[Design-team] Fedora 12 Design Schedule

[William Jon McCann]

Hey,

Máirín - I'm not sure I understand why you react this way to input
from the people designing the desktop.

2009/7/14 Máirín Duffy <mairin at linuxgrrl.com>:
> On Tue, 2009-07-14 at 12:53 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote:
>> Hey,
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 4:33 PM, John Poelstra<poelstra at redhat.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> > For ease of reference here is the list:
>> > Fullscreen splash for syslinux
>> > Fullscreen grub splash
>> > Square splash for anaconda and firstboot
>> > Anaconda horizontal header
>> > Firstboot vertical header
>> > Package Splash Screens
>>
>> For the desktop spin I don't think we want to continue making new
>> versions of these each release.  Especially now that we have a
>> plymouth screen that isn't rethemed every release I think we can just
>> make one and reuse it from now on.  Or maybe we don't need some of
>> these at all.
>
> The plymouth / startup splash is not mentioned in the above quoted list.

I think you misunderstood me.

> We need a syslinux and a grub splash. The syslinux splash is the first
> thing a user sees when they pop a live CD or usb key in their system.
> When this looks very nice, it helps us give a good first impression,
> quite frequently to first-time Fedora users as many try Fedora out from
> live media first. The grub splash shows up I think in particular
> scenarios - we had talked about removing it entirely for F11 but found
> out there are some cases where it pops up and something is needed. I am
> sorry that I cannot remember them off the top of my head but you might
> find them in the list archives around the F10 beta freeze.

This doesn't seem like a reason to theme them differently for each
release to me.

> We could just make generic headers for anaconda and firstboot, but then
> it becomes more difficult to know what you're actually installing while
> you're installing it. I think it's good for the different versions to be
> distinctive because then you have a better idea of what it is you are
> looking at. We do not mind making these splashes every release. Also, to
> be clear, what I'm talking about is the vertical banner in first boot
> and the horizontal top banner in anaconda.The 'fedora' splash used in
> both anaconda and firstboot has been the same since F8 though. It just
> has the Fedora logo and packages.

This seems like a very weak reason.  The internal code name is not
even the name of the release and will very unlikely have any
connection for the user.  If we are relying on the banner image to
identify the release we're doing it wrong I think.  In part because
the image won't scale properly by display size.  Text is much more
useful for indentifying the release version.

>> > kdm login screen theme
>>
>> We don't need this for the desktop spin.
>
> This schedule is for the design team, not for the desktop spin. The KDE
> spin does need this splash, so we help produce it for them. We work on
> designs for all of Fedora, all spins including KDE and Electronics Lab
> and EDU, as well as the main website and various web applications.

I'm commenting from the Desktop design perspective here.

>> > gnome splash screen
>> > kde splash screen
>> > gnome screensaver lock dialog
>>
>> Not used in the desktop spin.
>
> These are prioritized extremely low. We usually don't do these until the
> last minute when we get complains about them missing - and whether or
> not they get done is up to the time/interest of the designers around at
> the time. There are in fact many users who go into gconf and turn on the
> GNOME splash screen. I really don't understand why, but the graphic is
> easy enough to do for them.
>>
>> > Start Alpha Freeze
>> > Software String Freeze
>> > Create Alpha Website Banner
>> > Alpha Release Readiness Meeting
>> > Alpha Public Availability
>>
>> Not relevant to the desktop spin.
>
> These are important to the design team, which is why they are on the
> design team schedule.
>>
>> I still think, for now, it makes sense to create a new desktop
>> background for each release.  But it would be great if we can
>> implement Window 7 style slideshows as well.  Also, I'm still very
>> skeptical about the value of relying on the internal code name for the
>> release to determine the visual design of the wallpaper.
>
> It would definitely be nice if a user could say choose their Pictures
> folder or a subfolder of their pictures folder and choose to make a
> slideshow of that. That would be a great feature. Unfortunately we are
> mostly just artists and not able to implement such a feature. If it's
> something you're interested in writing, can we help with mockups and
> such?
>
> Let us worry about whether or not the release's public codename is a
> good basis for the wallpaper design. We are trying it to see if it
> works. It certainly led to nice artwork for F10, whether or not the way
> there was more or less rocky than we intended.

Who is "us"?  It certainly is important to me because I'm trying to
design the desktop experience.  As I'm sure you know, slapping visual
design on something at the end is not exactly optimal.  I'm hoping
that the Fedora art and design team will help as we lead the desktop
spin in a more holistically designed direction.

Thanks,
Jon