 AM, Nikos Roussos comzeradd@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 2:37 AM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:57:13PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Find somewhere it should be, then, please. Is the login screen not a
good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.
Not necessarily, in a number of cases. One is in institutional use, where the system may log into a shared account automatically. Another is in conferences or other places where Fedora may be seen in use. If someone is giving a demo at a meetup using Fedora Workstation, that doesn't need to be all obnoxious, but it'd be nice if it were easy to notice.
+1. The conference scenario is a common one. I use an add-on [1] just to add Fedora logo by the Activities menu because I want to show people that I'm using Fedora, and there is no other way of doing that during a presentation/workshop.
Also I don't think the "Upstream doesn't put a logo" is a good argument. We are not just distributing upstream. We are building a product (Workstation in this case) and we can decide on our own what's best.
I think it's great that you choose to support Fedora, but I disagree. When I'm doing a presentation I want my work to be featured, and I want as little distraction as possible. Fedora Workstation is shipping GNOME, which was designed following that same philosophy. It's the reason I've been a GNOME user for so many years and a big part of what makes it great.
"upstream doesn't put a logo" is not the full argument as it doesn't take into account the *why* of that decision. They didn't put a logo in the panel because there was no room to put a logo there under the principles that guided their entire design. When someone who is not a designer, was not involved at all in that process, and doesn't even understand what went into it, comes in and starts making changes as if they were just cosmetic details you end up with a bad design.
Let's not forget that a brand is not just a logo. Being the best operating system with GNOME has become part of Fedora's brand, and something that has gained it quite a few users over recent years. Making the GNOME experience worse would in no way help the Fedora brand.
-- Evandro
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:46:00AM -0300, Evandro Giovanini wrote:
I think it's great that you choose to support Fedora, but I disagree. When I'm doing a presentation I want my work to be featured, and I want as little distraction as possible. Fedora Workstation is shipping GNOME, which was designed following that same philosophy. It's the reason I've been a GNOME user for so many years and a big part of what makes it great.
Sure, that's fine, and it should be easy to remove and get out of the way, and as Matthias mentioned earlier, there should be a presentation mode which ensures that nothing but your presentation is shown.
"upstream doesn't put a logo" is not the full argument as it doesn't take into account the *why* of that decision. They didn't put a logo in the panel because there was no room to put a logo there under the principles that guided their entire design. When someone who is not a designer, was not involved at all in that process, and doesn't even understand what went into it, comes in and starts making changes as if they were just cosmetic details you end up with a bad design.
I'm not trying to dictate the design. However, I am sharing a requirement; I trust the designers to come up with a way to accommodate that need. By the famous analogy: we need this bikeshed painted. I don't care what color, but "the designers love the natural weathered look" doesn't help.
Let's not forget that a brand is not just a logo. Being the best operating system with GNOME has become part of Fedora's brand, and something that has gained it quite a few users over recent years. Making the GNOME experience worse would in no way help the Fedora brand.
I find the suggestion that showing the Fedora logo would somehow "make the experience worse" to be deeply troubling. We should be proud and excited to showcase it — just as we are proud and excited that Fedora Workstation is built on great GNOME technology.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 5:07 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:46:00AM -0300, Evandro Giovanini wrote:
I think it's great that you choose to support Fedora, but I disagree. When I'm doing a presentation I want my work to be featured, and I want as little distraction as possible. Fedora Workstation is shipping GNOME, which was designed following that same philosophy. It's the reason I've been a GNOME user for so many years and a big part of what makes it great.
Sure, that's fine, and it should be easy to remove and get out of the way, and as Matthias mentioned earlier, there should be a presentation mode which ensures that nothing but your presentation is shown.
"upstream doesn't put a logo" is not the full argument as it doesn't take into account the *why* of that decision. They didn't put a logo in the panel because there was no room to put a logo there under the principles that guided their entire design. When someone who is not a designer, was not involved at all in that process, and doesn't even understand what went into it, comes in and starts making changes as if they were just cosmetic details you end up with a bad design.
I'm not trying to dictate the design. However, I am sharing a requirement; I trust the designers to come up with a way to accommodate that need. By the famous analogy: we need this bikeshed painted. I don't care what color, but "the designers love the natural weathered look" doesn't help.
Let's not forget that a brand is not just a logo. Being the best operating system with GNOME has become part of Fedora's brand, and something that has gained it quite a few users over recent years. Making the GNOME experience worse would in no way help the Fedora brand.
I find the suggestion that showing the Fedora logo would somehow "make the experience worse" to be deeply troubling. We should be proud and excited to showcase it — just as we are proud and excited that Fedora Workstation is built on great GNOME technology.
The most obvious place to put a logo in is the wallpaper. I am not really buying the "we cannot do it for legal reasons" thing (IANAL though). I mean we own both the logo and the wallpaper so we could choose any license we want for it.
If we really can't we could ship a branded and an unbranded one like we do with all other branded stuff.
On Tue, 2014-10-14 at 11:07 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:46:00AM -0300, Evandro Giovanini wrote:
"upstream doesn't put a logo" is not the full argument as it doesn't take into account the *why* of that decision. They didn't put a logo in the panel because there was no room to put a logo there under the principles that guided their entire design. When someone who is not a designer, was not involved at all in that process, and doesn't even understand what went into it, comes in and starts making changes as if they were just cosmetic details you end up with a bad design.
I'm not trying to dictate the design. However, I am sharing a requirement;
So, all I can find on this topic in the Workstation PRD is the following:
The working group will also specify policies in terms of branding, theming and desktop graphics, although these items will of course need to be in line with the overall Fedora branding guidelines and styles.
I don't see how, from the above, you conclude that the use cases you mentioned (e.g showing that the OS is Fedora Workstation while giving a talk at a conference) are requirements.
Let's not forget that a brand is not just a logo. Being the best operating system with GNOME has become part of Fedora's brand, and something that has gained it quite a few users over recent years. Making the GNOME experience worse would in no way help the Fedora brand.
I find the suggestion that showing the Fedora logo would somehow "make the experience worse" to be deeply troubling.
Depends where you put it. I can easily imagine lots of ways in which the Fedora logo could make the experience worse. :)
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 07:37:57PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:57:13PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
Is the login screen not a good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.
Not necessarily, in a number of cases. One is in institutional use, where the system may log into a shared account automatically.
Maybe via the default Fedora wallpaper? I know there are legal issues with putting the logo there, but we already have wallpapers to go with each release. We can improve that.
Another is in conferences or other places where Fedora may be seen in use. If someone is giving a demo at a meetup using Fedora Workstation,
I use stickers for that.
We are not going to have branding show up on the screen while someone is actually presenting something on the projector. A big (f) sticker on the laptop is much more visible than a tiny logo on the shell chrome.
I am sure the big white glowing apple on the laptop's lid is much more visible than a tiny black logo on the Mac OSX desktop.
Cheers, Debarshi
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Debarshi Ray rishi.is@lostca.se wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 07:37:57PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:57:13PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
Is the login screen not a good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.
Not necessarily, in a number of cases. One is in institutional use, where the system may log into a shared account automatically.
Maybe via the default Fedora wallpaper? I know there are legal issues with putting the logo there, but we already have wallpapers to go with each release. We can improve that.
I like the wallpaper idea. I'm not sure what the legal issues would be, aside from perhaps trying to keep the backgrounds "clean" for remixes to use. Perhaps the design teams knows more.
Another is in conferences or other places where Fedora may be seen in use. If someone is giving a demo at a meetup using Fedora Workstation,
I use stickers for that.
We are not going to have branding show up on the screen while someone is actually presenting something on the projector. A big (f) sticker on the laptop is much more visible than a tiny logo on the shell chrome.
I am sure the big white glowing apple on the laptop's lid is much more visible than a tiny black logo on the Mac OSX desktop.
I agree entirely, and I'd encourage people to put stickers on their machines when they can. Some can't though.
josh
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 08:53:54PM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Debarshi Ray rishi.is@lostca.se wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 07:37:57PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 05:57:13PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
Is the login screen not a good place for this? If the user installed the system, surely they know what it is. If the user did not, they must login and could see a logo at the login screen.
Not necessarily, in a number of cases. One is in institutional use, where the system may log into a shared account automatically.
Maybe via the default Fedora wallpaper? I know there are legal issues with putting the logo there, but we already have wallpapers to go with each release. We can improve that.
I like the wallpaper idea. I'm not sure what the legal issues would be, aside from perhaps trying to keep the backgrounds "clean" for remixes to use. Perhaps the design teams knows more.
That's the only issue to the best of my knowledge.
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 12:38:41PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
Sarcasm aside, you're not going to win users by displaying the Fedora logo in places where it shouldn't be, quite the contrary.
Find somewhere it should be, then, please.
I see the logo while booting the computer, I see it when I type "about" in the overview, gnome-initial-setup shows it, I see it on the login screen.
I think that is enough.
Cheers, Debarshi
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:03:19AM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere.
That sounds as if there is no Fedora branding at all at the moment, or that people are trying to aggressively remove all of them. That is not true.
We already have it in a few very visible places (see my other email). Maybe they are not as visible as you want it to be and I can understand that people may disagree on where to draw the line. However, repeating blanket statements like these sound mildly confrontational to me and I would be happy if we can avoid that.
Thanks, Debarshi
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:36:38PM +0000, Debarshi Ray wrote:
It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere.
That sounds as if there is no Fedora branding at all at the moment, or that people are trying to aggressively remove all of them. That is not true.
There is no Fedora branding in the shell chrome, which is what I was responding to with that quote. I didn't mean to suggest that people are trying to remove that. I am, however, definitely saying that I don't think it's sufficient for what we need.
I don't want to be confrontational either. I just want everyone to be working together to make and show off an awesome *Fedora*.
----- Original Message -----
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:36:38PM +0000, Debarshi Ray wrote:
It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere.
That sounds as if there is no Fedora branding at all at the moment, or that people are trying to aggressively remove all of them. That is not true.
There is no Fedora branding in the shell chrome, which is what I was responding to with that quote. I didn't mean to suggest that people are trying to remove that. I am, however, definitely saying that I don't think it's sufficient for what we need.
I don't want to be confrontational either. I just want everyone to be working together to make and show off an awesome *Fedora*.
And we're saying that the Fedora brand is prominent enough as it is. The onus is on you to show that stronger branding is necessary. I really don't think that it is. And if the upstream didn't think it was a good idea to show logos in the default chrome, I don't see any gains being made adding one.
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 3:25 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 10:36:38PM +0000, Debarshi Ray wrote:
It is important to have visible Fedora branding somewhere.
That sounds as if there is no Fedora branding at all at the moment, or that people are trying to aggressively remove all of them. That is not true.
There is no Fedora branding in the shell chrome, which is what I was responding to with that quote. I didn't mean to suggest that people are trying to remove that. I am, however, definitely saying that I don't think it's sufficient for what we need.
I don't want to be confrontational either. I just want everyone to be working together to make and show off an awesome *Fedora*.
And we're saying that the Fedora brand is prominent enough as it is. The onus is on you to show that stronger branding is necessary. I really don't think that it is. And if the upstream didn't think it was a good idea to show logos in the default chrome, I don't see any gains being made adding one.
Who is we? I don't mean that question to be confrontational. I'm asking because you seem to be representing a group of people and I'm curious who that group is.
Also, there's no onus on either party here. Fedora Workstation is Fedora. GNOME upstream is GNOME upstream. Each can chose to display logos or not according to what they believe best suits them.
josh
On Tue, 2014-10-14 at 08:25 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
Who is we? I don't mean that question to be confrontational. I'm asking because you seem to be representing a group of people and I'm curious who that group is.
Unless I'm mistaken, all the upstream developers (and I'll add myself here too) who participated in this thread do not support more prominent Fedora branding. Every aspect of the UI is already minimal, sleek, and smooth.
Happy Tuesday!
Hey,
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 08:25:43AM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
Who is we?
A bunch of Fedora contributors who also happen to be part of upstream GNOME.
I can understand that another subset of Fedora contributors might have a different opinion. I can also imagine another subsection of Fedora contributors with a GNOME background also having a different opinion that 'us', although I haven't seen an example of that on this topic.
I think it is safe to say that 'we' stands for the group who do not want more branding in the shell chrome.
Also, there's no onus on either party here. Fedora Workstation is Fedora.
But 'we' are Fedora too!
GNOME upstream is GNOME upstream. Each can chose to display logos or not according to what they believe best suits them.
We will be well served if we did not draw lines that. I might be working on GNOME, but I am just as much a Fedora contributor as anybody else [1] who works on KDE or the kernel or anything else. I want the Fedora brand to succeed too.
It is disappointing to see that whenever someone with a GNOME background expresses an opinion or liking, it is swept aside with a 'oh, but this is not GNOME, we are Fedora'. A very big chunk of the work that goes into building Fedora Workstation happens upstream, upstream GNOME developers hold Fedora in high regard, and there are a good number of people who participate in both communities. Decisions that 'we' take upstream are taken with the best interests of Fedora at heart. While that does not mean that 'we' are infallible and unaccountable [2], it is fair to expect some amount of mutual trust and respect.
Constantly repeating 'this is Fedora, that is GNOME' only breeds mistrust and alienates people.
Cheers, Debarshi
[1] Been using Fedora since 2004, started with KDE, got Fedora commit access in 2007, got GNOME commit access in 2009.
[2] Talking of branding, using the Fedora logo instead of the GNOME logo in 'about' was a change that was done for Fedora as a result of a similar thread some time ago.
On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:15 PM, Debarshi Ray rishi.is@lostca.se wrote:
Hey,
On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 08:25:43AM -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
Who is we?
A bunch of Fedora contributors who also happen to be part of upstream GNOME.
I can understand that another subset of Fedora contributors might have a different opinion. I can also imagine another subsection of Fedora contributors with a GNOME background also having a different opinion that 'us', although I haven't seen an example of that on this topic.
I think it is safe to say that 'we' stands for the group who do not want more branding in the shell chrome.
Also, there's no onus on either party here. Fedora Workstation is Fedora.
But 'we' are Fedora too!
You are. My comment wasn't about people. It was about the specific deliverables.
GNOME upstream is GNOME upstream. Each can chose to display logos or not according to what they believe best suits them.
We will be well served if we did not draw lines that. I might be working on GNOME, but I am just as much a Fedora contributor as anybody else [1] who works on KDE or the kernel or anything else. I want the Fedora brand to succeed too.
It is disappointing to see that whenever someone with a GNOME background expresses an opinion or liking, it is swept aside with a 'oh, but this is not GNOME, we are Fedora'. A very big chunk of the work that goes into building Fedora Workstation happens upstream, upstream GNOME developers hold Fedora in high regard, and there are a good number of people who participate in both communities. Decisions that 'we' take upstream are taken with the best interests of Fedora at heart. While that does not mean that 'we' are infallible and unaccountable [2], it is fair to expect some amount of mutual trust and respect.
I think perhaps you are casting generalities from the past onto many topics here. Branding is a difficult topic because it deviates from upstream by necessity. There's no other way to do it.
As for GNOME people presenting opinions and likings, I for one think it's wonderful and I very much do not sweep them aside. In fact, I've been more than willing to listen because we very much need upstreams to be involved in Fedora for it to be successful. That doesn't mean those opinions will always win out, nor does it mean they are swept aside without thought or consideration.
Constantly repeating 'this is Fedora, that is GNOME' only breeds mistrust and alienates people.
I'll be frank. The mistrust and alienation is very real, and it is on both sides. Some people view GNOME as an echo chamber. Some people view Fedora as a bunch of clueless packaging nerds that have no taste or design sensibilities. The truth lies very much in between. I think Workstation has proven, in my opinion, that both sides can work together to make something that is a great blend of things to fit the Fedora project. But if we're going to make that sustainable, we need to move on from the past and realize that differences of opinions are OK, and being "right" is often worse than coming to a compromise.
josh
On Thu, Oct 02, 2014 at 10:38:32AM -0400, Ray Strode wrote:
You can argue that logos will help us differentiate our product from other distributions, and while that's an important goal, it's also a little short sited. In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better developer story. If we can get a share of those developers that currently aren't using linux at all, we'll win against all the other distributions anyway, since there are so many more of them.
I like the appeal to simplicity. (I have my own GNOME desktop configured with a dark gray background and the hide top bar extension for a very minimal appearance!)
But the case I'm thinking about is when developers give presentations at conferences using Fedora. I'd like it to be easily apparent to the audience that they're using Fedora, not a different distro.
I'm not a designer so I don't know how to do that in a beautiful, subtle, and impactful way — but I want it to be all of those things. And as someone with a huge stake in Fedora Workstation succeeding as a brand, if I had to choose, I would go for impactful over beautiful over subtle.
Vertical bar in the user menu, overlay in the overview, small logo in the hot corner ... there are lot of possibilities to consider
Rahul
Sticking logos where they don't belong is not a good idea.
-- -Elad Alfassa.
On general principle I accept the contention of not wanting to indiscriminately paste things willy-nilly, but at the risk of being pedandic, may I propose the attached cropped screenshots, three from gnome 2.x series, and one from kde 3.5?
I'd say that the branding on the desktop is fairly unobtrusive, yet each forms a distinctive impression of who the author is (ok, one would have to know that one is not the debian logo ...)
On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 14:08 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
I like it. Do you have similar plans for the plymouth animation? Maybe fill in the standard Fedora logo, but the final "flash" animation shows the workstation logo (or vice versa)?
Personally, I *really* like the RHEL 7 plymouth theme with the spinner. There's not much room for branding with that, but I think that's fine. It's very slick compared to the charge theme we have now.
On 10/01/2014 02:08 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Ryan Lerch rlerch@redhat.com wrote:
Hi all,
With my design team hat on, I have been working on finalizing the branding and logos for each of the products, and thought that because we are the only product that is using the login screen, that to reinforce that to the user that it is fedora workstation that is being used, the plain "Fedora" logo on the GDM screen should be replaced with the Fedora Workstation branding.
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
thoughts? ideas?
I like it. Do you have similar plans for the plymouth animation? Maybe fill in the standard Fedora logo, but the final "flash" animation shows the workstation logo (or vice versa)?
I'll work on some ideas for plymouth. However i'd be a little worried about using just the workstation "icon" without the text -- at the moment no one really knows what it is and without the text is just a simplistic computer icon.
Perhaps having the logo at the bottom of the plymouth screen (in the same location as in GDM) might work.
--ryanlerch
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Ryan Lerch rlerch@redhat.com wrote:
On 10/01/2014 02:08 PM, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Ryan Lerch rlerch@redhat.com wrote:
Hi all,
With my design team hat on, I have been working on finalizing the branding and logos for each of the products, and thought that because we are the only product that is using the login screen, that to reinforce that to the user that it is fedora workstation that is being used, the plain "Fedora" logo on the GDM screen should be replaced with the Fedora Workstation branding.
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
thoughts? ideas?
I like it. Do you have similar plans for the plymouth animation? Maybe fill in the standard Fedora logo, but the final "flash" animation shows the workstation logo (or vice versa)?
I'll work on some ideas for plymouth. However i'd be a little worried about using just the workstation "icon" without the text -- at the moment no one really knows what it is and without the text is just a simplistic computer icon.
Perhaps having the logo at the bottom of the plymouth screen (in the same location as in GDM) might work.
Sure, that seems reasonable.
josh
Hi,
Perhaps having the logo at the bottom of the plymouth screen (in the same location as in GDM) might work.
It's a little tricky to guarantee the logo will end up in exactly the same place as on the plymouth screen. Especially if the user has multiple monitors or a custom Xorg.conf. if we're just coming from noise texture or a solid color, mistakes are a lot less noticeable.
Still, I guess if we can get gnome-shell and plymouth to use the same emblem placement logic, we can make it look good in most cases and not catastrophic in other cases.
--Ray
On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 14:03 -0400, Ryan Lerch wrote:
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
thoughts? ideas?
I like it too. The grayscale logo works well in this gray context. Some bikeshedding here over the cube wall suggested that the 'fedora' may be too small - it is smaller than our small print "Not listed ?"
On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 14:19 -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
I like it too. The grayscale logo works well in this gray context. Some bikeshedding here over the cube wall suggested that the 'fedora' may be too small - it is smaller than our small print "Not listed ?"
I agree that the text should be larger relative to the image.
It's a shame to lose the Fedora infinity-F logo, but this one looks fine too. I guess the trick to consider is that non-productized installs ought to retain the existing logo.
Hi,
With my design team hat on, I have been working on finalizing the branding and logos for each of the products, and thought that because we are the only product that is using the login screen, that to reinforce that to the user that it is fedora workstation that is being used, the plain "Fedora" logo on the GDM screen should be replaced with the Fedora Workstation branding.
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
I actually like the look of this a lot better than the fedora logo.
a couple of things i've noticed:
1) fedora text is too small and thin compared to other text on the screen (already brought up in this thread) 2) Visually, the logo looks slightly lopped to the right. I think this is partly because it's not completely centered (maybe because the image has asymmetric padding in it? didn't check), but also i think it's a "weight" issue. The text is significantly brighter than the emblem so my eye kind of ignores the logo when looking at how it aligned to the to the user list center-line. One idea would be to brighten the emblem so my eye more explicitly groups the emblem and the text, the other idea would be center based on the text only, and left align the emblem to the centered text. The latter is harder to implement, and might look lopsided the other direction, not sure.
--Ray
On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Ryan Lerch rlerch@redhat.com wrote:
Hi all,
With my design team hat on, I have been working on finalizing the branding and logos for each of the products, and thought that because we are the only product that is using the login screen, that to reinforce that to the user that it is fedora workstation that is being used, the plain "Fedora" logo on the GDM screen should be replaced with the Fedora Workstation branding.
here is a mockup of how this possibly would look with the greyscale version of the fedora workstation logo:
https://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/workstation-gdm-mockup.jpg
thoughts? ideas?
Well showing the workstation logo here can cause some confusion if we don't
1) fix the upgrade story (productized vs. not)
and/or
2) Make sure it only gets shown when you are actually running workstation.
Otherwise it will look like you do but you aren't actually running it.
On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 05:56:24PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
Well showing the workstation logo here can cause some confusion if we don't
- fix the upgrade story (productized vs. not)
and/or 2) Make sure it only gets shown when you are actually running workstation.
I think #2 is important regardless of the first. Is there a mechanism for this? (We need the logo to be interchangeable for the benefit of remixes in any case.)
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 05:56:24PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
Well showing the workstation logo here can cause some confusion if we don't
- fix the upgrade story (productized vs. not)
and/or 2) Make sure it only gets shown when you are actually running workstation.
I think #2 is important regardless of the first. Is there a mechanism for this? (We need the logo to be interchangeable for the benefit of remixes in any case.)
Create a fedora-workstation-logos package, require it from fedora-release-workstation, conflict with it in all of the other fedora-release packages? Repeat for the other products that wish to display their own brand flavor.
josh
On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 12:42 -0400, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 12:40 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 05:56:24PM +0200, drago01 wrote:
Well showing the workstation logo here can cause some confusion if we don't
- fix the upgrade story (productized vs. not)
and/or 2) Make sure it only gets shown when you are actually running workstation.
I think #2 is important regardless of the first. Is there a mechanism for this? (We need the logo to be interchangeable for the benefit of remixes in any case.)
Create a fedora-workstation-logos package, require it from fedora-release-workstation, conflict with it in all of the other fedora-release packages? Repeat for the other products that wish to display their own brand flavor.
We had a similar discussion on another list (or maybe IRC; I can't find it quickly). It would be better if all of our official logos were just in fedora-logos and the fedora-release-workstation package just links the logo into the right place.
The reason for this is there are multiple projects out there (Cockpit and Boxes came to mind) that would want to be able to display the logos of Products other than the one they're installed on.
desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Bastien Nocera -
Debarshi Ray -
Donald Buchan -
drago01 -
Elad Alfassa -
Evandro Giovanini -
Josh Boyer -
Luya Tshimbalanga -
Mathieu Bridon -
Matthew Miller -
Matthias Clasen -
Michael Catanzaro -
Máirín Duffy -
Nikos Roussos -
Paul W. Frields -
Rahul Sundaram -
Ray Strode -
Richard Turner -
Ross M Karchner -
Ryan Lerch -
Stephen Gallagher