What's up everybody.
I've debated this mail for a while - I'm the 'new kid' around these parts, but in a short time I've developed quite a passion around Fedora, and especially the Xfce spin. I've put some thought and research into this, so thanks for humoring me and reading.
As great as our spin is, I know it can be better. In reality anything can be better - there should be a constant evolution of improvements. I know as Xfce users, we are a smaller niche group from what would use the default Desktop spin, or perhaps even the KDE spin. It is true, however that Xfce is experiencing a spike in popularity lately.
Now, although I've only recently finally made the full switch back to Fedora (I used RHL and Fedora through Core2 before switching) I only regret not coming back sooner.
Now to the point at hand, how can we make Fedora's Xfce spin first-class. I guess first, we have to define what *is* first class. I loaded up different distros with Xfce in VM's and poked around, just to see how they looked and felt, and my only real impressions were:
a) many aspects of panel layout/themes are very much personal preference
---and---
b) sadly, every Xfce 'spin' I tried felt at least somewhat more polished than Fedora's out-of-the box presentation in one way or another...
There are tons of screenshots on the web, but here are mine from my VMs (with my thoughts for each).
Xubuntu: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/xubuntu_12_04.png
So - looks nice. Greybird is my favorite theme. The wallpaper has been the same for at least 2, maybe 3 releases (I think, Charlie Kraviez can correct me on this I'm sure as he was one the Xubuntu Project Leader). I never liked the 'auto-hide' dock...in fact, I generally hate the 'extra' Xfce panel anyway. The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
Sabayon 9: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/sabayon_9.png Although not really a 'mainstream' distro, I really only loaded it up out of curiosity to see what they had done w/ Xfce since most of the reviews and stuff online focus on the GNOME and KDE spins of this distro. I actually kinda like what they did. A 2 panel layout that could easily appeal to GNOME2 refugees, but still different from a GNOME2 layout. Again, nice icons, although everything doesn't match as nicely as in Xubuntu, still looks pretty polished. The default theme is nice (looks to be custom to the distro, perhaps) and the use the default Xfce window decorations.
openSUSE 12.2 (Beta): In terms of competition for similar user-bases, I would think of openSUSE and Fedora to have the two most similar potential user bases. I like the single panel layout, although the icons seems stock Xfce, they look nicely integrated. The mixer applet on the panel (Gmixer) doesn't seem to be in our repos, but the icon for it looks nicer than the faded icon w/ the blue half-circles we have w/ the default Xfce mixer applet. They are using Adwaita for a GTK theme, and a custom window decoration (that seems closely based on the default Xfce decorations).
Linux Mint Debian Edition: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/linux_mint_debian_... I find the GTK theme a little too 'white' (along w/ the default wallpaper), but both the theme and window decorations seem to be modified versions of Greybird. Green (aka Mint) icons, but all of the icons match, look nicely integrated, and the system tray icons match, except for using the same mixer icon we use.\
And now, we all know the default Fedora 17 look: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_default.png Here I will point out mainly what I don't like: First, I don't like the borders around the clock and notification area...just looks unfinished to me. I also wish the Applications Menu icon were the Fedora logo. I think the Adwaita theme works well (supports GTK3), but the Nodoka window decorations look dated. I hate the mixer icon, but like the rest of the 'Fedora' icon set.
This next screenshot is how *I* would improve the look we have now, sticking with a same/similar layout: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png Changes? The Fedora logo for the Applications Menu, no borders around the clock and notification area, and the default Xfce window decoration. Before I took this screenshot, I also ugraded to 4.10, and added the 'Action Buttons' plugin to the panel.
Next, I simply eliminate a *personal* pet peeve - the second, bigger panel that doesn't take up the entire width of the screen. It seems wasteful to me (especially with maximized windows). I also reduced the top panel to 24px.: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_b.png
The next layout would appeal to GNOME 2 refugees: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_c.png A second (24px) panel is added back, and a places applet displaying label only is added to the top panel. Reduced the text of the App menu button to just display 'Applications'. This layout looks very much like GNOME2 (to me anyway).
Next, is a layout similar to what openSUSE had: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png A single bottom panel, 24px.
Finally, is basically what I'm using: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_e.png It's the same as the last layout, but using Greybird and the Elementary icon theme. For my personal use, I'm still a little torn between this and Adwaita, however I think the Elementary icon theme looks SO much nicer, even that ugly mixer icon is fixed ;-) It just looks more polished and integrated. I know everyone doesn't like the darker grey panel look/menus etc...
So...now that I've said all of that what do you think? Like I said, I was torn about jumping in as a new guy with suggestions, but I figured why not...the worst y'all could do is say 'go away, your bothering me'...so I did it. Other thoughts I've had is, what other things do we do as a 'SIG'. I noticed an e-mail from Rex Dieter to fedora-devel speaking of a KDE SIG meeting - have we as a SIG ever had IRC meetings? Would there be any value? Would anyone attend? Since I'm just now jumping in, has there been other recent discussion I've missed about plans for F18? I know Kevin has spoken of moving to LightDM, and has included Greybird as being installed by default in the spin for F18.
I'm not looking to ruffle feathers, just get discussion going and make Fedora 18's Xfce spin even more awesome.
Thanks for reading! Jayson
Hi, Jayson. I think Fedora currently ships the upstream Xfce layout. That doesn't mean that it can't be improved. For instance, the Xfce menu isn't the upstream menu as it adds an 'Administration' category and eliminates duplicities (I use this menu when I install Xfce 4.10; the latter has the upstream original menu). I think that your suggested modifications look nicer ( http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png ), although the xfwm theme that comes with the spin is nice too. Personally, I think that Adwaita is a good GTK theme to use on the spin if only because it's from GNOME and so it works properly (GTK3 up to now keeps braking themes). I don't use it, I use MediterraneanNight (from gnome-look.org ) because it has options for window background that ain't white. I also think that the panel width should be kept as it is; 24px can be small for some people. The second panel is also there so people are inspired to play with the panel capabilities. I use it for launchers in auto-hiding mode (try using a 1024x768 screen like me). Once I wrote to Christoph Wickert about adding a matching icon theme for Claws mail but it must be packaged, so there's this limitation too.
Personally I think the spin is very good. It's lightweight and brings only what one needs to start (more on this below). I don't think the looks is that important. If the default look was so bad we would report a bug upstream so they would fix it.
The most important thing I see now is to replace GDM and whatever GNOME stuff that ain't strictly necessary for the system (like NetworkManager, which works well and should be kept, IMO).
Ideally I think that there could be separate spins with and without Asian languages/input methods support. That's the only thing that's bloat for one that uses only the Latin alphabet.
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 8:13 AM, Sergio secipolla@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Jayson. I think that your suggested modifications look nicer ( http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png ), although the xfwm theme that comes with the spin is nice too.
I agree, that Nodoka looks nice, it just looks dated. I think it's been around since Fedora 8 or 9. My biggest nags w/ the default layout are the borders around the clock and notification area - not sure why they bother me so :) Same for the App menu logo.
Personally, I think that Adwaita is a good GTK theme to use on the spin if only because it's from GNOME and so it works properly (GTK3 up to now keeps braking themes). I don't use it, I use MediterraneanNight (from gnome-look.org ) because it has options for window background that ain't white.
I agree 100% on Adwaita. Although I like the darker look/feed of Greybird, I know it's an acquired taste for sure.
I also think that the panel width should be kept as it is; 24px can be small for some people.
Interesting thought...GNOME 2 had 24px panels by defualt, and I don't know that I'd ever seen anyone grow them to 30(+)...but I'd honestly never thought of 24px being too small. Good point though.
The second panel is also there so people are inspired to play with the panel capabilities. I use it for launchers in auto-hiding mode (try using a 1024x768 screen like me).
I can see that use for it...*if* on autohide (Xubuntu has a transparent bottom panel on autohide to mimic a 'dock').
Once I wrote to Christoph Wickert about adding a matching icon theme for Claws mail but it must be packaged, so there's this limitation too.
The Elementary Icon Theme has a nice mail icon that Claws picks up.
Personally I think the spin is very good. It's lightweight and brings only what one needs to start (more on this below). I don't think the looks is that important. If the default look was so bad we would report a bug upstream so they would fix it.
I agree 100%. It doesn't look 'bad' at all, just trying to think of ways to add polish.
The most important thing I see now is to replace GDM and whatever GNOME stuff that ain't strictly necessary for the system (like NetworkManager, which works well and should be kept, IMO).
I agree there as well. I'm looking forward to LightDM in F18 (assuming that's still the plan).
Thanks so much for your comments Sergio!
Hi, I like this a lot: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png
It reminds me Fedora 14: http://www.linuxexpres.cz/uploads/gallery/original/4846.jpg
Miro Hrončok
Jabber: miro@hroncok.cz Telefon: +420777974800
2012/6/28 Jayson Rowe jayson.rowe@gmail.com:
What's up everybody.
I've debated this mail for a while - I'm the 'new kid' around these parts, but in a short time I've developed quite a passion around Fedora, and especially the Xfce spin. I've put some thought and research into this, so thanks for humoring me and reading.
As great as our spin is, I know it can be better. In reality anything can be better - there should be a constant evolution of improvements. I know as Xfce users, we are a smaller niche group from what would use the default Desktop spin, or perhaps even the KDE spin. It is true, however that Xfce is experiencing a spike in popularity lately.
Now, although I've only recently finally made the full switch back to Fedora (I used RHL and Fedora through Core2 before switching) I only regret not coming back sooner.
Now to the point at hand, how can we make Fedora's Xfce spin first-class. I guess first, we have to define what *is* first class. I loaded up different distros with Xfce in VM's and poked around, just to see how they looked and felt, and my only real impressions were:
a) many aspects of panel layout/themes are very much personal preference
---and---
b) sadly, every Xfce 'spin' I tried felt at least somewhat more polished than Fedora's out-of-the box presentation in one way or another...
There are tons of screenshots on the web, but here are mine from my VMs (with my thoughts for each).
Xubuntu: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/xubuntu_12_04.png
So - looks nice. Greybird is my favorite theme. The wallpaper has been the same for at least 2, maybe 3 releases (I think, Charlie Kraviez can correct me on this I'm sure as he was one the Xubuntu Project Leader). I never liked the 'auto-hide' dock...in fact, I generally hate the 'extra' Xfce panel anyway. The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
Sabayon 9: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/sabayon_9.png Although not really a 'mainstream' distro, I really only loaded it up out of curiosity to see what they had done w/ Xfce since most of the reviews and stuff online focus on the GNOME and KDE spins of this distro. I actually kinda like what they did. A 2 panel layout that could easily appeal to GNOME2 refugees, but still different from a GNOME2 layout. Again, nice icons, although everything doesn't match as nicely as in Xubuntu, still looks pretty polished. The default theme is nice (looks to be custom to the distro, perhaps) and the use the default Xfce window decorations.
openSUSE 12.2 (Beta): In terms of competition for similar user-bases, I would think of openSUSE and Fedora to have the two most similar potential user bases. I like the single panel layout, although the icons seems stock Xfce, they look nicely integrated. The mixer applet on the panel (Gmixer) doesn't seem to be in our repos, but the icon for it looks nicer than the faded icon w/ the blue half-circles we have w/ the default Xfce mixer applet. They are using Adwaita for a GTK theme, and a custom window decoration (that seems closely based on the default Xfce decorations).
Linux Mint Debian Edition: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/linux_mint_debian_... I find the GTK theme a little too 'white' (along w/ the default wallpaper), but both the theme and window decorations seem to be modified versions of Greybird. Green (aka Mint) icons, but all of the icons match, look nicely integrated, and the system tray icons match, except for using the same mixer icon we use.\
And now, we all know the default Fedora 17 look: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_default.png Here I will point out mainly what I don't like: First, I don't like the borders around the clock and notification area...just looks unfinished to me. I also wish the Applications Menu icon were the Fedora logo. I think the Adwaita theme works well (supports GTK3), but the Nodoka window decorations look dated. I hate the mixer icon, but like the rest of the 'Fedora' icon set.
This next screenshot is how *I* would improve the look we have now, sticking with a same/similar layout: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png Changes? The Fedora logo for the Applications Menu, no borders around the clock and notification area, and the default Xfce window decoration. Before I took this screenshot, I also ugraded to 4.10, and added the 'Action Buttons' plugin to the panel.
Next, I simply eliminate a *personal* pet peeve - the second, bigger panel that doesn't take up the entire width of the screen. It seems wasteful to me (especially with maximized windows). I also reduced the top panel to 24px.: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_b.png
The next layout would appeal to GNOME 2 refugees: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_c.png A second (24px) panel is added back, and a places applet displaying label only is added to the top panel. Reduced the text of the App menu button to just display 'Applications'. This layout looks very much like GNOME2 (to me anyway).
Next, is a layout similar to what openSUSE had: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png A single bottom panel, 24px.
Finally, is basically what I'm using: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_e.png It's the same as the last layout, but using Greybird and the Elementary icon theme. For my personal use, I'm still a little torn between this and Adwaita, however I think the Elementary icon theme looks SO much nicer, even that ugly mixer icon is fixed ;-) It just looks more polished and integrated. I know everyone doesn't like the darker grey panel look/menus etc...
So...now that I've said all of that what do you think? Like I said, I was torn about jumping in as a new guy with suggestions, but I figured why not...the worst y'all could do is say 'go away, your bothering me'...so I did it. Other thoughts I've had is, what other things do we do as a 'SIG'. I noticed an e-mail from Rex Dieter to fedora-devel speaking of a KDE SIG meeting - have we as a SIG ever had IRC meetings? Would there be any value? Would anyone attend? Since I'm just now jumping in, has there been other recent discussion I've missed about plans for F18? I know Kevin has spoken of moving to LightDM, and has included Greybird as being installed by default in the spin for F18.
I'm not looking to ruffle feathers, just get discussion going and make Fedora 18's Xfce spin even more awesome.
Thanks for reading! Jayson -- -jayson _______________________________________________ xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Miro Hrončok miro@hroncok.cz wrote:
Hi, I like this a lot: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png
It reminds me Fedora 14: http://www.linuxexpres.cz/uploads/gallery/original/4846.jpg
Miro Hrončok
Jabber: miro@hroncok.cz Telefon: +420777974800
Yes, I like that as well! Seems to be a 30px panel w/ no text on the Applications menu (which has the Fedora logo). To *me* that looks much more polished than what is default in F17.
I have another observation. I wouldn't ship Midori with the spin. It isn't an Xfce app. It uses git.xfce.org but it's an Elementary Project app.* It isn't so lightweight on resources. It's small but that's because it uses the stock webkit-gtk engine which isn't small (but, granted, GIMP needs it too so the spin doesn't get much larger). But most importantly, it's unusable currently as it crashes everywhere and Firefox does the job pretty well.
* I used to use Midori as I translated it back then and kept always running the development version. I'm not a programmer so I can't say if one thing has to do with the other but ever since Christian (the main dev) started focusing on GTK3 support and that Ubuntu 'menu-on-the-panel' thing Midori went downhill. Mainly, I suppose, because the stock webkit-gtk engine browser crashes everywhere and so does Midori.
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Sergio secipolla@gmail.com wrote:
I have another observation. I wouldn't ship Midori with the spin. It isn't an Xfce app. It uses git.xfce.org but it's an Elementary Project app.* It isn't so lightweight on resources. It's small but that's because it uses the stock webkit-gtk engine which isn't small (but, granted, GIMP needs it too so the spin doesn't get much larger). But most importantly, it's unusable currently as it crashes everywhere and Firefox does the job pretty well.
- I used to use Midori as I translated it back then and kept always
running the development version. I'm not a programmer so I can't say if one thing has to do with the other but ever since Christian (the main dev) started focusing on GTK3 support and that Ubuntu 'menu-on-the-panel' thing Midori went downhill. Mainly, I suppose, because the stock webkit-gtk engine browser crashes everywhere and so does Midori.
______________________________**_________________ xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.**org/mailman/listinfo/xfcehttps://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Sorry but midori is still a Xfce app, even if it's developed with some focus on keeping the elementary design. Also it's not that unstable if you just use it for basic web browsing. I could observe a lot of crashes related to flash. If you try to avoid flash it works pretty flawless.
Johannes
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Johannes Lips johannes.lips@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Sergio secipolla@gmail.com wrote:
I have another observation. I wouldn't ship Midori with the spin. It isn't an Xfce app. It uses git.xfce.org but it's an Elementary Project app.* It isn't so lightweight on resources. It's small but that's because it uses the stock webkit-gtk engine which isn't small (but, granted, GIMP needs it too so the spin doesn't get much larger). But most importantly, it's unusable currently as it crashes everywhere and Firefox does the job pretty well.
- I used to use Midori as I translated it back then and kept always
running the development version. I'm not a programmer so I can't say if one thing has to do with the other but ever since Christian (the main dev) started focusing on GTK3 support and that Ubuntu 'menu-on-the-panel' thing Midori went downhill. Mainly, I suppose, because the stock webkit-gtk engine browser crashes everywhere and so does Midori.
xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Sorry but midori is still a Xfce app, even if it's developed with some focus on keeping the elementary design. Also it's not that unstable if you just use it for basic web browsing. I could observe a lot of crashes related to flash. If you try to avoid flash it works pretty flawless.
Johannes
xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
I use Midori a lot - Chrome is my 'main' browser, but at work, I use Midori to keep out ticketing system, wiki and intranet up - it's light on resources, and works well for that task, and helps me keep my personal stuff (chrome) separate from my chrome stuff.
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Miro Hrončok miro@hroncok.cz wrote:
It reminds me Fedora 14: http://www.linuxexpres.cz/uploads/gallery/original/4846.jpg
Miro Hrončok
Jabber: miro@hroncok.cz Telefon: +420777974800
I just wanted to add, I *really* like this screenshot of F14. I've set up my work machine here to be similar to that, and I could definitely live with this as default, and not tweak a thing. Under F17, I'm using Adwaita and 'Default' as window decoration.
Hi Jayson,
thanks for your elaborate mail. I wanted to get back to you already over the "Non-flattering review of Fedora XFCE", but this mail just became too long and I never finished it.
This time I'll only reply to some parts and skip the rest.
Am Mittwoch, den 27.06.2012, 23:44 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
a) many aspects of panel layout/themes are very much personal preference
---and---
b) sadly, every Xfce 'spin' I tried felt at least somewhat more polished than Fedora's out-of-the box presentation in one way or another...
I think we had some very good releases, like F14, that really impressed some Xfce developers. Unfortunately we could not hold up the high standard for 2 reasons: 1. GNOME and GTK 3 and it's fallout on us 2. We were too busy to care about Xfce.
There are definitely some bugs and annoyances in the F17 Xfce spin that we should have caught with better QA, but both Kevin and me were just too busy with our dayjobs.
Xubuntu: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/xubuntu_12_04.png
So - looks nice. Greybird is my favorite theme.
Greybird is a nice theme and Simon is a pretty good artist. He can completely focus on artwork. On the other hand we don't have a real artist in the Xfce SIG, at least nobody who is active.
There are two things I hate about Greybird though: 1. The dark menu and panels. Windows 7 started the trend and now everybody tries to mimic it. 2. The window decorations use the window content color and as this one is the same for all windows, it is hard to see which window actually has the focus. Only the window title is different. This is annoying, because a small popup can 'steal' the focus and it's not visible at a glance.
While the first is a matter of personal taste, the second is a usability issue.
The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
As the icons in the system tray are provided by the appications, we have no control over them. E.g. gnome-bluetooth hardcodes the icon name to the monochrome 'symbolic' theme and there is nothing we can do about it. blueman is IHMO no alternative as it tends to break with ever new release of NetworkManager.
Sabayon 9: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/sabayon_9.png [...] A 2 panel layout that could easily appeal to GNOME2 refugees, but still different from a GNOME2 layout.
If we change the layout, the one thing I don't want is a GNOME 2 lookalike panel. Xfce is a desktop of it's own and not a shelter for GNOME refugees.
openSUSE 12.2 (Beta): [...] The mixer applet on the panel (Gmixer) doesn't seem to be in our repos,
It was, but was removed because it is unmaintained and orphaned upstream.
but the icon for it looks nicer than the faded icon w/ the blue half-circles we have w/ the default Xfce mixer applet.
I very much like our icon, but that's just a personal preference.
And now, we all know the default Fedora 17 look: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_default.png Here I will point out mainly what I don't like: First, I don't like the borders around the clock and notification area...just looks unfinished to me.
IHMO this would need to be changed not only in the default panel layout but in the code itself, so new clock applets and notification areas don't have a border either. Otherwise it becomes inconsistent. I thought about this, but never had the time to look into the code. Patches welcome.
I also wish the Applications Menu icon were the Fedora logo.
Unfortunately we cannot do this. Fedora has a strict de-branding policy. All Fedora-specific icons must be in the fedora-logos package and by replacing it with generic-logos, you get back a completely unbranded system.
In Xfce 4.6 we just provided a svg graphic with the same name as the original one (xfce4_xicon1). Because GTK prefers svg over png this works, if the svg was removed, the panel would fall back to the original one. Other distributions don't care about this and hardcode their icon in the config.
I think the Adwaita theme works well (supports GTK3), but the Nodoka window decorations look dated.
Yes, this definitely is a bug, it's a leftover of the time when we had Nodoka also as GTK theme, but with GTK3 we had to change to Adwaita and by that time, we should have also changed the window decorations. I recently removed that patch in rawhide.
This next screenshot is how *I* would improve the look we have now, sticking with a same/similar layout: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png Changes? The Fedora logo for the Applications Menu, no borders around the clock and notification area, and the default Xfce window decoration.
IIRC we discussed all this already, but as I just explained, we cannot make these changes, at least not easily.
Before I took this screenshot, I also ugraded to 4.10, and added the 'Action Buttons' plugin to the panel.
I have been thinking about this, too, but the "action menu" as it was called in 4.8 was just completely broken. We should consider it for F18 though.
Next, I simply eliminate a *personal* pet peeve - the second, bigger panel that doesn't take up the entire width of the screen.
I agree it is a waste of space, but the alternative would be to hide it (this is what I am using). However this seems to confuse new users and as you said, you don't like hiding panels either.
It seems wasteful to me (especially with maximized windows). I also reduced the top panel to 24px.: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_b.png
Too small IHMO.
The next layout would appeal to GNOME 2 refugees: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_c.png
Please, no! Let Xfce be independent, even if GNOME 2 refugees seem to be a big target audience.
Next, is a layout similar to what openSUSE had: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png A single bottom panel, 24px.
I'm afraid this won't work on small screens. The main menu with menu title, the pager and the action buttons menu take too much space. Try this on a 14" screen and you'll see that there hardly is any space left for the task bar.
So...now that I've said all of that what do you think? Like I said, I was torn about jumping in as a new guy with suggestions, but I figured why not...the worst y'all could do is say 'go away, your bothering me'...so I did it.
I appreciate your input. It's good to see people do care about Xfce in Fedora and I even agree there are some things in the review you recently posted that are just bugs and we need to fix them. However it is not easy to incorporate the suggestions if we stick to the standards that Fedora has: * Don't change a file that belongs to a package in a spin. Changes need to go into the package itself. * Don't change stuff that is not yours. I know that Xubuntu did this in the past when they had a stripped down gnome-session package that was different from the one in Ubuntu. * Make sure everything can get unbranded.
Other thoughts I've had is, what other things do we do as a 'SIG'. I noticed an e-mail from Rex Dieter to fedora-devel speaking of a KDE SIG meeting - have we as a SIG ever had IRC meetings?
Yes, but only a few people attended and we decided to have meetings just on demand.
Would there be any value? Would anyone attend?
I am not sure if there is value. I think input is nice, but what we really need is people doing stuff. We had these discussions several times before, for example around F15 where we had a lot of GNOME refugees. We had proposals for themes and panel layouts, but it just didn't happen. Nobody provided patches or code.
I am willing to give it a new try, but we not only need to meet and talk but get things done.
Since I'm just now jumping in, has there been other recent discussion I've missed about plans for F18?
Not really. We should draft something in the Wiki I think, on the mailing list it can easily get lost.
I know Kevin has spoken of moving to LightDM,
LightDM already was planned for F17, but it was not ready by that time. It's still not really, but I think we'll make it for F18.
and has included Greybird as being installed by default in the spin for F18.
It is included in the spin, but it is not the default. Again, we would not just change the spin but change the package and the package still has Adwaita as you can see http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/gitweb/?p=xfce4-settings.git;a=blob;f=xfce4-se...
IHMO we should stick to Adwaita, it is less 'controversial' than Greybird and we should try to have a consistent look and feel across all GTK based desktops in Fedora, that is GNOME, Xfce and LXDE.
There is a new GTK2 theme called Bridge [1] that mimics Adwaita and AFAIK this will be merged into GNOME upstream. If we use this, we finally have GTK2 and GTK3 look the same again.
Kind regards, Christoph
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Jayson,
thanks for your elaborate mail. I wanted to get back to you already over the "Non-flattering review of Fedora XFCE", but this mail just became too long and I never finished it.
This time I'll only reply to some parts and skip the rest.
Am Mittwoch, den 27.06.2012, 23:44 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
a) many aspects of panel layout/themes are very much personal preference
---and---
b) sadly, every Xfce 'spin' I tried felt at least somewhat more polished than Fedora's out-of-the box presentation in one way or another...
I think we had some very good releases, like F14, that really impressed some Xfce developers. Unfortunately we could not hold up the high standard for 2 reasons: 1. GNOME and GTK 3 and it's fallout on us 2. We were too busy to care about Xfce.
There are definitely some bugs and annoyances in the F17 Xfce spin that we should have caught with better QA, but both Kevin and me were just too busy with our dayjobs.
Xubuntu: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/xubuntu_12_04.png
So - looks nice. Greybird is my favorite theme.
Greybird is a nice theme and Simon is a pretty good artist. He can completely focus on artwork. On the other hand we don't have a real artist in the Xfce SIG, at least nobody who is active.
There are two things I hate about Greybird though: 1. The dark menu and panels. Windows 7 started the trend and now everybody tries to mimic it. 2. The window decorations use the window content color and as this one is the same for all windows, it is hard to see which window actually has the focus. Only the window title is different. This is annoying, because a small popup can 'steal' the focus and it's not visible at a glance.
While the first is a matter of personal taste, the second is a usability issue.
The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
As the icons in the system tray are provided by the appications, we have no control over them. E.g. gnome-bluetooth hardcodes the icon name to the monochrome 'symbolic' theme and there is nothing we can do about it. blueman is IHMO no alternative as it tends to break with ever new release of NetworkManager.
Sabayon 9: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/sabayon_9.png [...] A 2 panel layout that could easily appeal to GNOME2 refugees, but still different from a GNOME2 layout.
If we change the layout, the one thing I don't want is a GNOME 2 lookalike panel. Xfce is a desktop of it's own and not a shelter for GNOME refugees.
openSUSE 12.2 (Beta): [...] The mixer applet on the panel (Gmixer) doesn't seem to be in our repos,
It was, but was removed because it is unmaintained and orphaned upstream.
but the icon for it looks nicer than the faded icon w/ the blue half-circles we have w/ the default Xfce mixer applet.
I very much like our icon, but that's just a personal preference.
And now, we all know the default Fedora 17 look: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_default.png Here I will point out mainly what I don't like: First, I don't like the borders around the clock and notification area...just looks unfinished to me.
IHMO this would need to be changed not only in the default panel layout but in the code itself, so new clock applets and notification areas don't have a border either. Otherwise it becomes inconsistent. I thought about this, but never had the time to look into the code. Patches welcome.
I also wish the Applications Menu icon were the Fedora logo.
Unfortunately we cannot do this. Fedora has a strict de-branding policy. All Fedora-specific icons must be in the fedora-logos package and by replacing it with generic-logos, you get back a completely unbranded system.
In Xfce 4.6 we just provided a svg graphic with the same name as the original one (xfce4_xicon1). Because GTK prefers svg over png this works, if the svg was removed, the panel would fall back to the original one. Other distributions don't care about this and hardcode their icon in the config.
I think the Adwaita theme works well (supports GTK3), but the Nodoka window decorations look dated.
Yes, this definitely is a bug, it's a leftover of the time when we had Nodoka also as GTK theme, but with GTK3 we had to change to Adwaita and by that time, we should have also changed the window decorations. I recently removed that patch in rawhide.
This next screenshot is how *I* would improve the look we have now, sticking with a same/similar layout: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png Changes? The Fedora logo for the Applications Menu, no borders around the clock and notification area, and the default Xfce window decoration.
IIRC we discussed all this already, but as I just explained, we cannot make these changes, at least not easily.
Before I took this screenshot, I also ugraded to 4.10, and added the 'Action Buttons' plugin to the panel.
I have been thinking about this, too, but the "action menu" as it was called in 4.8 was just completely broken. We should consider it for F18 though.
Next, I simply eliminate a *personal* pet peeve - the second, bigger panel that doesn't take up the entire width of the screen.
I agree it is a waste of space, but the alternative would be to hide it (this is what I am using). However this seems to confuse new users and as you said, you don't like hiding panels either.
It seems wasteful to me (especially with maximized windows). I also reduced the top panel to 24px.: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_b.png
Too small IHMO.
The next layout would appeal to GNOME 2 refugees: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_c.png
Please, no! Let Xfce be independent, even if GNOME 2 refugees seem to be a big target audience.
Next, is a layout similar to what openSUSE had: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png A single bottom panel, 24px.
I'm afraid this won't work on small screens. The main menu with menu title, the pager and the action buttons menu take too much space. Try this on a 14" screen and you'll see that there hardly is any space left for the task bar.
So...now that I've said all of that what do you think? Like I said, I was torn about jumping in as a new guy with suggestions, but I figured why not...the worst y'all could do is say 'go away, your bothering me'...so I did it.
I appreciate your input. It's good to see people do care about Xfce in Fedora and I even agree there are some things in the review you recently posted that are just bugs and we need to fix them. However it is not easy to incorporate the suggestions if we stick to the standards that Fedora has: * Don't change a file that belongs to a package in a spin. Changes need to go into the package itself. * Don't change stuff that is not yours. I know that Xubuntu did this in the past when they had a stripped down gnome-session package that was different from the one in Ubuntu. * Make sure everything can get unbranded.
Other thoughts I've had is, what other things do we do as a 'SIG'. I noticed an e-mail from Rex Dieter to fedora-devel speaking of a KDE SIG meeting - have we as a SIG ever had IRC meetings?
Yes, but only a few people attended and we decided to have meetings just on demand.
Would there be any value? Would anyone attend?
I am not sure if there is value. I think input is nice, but what we really need is people doing stuff. We had these discussions several times before, for example around F15 where we had a lot of GNOME refugees. We had proposals for themes and panel layouts, but it just didn't happen. Nobody provided patches or code.
I am willing to give it a new try, but we not only need to meet and talk but get things done.
Since I'm just now jumping in, has there been other recent discussion I've missed about plans for F18?
Not really. We should draft something in the Wiki I think, on the mailing list it can easily get lost.
I know Kevin has spoken of moving to LightDM,
LightDM already was planned for F17, but it was not ready by that time. It's still not really, but I think we'll make it for F18.
and has included Greybird as being installed by default in the spin for F18.
It is included in the spin, but it is not the default. Again, we would not just change the spin but change the package and the package still has Adwaita as you can see http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/gitweb/?p=xfce4-settings.git;a=blob;f=xfce4-se...
IHMO we should stick to Adwaita, it is less 'controversial' than Greybird and we should try to have a consistent look and feel across all GTK based desktops in Fedora, that is GNOME, Xfce and LXDE.
There is a new GTK2 theme called Bridge [1] that mimics Adwaita and AFAIK this will be merged into GNOME upstream. If we use this, we finally have GTK2 and GTK3 look the same again.
Kind regards, Christoph
[1] http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=151057
xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Thanks for getting back to me Christoph, these are exactly the types of answers/explanations I was looking for.
Yes I do care about Xfce in Fedora. If there is anything I can do/learn to help make things better, I'm all ears. As for Greybird, I wasn't trying to suggest it as default, in fact, I'm still torn on it myself for day to day use - the Window controls for me, like you said the Window decorations are a usability issue, and border on 'bug' with me. I have grown to quite like the decoration listed as 'default' in the in the appearance settings. It's nice, clean and simple and looks nice with Adwaita.
I also didn't realize that about the Fedora logo on the application menu.
Thanks again for your feedback, and I'm here to help in any way I can.
One thing I just noticed - with the 'Fedora', 'GNOME' or 'Rodent' icon theme, there is no icon showing for 'Suspend' in the Action Buttons plugin. Does anyone know what the default upstream Icon theme is ( I was guessing Rodent)? I'm guessing that is a bug that should be filed upstream perhaps?
On 06/29/2012 02:31 PM, Jayson Rowe wrote:
One thing I just noticed - with the 'Fedora', 'GNOME' or 'Rodent' icon theme, there is no icon showing for 'Suspend' in the Action Buttons plugin. Does anyone know what the default upstream Icon theme is ( I was guessing Rodent)? I'm guessing that is a bug that should be filed upstream perhaps? _______________________________________________ xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
I think it has been dealt with. But IDK if the icon was changed or if it's some icon missing in the GNOME icon theme.
There's no default upstream icon theme. If you look at the code for that plugin (xfce4-panel, I think) you find out which icon it uses. Try googling that as this issue has come up before when 4.10 was released.
Am Freitag, den 29.06.2012, 13:31 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
One thing I just noticed - with the 'Fedora', 'GNOME' or 'Rodent' icon theme, there is no icon showing for 'Suspend' in the Action Buttons plugin. Does anyone know what the default upstream Icon theme is ( I was guessing Rodent)? I'm guessing that is a bug that should be filed upstream perhaps?
There already is a bug open for this[1]. The problem is: We cannot just let xfce4-panel provide the icon because the name 'system-suspend' is too generic and probably will create a conflict with any icon theme that includes the icon.
On the other hand, icon themes will only include the icon when it is part of the xdg icon naming specification [2]. Changing this may take a while.
In the meantime, we IHMO should just look how the icon is named in GNOME and patch the affected Xfce components. Together with the Fedora icon theme we then have at least the default theme complete.
Kind regards, Christoph
[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=817349 [2] http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.ht...
On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert@gmail.com wrote:
Am Freitag, den 29.06.2012, 13:31 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
One thing I just noticed - with the 'Fedora', 'GNOME' or 'Rodent' icon theme, there is no icon showing for 'Suspend' in the Action Buttons plugin. Does anyone know what the default upstream Icon theme is ( I was guessing Rodent)? I'm guessing that is a bug that should be filed upstream perhaps?
There already is a bug open for this[1]. The problem is: We cannot just let xfce4-panel provide the icon because the name 'system-suspend' is too generic and probably will create a conflict with any icon theme that includes the icon.
On the other hand, icon themes will only include the icon when it is part of the xdg icon naming specification [2]. Changing this may take a while.
In the meantime, we IHMO should just look how the icon is named in GNOME and patch the affected Xfce components. Together with the Fedora icon theme we then have at least the default theme complete.
Kind regards, Christoph
[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=817349 [2] http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.ht...
xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Just found that there is also a bug upstream: https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8760
On 07/02/2012 01:38 PM, Christoph Wickert wrote:
In the meantime, we IHMO should just look how the icon is named in GNOME and patch the affected Xfce components. Together with the Fedora icon theme we then have at least the default theme complete.
xfce4-session already installs /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/xfsm-suspend.png (for the logout dialogue). Maybe use it?
I wrote on the forum back when I first proved 4.10: "The 'Action Buttons' panel plugin doesn't show any icon for the 'Suspend' action. This using the GNOME icon theme. It seems the plugin wants a 'system-suspend' icon but maybe it should just use 'xfsm-suspend' that xfce-session installs (also an icon theme that HAS system-suspend, Faenza, also has it with the name xfsm-suspend)."
I just want to thank everyone for the discussion on this thread, and Christoph especially for being so nice to a newcomer. It's awesome to see so many people care about Xfce in Fedora!
Some general thoughts - I came into this as a distro-switcher. Coming back to Fedora after a years long hiatus. I actually feel silly now with some of the theme/layout stuff I brought up. Really, there isn't anything wrong w/ the defaults as we have it now, I think it was just me getting used to it... I've even turned back on the borders on the clock and notification area. ;-) I'm really not a tweaker - I like to keep my systems as close to default as possible.
Like Christoph said, the biggest help would be in QA, and ensuring we don't have any bugs for F18, obviously. Since I'm new to Fedora, is it a good idea, or would it help to run Rawhide on one of my machines? I have both a Laptop, Desktop and/or VM's I could use. One of my physical machines would get more real use than a VM though.
If Rawhide is a good (okay) idea, what is the best way to get a F17 system to Rawhide. The documentation on the Wiki confused me, honestly. I would only run it on machines where I could afford downtime, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
Am Freitag, den 29.06.2012, 11:39 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
Thanks for getting back to me Christoph, these are exactly the types of answers/explanations I was looking for.
You are welcome, Jayson.
Yes I do care about Xfce in Fedora. If there is anything I can do/learn to help make things better, I'm all ears. As for Greybird, I wasn't trying to suggest it as default, in fact, I'm still torn on it myself for day to day use - the Window controls for me, like you said the Window decorations are a usability issue, and border on 'bug' with me.
Yeah, borderless windows look cool, but resizing is cumbersome.
I have grown to quite like the decoration listed as 'default' in the in the appearance settings. It's nice, clean and simple and looks nice with Adwaita.
Yes, we are already using the default XFWM theme in rawhide, so it will be in rawhide. We can still change it if we find something better.
I also didn't realize that about the Fedora logo on the application menu.
Meanwhile I found a solution for this, but it doesn't work for all themes.
GTK's icon look-up algorithm goes along the lines of: 1. look if there is an icon by that name in /usr/share/icons/<currently-selected-theme> 2. if not, look in /usr/share/icons/hicolor. As hicolor is always searched, installing icons here makes them show up in all themes. 3. as last resort, look in /usr/share/pixmaps.
In Xfce 4.6, the panel menu icon was in /usr/share/pixmaps. This was easy for us to overwrite it through our own icon in /usr/share/icons/hicolor, but as /usr/share/pixmaps only holds one size of each icon, scaling it for different panel sizes was bad. If the difference between the original icon and the requested size became to big, the icon looked blurry
That's why Xfce has switched to different sizes of their icon and to hicolor - just like it should be. The downside is that it's harder for us to overwrite. If we want the Fedora logo in a particular theme, we need to install it (or a symlink) in that theme. I have fixed the fedora-logos package, to include an icon Xfce, but currently, this will only be shown in some themes (Fedora and Bluecurve)
As an alternative, we could move Xfce's icon out of the way, say to the Rodent theme only and install our icon to hicolor then. This will get everybody the Fedora logo unless he selects the Rodent. But it's harder to package. We need to make sure that at least one icon is always provided, this means we not only need to add our icon to the fedora-logos package but also Xfce's icon to generic-logos.
I will look into that, but first I need to look into fixing the fedora-icon-theme as it has some issues with scaling, too that make the icons look blurry. For now, we go with the Fedora logo in a few selected themes only. Does this work for you?
Thanks again for your feedback, and I'm here to help in any way I can.
One thing you definitely can help us with is QA. In Fedora 14 and 15 we had a good QA process and a lot of testers. We have a tracking bug that was blocked by all other bugs we wanted to fix for that release. I didn't have the time to do that for F16 and F17, and that's how we missed a few bugs.
Let's make it better with Xfce 4.10 in Fedora 18!
Kind regards, Christoph
On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 7:15 PM, Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> Meanwhile I found a solution for this, but it doesn't work for all themes.
GTK's icon look-up algorithm goes along the lines of: 1. look if there is an icon by that name in /usr/share/icons/<currently-selected-theme> 2. if not, look in /usr/share/icons/hicolor. As hicolor is always searched, installing icons here makes them show up in all themes. 3. as last resort, look in /usr/share/pixmaps.
In Xfce 4.6, the panel menu icon was in /usr/share/pixmaps. This was easy for us to overwrite it through our own icon in /usr/share/icons/hicolor, but as /usr/share/pixmaps only holds one size of each icon, scaling it for different panel sizes was bad. If the difference between the original icon and the requested size became to big, the icon looked blurry
That's why Xfce has switched to different sizes of their icon and to hicolor - just like it should be. The downside is that it's harder for us to overwrite. If we want the Fedora logo in a particular theme, we need to install it (or a symlink) in that theme. I have fixed the fedora-logos package, to include an icon Xfce, but currently, this will only be shown in some themes (Fedora and Bluecurve)
As an alternative, we could move Xfce's icon out of the way, say to the Rodent theme only and install our icon to hicolor then. This will get everybody the Fedora logo unless he selects the Rodent. But it's harder to package. We need to make sure that at least one icon is always provided, this means we not only need to add our icon to the fedora-logos package but also Xfce's icon to generic-logos.
I will look into that, but first I need to look into fixing the fedora-icon-theme as it has some issues with scaling, too that make the icons look blurry. For now, we go with the Fedora logo in a few selected themes only. Does this work for you?
I think that is awesome. IIRC, in the GNOME (2) versions of Fedora, only the "Fedora" icon theme gave the Fedora 'start-here' logo, any other icon package (such as Mist, Tango, etc) would give the default GNOME foot, so this seems like a similar solution for Xfce.
Thanks again for your feedback, and I'm here to help in any way I can.
One thing you definitely can help us with is QA. In Fedora 14 and 15 we had a good QA process and a lot of testers. We have a tracking bug that was blocked by all other bugs we wanted to fix for that release. I didn't have the time to do that for F16 and F17, and that's how we missed a few bugs.
Let's make it better with Xfce 4.10 in Fedora 18!
Kind regards, Christoph
Absolutely! I'm eager to help. I'm using Xfce 4.10 on all of my machines (via Kevin's repo), and I've also switched all but one of my machines from GDM to LightDM (via updates-testing). The one I haven't switched is a SFF Atom Mini-ITX machine that 'thinks' it has a laptop display in addition to the attached monitor. Although disabled within display preferences once Xfce is loaded, the login manager thinks it's there. In GDM, I get a blank screen, but I can move my mouse cursor to the right until it's visible and hit enter, and the login box will re-apper. In LightDM, I can't figure out how to force it to my visible screen...but I'll work on that, and research some more.
I'm debating moving one of my machines (probably that same SFF machine) to Rawhide, but since I was unsuccessful in getting a Rawhide VM built last night, I put that thought on hold :)
Thanks again for your comments and insight.
Jayson
Sorry about the link which seems broken now. I'll compress the ones I'm using and send it.
Here they are: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/64670113/themes.tar.bz2 You'll notice that I edited MediterraneanNight (which I use) to have rounded tool-tips. MediterraneanLight has the default square ones so you can change which type to use by changing gtk-2.0/gtkrc and gtk-3.0/gtk-widgets.css (search for 'tooltips' on both files).
Howdy. Is this part "* Don't change stuff that is not yours. I know that Xubuntu did this in the past when they had a stripped down gnome-session package that was different from the one in Ubuntu." that prevents using fedora-logo-icon in place of xfce-panel-menu icon (or 'computer' in lightdm, for that matter)?
And 'off-topic', here's an improved Mediterranean* theme the author sent me a while back after I asked him to make the selected items visible: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80497678/MediterraneanNight_v1.11Beta.tar.gz
Am Samstag, den 30.06.2012, 20:38 -0300 schrieb Sergio:
Howdy. Is this part "* Don't change stuff that is not yours. I know that Xubuntu did this in the past when they had a stripped down gnome-session package that was different from the one in Ubuntu." that prevents using fedora-logo-icon in place of xfce-panel-menu icon
Yes, that was the problem, but after looking into this a little deepeer, I found a way to at least provide the Fedora logo in some themes (e.g. the Fedora one, which counts as 'ours' so we change it. See my other mail at this for details.
Please don't get me wrong, I think my initial statement sounded too strict. Basically we can change anything - as long as we have a seamless, reasonable fallback. That means we must not change something.
(or 'computer' in lightdm, for that matter)?
Yes, this is one of the plaecs where we cannot easily replace the logo, because it's hard to provide an automatic fallback. I mean, we *could* change the GTK theme that the greeter uses and then install the Fedora logo as 'computer' in that theme, but I'm afraid we'll screw a lot of other icons up then.
Need to investigate that, but for now I am happy it's a generic icon such as 'computer'. When I started packaging LightDM, the icon name was hardcoded as 'ubuntu.png' in the source code. Yes, really.
Beste regards, Christoph
I updated the link to the improved MediterraneanNight theme and added two xfce-notify themes.
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Sergio secipolla@gmail.com wrote:
I updated the link to the improved MediterraneanNight theme and added two xfce-notify themes.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/64670113/themes.tar.bz2 _______________________________________________ xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Hi Sergio, That's a pretty nice looking theme. I checked it out a while back when you mentioned it. I like the fact that the panels are 'dark', but not 'too dark'. It looks nice w/ the Faenza (Dark) icon theme. I also came across a xfwm theme [1] as well that you may have seen.
Have you thought of packaging this up? Do you have contact with the developer?
Just a thought.
[1]: http://xfce-look.org/content/show.php/MediterraneanNight-xfwm?content=150830
On 07/13/2012 02:20 PM, Jayson Rowe wrote:
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Sergio secipolla@gmail.com wrote:
I updated the link to the improved MediterraneanNight theme and added two xfce-notify themes.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/64670113/themes.tar.bz2 _______________________________________________ xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Hi Sergio, That's a pretty nice looking theme. I checked it out a while back when you mentioned it. I like the fact that the panels are 'dark', but not 'too dark'. It looks nice w/ the Faenza (Dark) icon theme. I also came across a xfwm theme [1] as well that you may have seen.
Have you thought of packaging this up? Do you have contact with the developer?
Just a thought.
He sent me it after I told him that selections weren't showing up (so one couldn't work with the keyboard). So he fixed this and sent the theme and said it was like almost 90% complete.
I messaged him from within gnome-look.org (all *-look.org sites share the same account).
The theme is very complete so he must have worked a lot on it and maybe just needed a break. Then if he never updates it we may contact him.
The difference I notice in this version to the one at gnome-look.org are the selections showing up and it's less shiny. Of course there may have other things as well but that's what I noticed most.
Hi,
I am currently far away from Fedora and the Xfce spin. Though, I would also like to say something to the topic theming of Xfce.
Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert at gmail.com Sat Jun 30 23:15:43 UTC 2012
Am Freitag, den 29.06.2012, 11:39 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
{…}
Yeah, borderless windows look cool, but resizing is cumbersome.
The border could be only one pixel, so the mouse pointer recognizes it.
I have grown to quite like the decoration listed as 'default' in the in the appearance settings. It's nice, clean and simple and looks nice with Adwaita.
Yes, we are already using the default XFWM theme in rawhide, so it will be in rawhide. We can still change it if we find something better.
Personally, I like to use the theme QtCurve in Xfce. It would have the advantage that additional/potentially installed Qt applications will fit with a similiar look&feel.
Mageia [*] has that theme only for Gtk2. Dunno what's provided in Fedora repos currently. There's a port [0] to Gtk3 available, as it seems.
I also didn't realize that about the Fedora logo on the application menu.
Meanwhile I found a solution for this, but it doesn't work for all themes.
{…}
I don't want to say something to the logos and rebranding, in general. This topic is a hot struggle all the time. Because I am not interested in the details of RedHat's licence model, they would have reasons for their decisions just like every company with a valid business model. At least, please don't start a disaster like it happened to Debian vs. Mozilla [1] with Iceweasel / Icedove / etc., or finally then GNU IceCat.
One thing you definitely can help us with is QA. In Fedora 14 and 15 we had a good QA process and a lot of testers. We have a tracking bug that was blocked by all other bugs we wanted to fix for that release. I didn't have the time to do that for F16 and F17, and that's how we missed a few bugs.
As well, I don't want to point out something about the quality of Fedora seems to have went down in the recent releases. It's out of scope here for this topic. Definitely, it's not due to Xfce.
Let's make it better with Xfce 4.10 in Fedora 18!
Kind regards, Christoph
Yeah, I am looking forward to it. Keep the good work going on! Thanks. Raphael
[0] https://code.launchpad.net/~risoftwi/qtcurve-gtk3/qtcurve-gtk3 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat [*] (Shame on me, yes. I am testing Cauldron, # urpmi task-xfce )
And just to reaffirm my view on this. I really think this theming thing is unimportant (or almost). IMO, if we have a minimum familiarity with Linux we will look for a distro's usability (how it works and can be maintained), ease/features of installing, no clutter (specially in 'lighter' spins). And of course the live session must work well to give the right impression.
On 01/07/12 14:35, Sergio wrote:
And just to reaffirm my view on this. I really think this theming thing is unimportant (or almost).
+1
IMO, if we have a minimum familiarity with Linux we will look for a distro's usability (how it works and can be maintained), ease/features of installing, no clutter (specially in 'lighter' spins).
less is more.
Am Sonntag, den 01.07.2012, 14:39 +0000 schrieb Raphael Groner:
Hi,
I am currently far away from Fedora and the Xfce spin. Though, I would also like to say something to the topic theming of Xfce.
Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert at gmail.com Sat Jun 30 23:15:43 UTC 2012
Am Freitag, den 29.06.2012, 11:39 -0400 schrieb Jayson Rowe:
{…}
Yeah, borderless windows look cool, but resizing is cumbersome.
The border could be only one pixel, so the mouse pointer recognizes it.
One can also make an invisible border by using the same color as the window content, but the problem becomes to hit the right spot. Hitting a single pixel is not easy.
I have grown to quite like the decoration listed as 'default' in the in the appearance settings. It's nice, clean and simple and looks nice with Adwaita.
Yes, we are already using the default XFWM theme in rawhide, so it will be in rawhide. We can still change it if we find something better.
Personally, I like to use the theme QtCurve in Xfce. It would have the advantage that additional/potentially installed Qt applications will fit with a similiar look&feel.
The QtCurve theme causes a lot of crashes and if you want qt anf GTK apps to look the same, you better set the qt style to "GTK+" which is included in qt already. This is easier installing an additional theme and changing both GTk2 and GTK3.
Mageia [*] has that theme only for Gtk2. Dunno what's provided in Fedora repos currently. There's a port [0] to Gtk3 available, as it seems.
I also didn't realize that about the Fedora logo on the application menu.
Meanwhile I found a solution for this, but it doesn't work for all themes.
{…}
I don't want to say something to the logos and rebranding, in general.
Then don't it. Just don't. Simple, isn't it? ;)
This topic is a hot struggle all the time. Because I am not interested in the details of RedHat's licence model, they would have reasons for their decisions just like every company with a valid business model. At least, please don't start a disaster like it happened to Debian vs. Mozilla [1] with Iceweasel / Icedove / etc., or finally then GNU IceCat.
This is a completely different thing. Debian only ships Free software that can not only be redistributed but also modified. Mozilla on the other hand wants to protect their trademarks, so they forbid modifications of their logos.
As Fedora we are allowed to use the Fedora logo and nobody wants to modify it. We are fine - as long as our packages can easily changed back to the original look and feel.
One thing you definitely can help us with is QA. In Fedora 14 and 15 we had a good QA process and a lot of testers. We have a tracking bug that was blocked by all other bugs we wanted to fix for that release. I didn't have the time to do that for F16 and F17, and that's how we missed a few bugs.
As well, I don't want to point out something about the quality of Fedora seems to have went down in the recent releases. It's out of scope here for this topic. Definitely, it's not due to Xfce.
If you don't want to talk about the Quality of Fedora, why do you do it? ;)
And if start doing it, why don't state facts instead of vague accusations? So if you hit a bug, please clearly describe the symptoms and file a bug report in bugzilla.
AFAICS Fedora 17 is one of the most stable releases ever. I am running it since it was alpha and did not experience *any* problems (except some kernel issues that affect all releases). Just compare the list of known Fedora 17 bugs [1] to the F15 or F16 ones [2 + 3].
Kind regards, Christoph
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F17_bugs [2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F15_bugs [3] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F16_bugs
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 9:10 AM, Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert@gmail.com wrote:>
The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
As the icons in the system tray are provided by the appications, we have no control over them. E.g. gnome-bluetooth hardcodes the icon name to the monochrome 'symbolic' theme and there is nothing we can do about it. blueman is IHMO no alternative as it tends to break with ever new release of NetworkManager.
Hi Christoph,
I see what you mean about gnome-bluetooth hardcoding g_themed_icon_new_with_default_fallbacks (ACTIVE_ICON_NAME"-symbolic"). So is this a bug that can be fixed (upstream)?
- Ken
Am Freitag, den 29.06.2012, 16:43 -0600 schrieb Ken Dreyer:
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 9:10 AM, Christoph Wickert christoph.wickert@gmail.com wrote:>
The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
As the icons in the system tray are provided by the appications, we have no control over them. E.g. gnome-bluetooth hardcodes the icon name to the monochrome 'symbolic' theme and there is nothing we can do about it.
I see what you mean about gnome-bluetooth hardcoding g_themed_icon_new_with_default_fallbacks (ACTIVE_ICON_NAME"-symbolic"). So is this a bug that can be fixed (upstream)?
I'm not sure if it makes sense, I'm afraid they won't give a fsck.
IHMO no icon should have -symbolic in it's name but only use names that conform to the freedesktop.org icon naming spec. IN order to still get the monochrome icons, one would just * create a gnome-icon-theme-symblic theme * rename the *-symbolic icons and put them into this theme * let it inherit gnome-icon-theme over it's index.theme.
GTK would prefer then monochrome icons over regular ones with the same name. This will not only bring compatibility with other icon themes but also give user a chance to use the regular or monochrome icons in GNOME.
Feel free to file a bug and suggest this approach, but don't expect too much. FWIW GNOME developers only care about interoperability if it benefits them. If not, or if they have to change something, they don't care about freedesktop guidelines any longer - even if they were the ones who wrote them.
Kind regards, Christoph
On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 9:44 PM, Jayson Rowe jayson.rowe@gmail.com wrote:
What's up everybody.
I've debated this mail for a while - I'm the 'new kid' around these parts, but in a short time I've developed quite a passion around Fedora, and especially the Xfce spin. I've put some thought and research into this, so thanks for humoring me and reading.
As great as our spin is, I know it can be better. In reality anything can be better - there should be a constant evolution of improvements. I know as Xfce users, we are a smaller niche group from what would use the default Desktop spin, or perhaps even the KDE spin. It is true, however that Xfce is experiencing a spike in popularity lately.
Now, although I've only recently finally made the full switch back to Fedora (I used RHL and Fedora through Core2 before switching) I only regret not coming back sooner.
Now to the point at hand, how can we make Fedora's Xfce spin first-class. I guess first, we have to define what *is* first class. I loaded up different distros with Xfce in VM's and poked around, just to see how they looked and felt, and my only real impressions were:
a) many aspects of panel layout/themes are very much personal preference
---and---
b) sadly, every Xfce 'spin' I tried felt at least somewhat more polished than Fedora's out-of-the box presentation in one way or another...
There are tons of screenshots on the web, but here are mine from my VMs (with my thoughts for each).
Xubuntu: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/xubuntu_12_04.png
So - looks nice. Greybird is my favorite theme. The wallpaper has been the same for at least 2, maybe 3 releases (I think, Charlie Kraviez can correct me on this I'm sure as he was one the Xubuntu Project Leader). I never liked the 'auto-hide' dock...in fact, I generally hate the 'extra' Xfce panel anyway. The Icons look nice, all of the icons in the system tray match, everything looks smooth, integrated and blends together.
Sabayon 9: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/sabayon_9.png Although not really a 'mainstream' distro, I really only loaded it up out of curiosity to see what they had done w/ Xfce since most of the reviews and stuff online focus on the GNOME and KDE spins of this distro. I actually kinda like what they did. A 2 panel layout that could easily appeal to GNOME2 refugees, but still different from a GNOME2 layout. Again, nice icons, although everything doesn't match as nicely as in Xubuntu, still looks pretty polished. The default theme is nice (looks to be custom to the distro, perhaps) and the use the default Xfce window decorations.
openSUSE 12.2 (Beta): In terms of competition for similar user-bases, I would think of openSUSE and Fedora to have the two most similar potential user bases. I like the single panel layout, although the icons seems stock Xfce, they look nicely integrated. The mixer applet on the panel (Gmixer) doesn't seem to be in our repos, but the icon for it looks nicer than the faded icon w/ the blue half-circles we have w/ the default Xfce mixer applet. They are using Adwaita for a GTK theme, and a custom window decoration (that seems closely based on the default Xfce decorations).
Linux Mint Debian Edition:
http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/linux_mint_debian_... I find the GTK theme a little too 'white' (along w/ the default wallpaper), but both the theme and window decorations seem to be modified versions of Greybird. Green (aka Mint) icons, but all of the icons match, look nicely integrated, and the system tray icons match, except for using the same mixer icon we use.\
And now, we all know the default Fedora 17 look: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_default.png Here I will point out mainly what I don't like: First, I don't like the borders around the clock and notification area...just looks unfinished to me. I also wish the Applications Menu icon were the Fedora logo. I think the Adwaita theme works well (supports GTK3), but the Nodoka window decorations look dated. I hate the mixer icon, but like the rest of the 'Fedora' icon set.
This next screenshot is how *I* would improve the look we have now, sticking with a same/similar layout: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_a.png Changes? The Fedora logo for the Applications Menu, no borders around the clock and notification area, and the default Xfce window decoration. Before I took this screenshot, I also ugraded to 4.10, and added the 'Action Buttons' plugin to the panel.
Next, I simply eliminate a *personal* pet peeve - the second, bigger panel that doesn't take up the entire width of the screen. It seems wasteful to me (especially with maximized windows). I also reduced the top panel to 24px.: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_b.png
The next layout would appeal to GNOME 2 refugees: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_c.png A second (24px) panel is added back, and a places applet displaying label only is added to the top panel. Reduced the text of the App menu button to just display 'Applications'. This layout looks very much like GNOME2 (to me anyway).
Next, is a layout similar to what openSUSE had: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_d.png A single bottom panel, 24px.
Finally, is basically what I'm using: http://jaysonr.fedorapeople.org/pictures/xfce_screenshots/f17_alt_e.png It's the same as the last layout, but using Greybird and the Elementary icon theme. For my personal use, I'm still a little torn between this and Adwaita, however I think the Elementary icon theme looks SO much nicer, even that ugly mixer icon is fixed ;-) It just looks more polished and integrated. I know everyone doesn't like the darker grey panel look/menus etc...
So...now that I've said all of that what do you think? Like I said, I was torn about jumping in as a new guy with suggestions, but I figured why not...the worst y'all could do is say 'go away, your bothering me'...so I did it. Other thoughts I've had is, what other things do we do as a 'SIG'. I noticed an e-mail from Rex Dieter to fedora-devel speaking of a KDE SIG meeting - have we as a SIG ever had IRC meetings? Would there be any value? Would anyone attend? Since I'm just now jumping in, has there been other recent discussion I've missed about plans for F18? I know Kevin has spoken of moving to LightDM, and has included Greybird as being installed by default in the spin for F18.
I'm not looking to ruffle feathers, just get discussion going and make Fedora 18's Xfce spin even more awesome.
Thanks for reading! Jayson -- -jayson _______________________________________________ xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
I have stayed away from this intentionally. Xubuntu kept the same wallpaper for two releases. Traditionally, the wallpaper has been changed for each release, to give users something to look forward to.
Unfortunately, contrast in Xubuntu themes has almost disappeared. Greybird was a good theme. Also, with Xubuntu 12.04, they decided the terminal needs to be low contrast. These contrast changes make Xubuntu unusable by many. I would hope Fedora will not follow that low/no contrast change.
I have vision issues. I can not see low contrast displays. I also need large fonts. After six years with Xubuntu, I simply found I wanted a change. I will experiment with different distributions until I find one that works well for me again.
On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 5:36 PM, Charlie Kravetz charlie.kravetz@gmail.com wrote:
I have stayed away from this intentionally. Xubuntu kept the same wallpaper for two releases. Traditionally, the wallpaper has been changed for each release, to give users something to look forward to.
Unfortunately, contrast in Xubuntu themes has almost disappeared. Greybird was a good theme. Also, with Xubuntu 12.04, they decided the terminal needs to be low contrast. These contrast changes make Xubuntu unusable by many. I would hope Fedora will not follow that low/no contrast change.
I have vision issues. I can not see low contrast displays. I also need large fonts. After six years with Xubuntu, I simply found I wanted a change. I will experiment with different distributions until I find one that works well for me again.
-- Charlie Kravetz Registered Linux User # 425914 ref link http://counter.li.org/ charlie.kravetz@gmail.com Don't let anyone steal your dream!
xfce mailing list xfce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
Thank you for replying Charlie, and I agree with you on all counts. The terminal looks horrible in Xu12.04, and I _don't_ have vision problems. Also, after 'living' with Greybird, it also presented several usability issues for me, such as being able to tell which window was active as Christoph also mentioned earlier in the thread), and being able to grab the resize handles on windows.
I really wasn't suggesting a theme change anywhere, just including screenshots to show how different distro's setup Xfce. I *did* think there were some areas that could be more polished, but Christoph answered most of my questions around those things also.
I really hope Fedora continues to work well for you, because I *know* you will be an asset to this SIG.
I *do* think that Fedora can be a real showpiece for Xfce (just like it is for GNOME). It's very, *very* close right now.
-
Charlie Kravetz -
Christoph Wickert -
Frank Murphy -
Jayson Rowe -
Johannes Lips -
Ken Dreyer -
Miro Hrončok -
Raphael Groner -
Sergio Cipolla