[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
You weren't totally on point but you shed some very needed light. I thought that it was easier and more secure to use the internal page, but you're saying it's actually not. In any case, it's not a problem because the latest trunk build remembers the last theme you had installed. I guess it shouldn't be too hard then to pass that info onto the gallery page and keep everything online. On Aug 12, 1:41 am, PhistucK phist...@gmail.com wrote: I have not read through the entire message, so forgive me if I am saying something unrelated and that was already answered here -It seems like there might be security issues with loading web resources in the internal pages, since internal pages seem to have a lot of power and privileges and the web is posed here as unsafe and must be sandboxed through the whole way (which is correct, of course). Combining the two may lead to unfortunate consequences. For the same reason, the Tips Recommendations was pulled out. There is a command line switch called --enable-web-resources and, probably, just like the remote fonts feature (which is preventing Chrome from fully passing the ACID3 test, as far as I recall), that is behind a command line switch due to yet to be resolved security concerns. ☆PhistucK On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 07:08, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: I'm all in favor of Chromium using web interfaces instead of local code. As I've said before in a thread on Chromium-Discuss, if Google is creating a browser to maximize the potential of the web, and encourage web developers to make more complex applications, then the said Google browser should be leading the charge by embracing the web as a platform. If you're going to invest so much in V8 to make AJAX faster, why not use AJAX and an online interface to do many things for the browser itself? I'm in favor of seeing Bookmarks and Themes presented in Web-app format, running powerful Javascript on par with Gmail or Google Docs, with effects as stunning as some of the ChromeExperiements. In other words, show off what the browser can do, as well as promote the use of the web as a platform. However, the reason I'm a little skeptical is that I'm afraid Google may come under fire. How will the Theme Gallery know my most used themes without authentication. If you make the theme gallery pull the info from the browser history, you may be accused of violating privacy rights, and if you force users to sign-in to the gallery to access the feature, you make the process more tedious and if you use a Google account, you risk looking monopolistic. Maybe I'm just being too paranoid, and maybe you already have an ingenious programming solution, but that was my motivation for suggesting the internal page. On Aug 11, 9:23 pm, Peter Kasting pkast...@google.com wrote: On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. As we've already (sort of) said on this thread, it seems like having your MRU themes is useful, but it's appropriate to do as an element of the theme gallery itself, not as a separate local page. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it shouldn't be too hard then to pass that info onto the gallery page and keep everything online. I think that would be a bad idea even if it weren't too hard. What theme I'm using is no one's business. When I was thinking about a web page I meant in the style of the NTP or chrome://extensions, where the UI is done as HTML. I'm imagining in the prefs dialog just one button: [Manage Themes] that took you to a theme management page where you could show installed themes, switch between and delete them, and it would have a link to the themes gallery. Avi --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
I basically agree, though I have a UI concern -- having a button in the prefs dialog which leads you to a web page is a bit strange since, while the dialog box isn't modal, I bet most users don't realize that. Would the button pop up a new browser window? (In front of the dialog?) Or would it open a new tab in some window in the background? (I kind of hate the way apps open links in browsers, since you can never tell which window/tab/space[*] the page is going to end up in. I'd hate to see Chromium do that to itself.) [*] on a Mac; virtual desktop on some other platforms. (For those who think changing themes should be online only, I disagree: you're not always online, e.g., on an airplane, yet you may want to switch themes -- e.g., maybe you need a high-visibility theme due to lighting conditions.) - Trung Avi Drissman wrote: On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Meok meok...@gmail.com mailto:meok...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it shouldn't be too hard then to pass that info onto the gallery page and keep everything online. I think that would be a bad idea even if it weren't too hard. What theme I'm using is no one's business. When I was thinking about a web page I meant in the style of the NTP or chrome://extensions, where the UI is done as HTML. I'm imagining in the prefs dialog just one button: [Manage Themes] that took you to a theme management page where you could show installed themes, switch between and delete them, and it would have a link to the themes gallery. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Avi Drissman a...@chromium.org wrote: On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it shouldn't be too hard then to pass that info onto the gallery page and keep everything online. I think that would be a bad idea even if it weren't too hard. What theme I'm using is no one's business. When I was thinking about a web page I meant in the style of the NTP or chrome://extensions, where the UI is done as HTML. I'm imagining in the prefs dialog just one button: [Manage Themes] that took you to a theme management page where you could show installed themes, switch between and delete them, and it would have a link to the themes gallery. We don't need to pass the theme gallery the theme you're using. The theme gallery can just remember the most recent themes you've clicked on. Thus the MRU list won't show themes you've obtained elsewhere, but that's OK. And it won't remember if you're not logged in or you clear your cookies or whatever mechanism we decide to use, but the people who are paranoid about privacy will probably consider that a feature, not a bug. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
Just to throw in another suggestion (that I hope hasn't come up or been implied so far): The way I see it, the themes you visited/installed are part of your history, so why not spruce up the history page and include visited themes there directly, with Theme as a semantic annotation. In this way the user could specify the search by himself (themes I looked at last week in some suitable syntax), and/or filter out only links of a specific sort (show only themes). This can of course be extended to other annotations, like News, etc. (Now how we can best come up with such an annotation is a problem to be solved, e.g., annotate directly by domain visited, e.g., wsj.com - News). We can show a list of annotation keys as clickable links next to the search box so that the user can select what type of history item is shown with a single click. In this way, chrome://themes needs just to be rewritten to chrome://history/#a=theme or some such. Further, links in the history can be rendered by showing a preview if the item is a link to a theme (or - if that takes too much space - just with a small marker Theme and rendered fully to the side on mouse-over). - Roland On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 1:41 PM, PhistucK phist...@gmail.com wrote: I have not read through the entire message, so forgive me if I am saying something unrelated and that was already answered here -It seems like there might be security issues with loading web resources in the internal pages, since internal pages seem to have a lot of power and privileges and the web is posed here as unsafe and must be sandboxed through the whole way (which is correct, of course). Combining the two may lead to unfortunate consequences. For the same reason, the Tips Recommendations was pulled out. There is a command line switch called --enable-web-resources and, probably, just like the remote fonts feature (which is preventing Chrome from fully passing the ACID3 test, as far as I recall), that is behind a command line switch due to yet to be resolved security concerns. ☆PhistucK On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 07:08, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: I'm all in favor of Chromium using web interfaces instead of local code. As I've said before in a thread on Chromium-Discuss, if Google is creating a browser to maximize the potential of the web, and encourage web developers to make more complex applications, then the said Google browser should be leading the charge by embracing the web as a platform. If you're going to invest so much in V8 to make AJAX faster, why not use AJAX and an online interface to do many things for the browser itself? I'm in favor of seeing Bookmarks and Themes presented in Web-app format, running powerful Javascript on par with Gmail or Google Docs, with effects as stunning as some of the ChromeExperiements. In other words, show off what the browser can do, as well as promote the use of the web as a platform. However, the reason I'm a little skeptical is that I'm afraid Google may come under fire. How will the Theme Gallery know my most used themes without authentication. If you make the theme gallery pull the info from the browser history, you may be accused of violating privacy rights, and if you force users to sign-in to the gallery to access the feature, you make the process more tedious and if you use a Google account, you risk looking monopolistic. Maybe I'm just being too paranoid, and maybe you already have an ingenious programming solution, but that was my motivation for suggesting the internal page. On Aug 11, 9:23 pm, Peter Kasting pkast...@google.com wrote: On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. As we've already (sort of) said on this thread, it seems like having your MRU themes is useful, but it's appropriate to do as an element of the theme gallery itself, not as a separate local page. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
That's a good idea and should please just about everyone. The gallery could simply employ a cookie to remember the last 5 etc. sites you clicked on. That way there is no privacy concern and no security concern as nothing gets passed from the browser. Do that and add a custom search engine to the theme gallery (fro when it expands) and we're good to go. On Aug 12, 12:52 pm, Peter Kasting pkast...@google.com wrote: On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Avi Drissman a...@chromium.org wrote: On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: I guess it shouldn't be too hard then to pass that info onto the gallery page and keep everything online. I think that would be a bad idea even if it weren't too hard. What theme I'm using is no one's business. When I was thinking about a web page I meant in the style of the NTP or chrome://extensions, where the UI is done as HTML. I'm imagining in the prefs dialog just one button: [Manage Themes] that took you to a theme management page where you could show installed themes, switch between and delete them, and it would have a link to the themes gallery. We don't need to pass the theme gallery the theme you're using. The theme gallery can just remember the most recent themes you've clicked on. Thus the MRU list won't show themes you've obtained elsewhere, but that's OK. And it won't remember if you're not logged in or you clear your cookies or whatever mechanism we decide to use, but the people who are paranoid about privacy will probably consider that a feature, not a bug. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. I think it would have been cool to have a theme / look feel page that works like the NTP. It will just give you a fixed number of thumb- previews of the themes you have chosen most often or most recently, maybe with the default theme being a fixed thumb. To the bottom, it would have a link to take you to the whole gallery. You can pin themes and stop themes from showing up in the list, but it would just be a fixed amount of thumbs, instead of a big dropdown menu. Here's a rough mockup: http://gowebnow.net/chrome/images/chrome-themes-ui.png On Aug 10, 8:02 pm, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Avi Drissmana...@google.com wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Incidentally, two other asks: * When installing a theme, give the user a way to switch back to the previous theme (e.g. an infobar). We currently have an option to switch back to the default theme, which is also useful, in different cases. We have a bug open on this. It requires some changes to thethemes service. I think that Avi is working on this. I am? Please assign the bug, then, because I was unaware of it. FYI, just so interested parties know the resolution, the work I was thinking of Avi was working on, but it i done now. We can now implement the undo UI, I will create a bug on myself. - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
I kinda like that idea, I personally don't know what directions themes is going. It seems like a hidden project that will just surprise us one day. -- Mohamed Mansour On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. I think it would have been cool to have a theme / look feel page that works like the NTP. It will just give you a fixed number of thumb- previews of the themes you have chosen most often or most recently, maybe with the default theme being a fixed thumb. To the bottom, it would have a link to take you to the whole gallery. You can pin themes and stop themes from showing up in the list, but it would just be a fixed amount of thumbs, instead of a big dropdown menu. Here's a rough mockup: http://gowebnow.net/chrome/images/chrome-themes-ui.png On Aug 10, 8:02 pm, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Avi Drissmana...@google.com wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Incidentally, two other asks: * When installing a theme, give the user a way to switch back to the previous theme (e.g. an infobar). We currently have an option to switch back to the default theme, which is also useful, in different cases. We have a bug open on this. It requires some changes to thethemes service. I think that Avi is working on this. I am? Please assign the bug, then, because I was unaware of it. FYI, just so interested parties know the resolution, the work I was thinking of Avi was working on, but it i done now. We can now implement the undo UI, I will create a bug on myself. - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. As we've already (sort of) said on this thread, it seems like having your MRU themes is useful, but it's appropriate to do as an element of the theme gallery itself, not as a separate local page. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
I'm all in favor of Chromium using web interfaces instead of local code. As I've said before in a thread on Chromium-Discuss, if Google is creating a browser to maximize the potential of the web, and encourage web developers to make more complex applications, then the said Google browser should be leading the charge by embracing the web as a platform. If you're going to invest so much in V8 to make AJAX faster, why not use AJAX and an online interface to do many things for the browser itself? I'm in favor of seeing Bookmarks and Themes presented in Web-app format, running powerful Javascript on par with Gmail or Google Docs, with effects as stunning as some of the ChromeExperiements. In other words, show off what the browser can do, as well as promote the use of the web as a platform. However, the reason I'm a little skeptical is that I'm afraid Google may come under fire. How will the Theme Gallery know my most used themes without authentication. If you make the theme gallery pull the info from the browser history, you may be accused of violating privacy rights, and if you force users to sign-in to the gallery to access the feature, you make the process more tedious and if you use a Google account, you risk looking monopolistic. Maybe I'm just being too paranoid, and maybe you already have an ingenious programming solution, but that was my motivation for suggesting the internal page. On Aug 11, 9:23 pm, Peter Kasting pkast...@google.com wrote: On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. As we've already (sort of) said on this thread, it seems like having your MRU themes is useful, but it's appropriate to do as an element of the theme gallery itself, not as a separate local page. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
I have not read through the entire message, so forgive me if I am saying something unrelated and that was already answered here -It seems like there might be security issues with loading web resources in the internal pages, since internal pages seem to have a lot of power and privileges and the web is posed here as unsafe and must be sandboxed through the whole way (which is correct, of course). Combining the two may lead to unfortunate consequences. For the same reason, the Tips Recommendations was pulled out. There is a command line switch called --enable-web-resources and, probably, just like the remote fonts feature (which is preventing Chrome from fully passing the ACID3 test, as far as I recall), that is behind a command line switch due to yet to be resolved security concerns. ☆PhistucK On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 07:08, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: I'm all in favor of Chromium using web interfaces instead of local code. As I've said before in a thread on Chromium-Discuss, if Google is creating a browser to maximize the potential of the web, and encourage web developers to make more complex applications, then the said Google browser should be leading the charge by embracing the web as a platform. If you're going to invest so much in V8 to make AJAX faster, why not use AJAX and an online interface to do many things for the browser itself? I'm in favor of seeing Bookmarks and Themes presented in Web-app format, running powerful Javascript on par with Gmail or Google Docs, with effects as stunning as some of the ChromeExperiements. In other words, show off what the browser can do, as well as promote the use of the web as a platform. However, the reason I'm a little skeptical is that I'm afraid Google may come under fire. How will the Theme Gallery know my most used themes without authentication. If you make the theme gallery pull the info from the browser history, you may be accused of violating privacy rights, and if you force users to sign-in to the gallery to access the feature, you make the process more tedious and if you use a Google account, you risk looking monopolistic. Maybe I'm just being too paranoid, and maybe you already have an ingenious programming solution, but that was my motivation for suggesting the internal page. On Aug 11, 9:23 pm, Peter Kasting pkast...@google.com wrote: On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Meok meok...@gmail.com wrote: Just to add my two cents worth. Even though there is a full resource, I still see a need for users to be able to keep their favorites easily accessible. It;s the same philosophy of having a New Tab Page even though you can pull back your most visited sites from the bookmarks. As we've already (sort of) said on this thread, it seems like having your MRU themes is useful, but it's appropriate to do as an element of the theme gallery itself, not as a separate local page. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
When people change themes regularly, I believe their intension is to try out themes. When theme preview is going to come in, that would be simpler. A person isn't going to change themes every day, if they want to change themes, they could just goto the UI and change to any theme they please. I believe a drop down for a list of themes is a waste of space for the options panel, people wont use that frequently. I have been told that once you installed a new theme, the old theme will not be archived (stored on the system), so switching themes would be harder when the CL comes in. I thought you guys are picky when it comes to options, and introducing a themes drop down is actually a useless control which will be rarely used. There are many other areas where I would like to have options which actually makes more sense compared to this. Aaron, I believe the themes page could use a currently installed theme that way the user would know what theme he/she installed. It was possible by visiting chrome://extensions/, but now its removed from that page. -- Mohamed Mansour On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:46 AM, PhistucK phist...@gmail.com wrote: But people like to change themes periodically and also, to choose from themes they have already installed and new themes, you (currently) cannot incorporate both of them in the theme gallery. I saw that happening with regular, non techy users - all of the time (not in Chrome, obviously, since they did not have an option up until now, but with tons of other programs). They choose one, they choose another, they select from their collection again and also look for new ones. So these should either be combined (existing and total in one page), or an option to select a theme should be present, in my opinion. ☆PhistucK On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 08:19, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Peter Kastingpkast...@google.com wrote: FWIW, I'd prefer if all the ports have this. There are three reasons for this, one of them silly: (1) Shows themes you've gotten from sources other than the gallery (I don't know if this is possible at this moment, but it will be someday, right?) No, why is it useful to see themes you've previously installed? I mean, why is it anymore than seeing any other webpage you've previously visited. We already have mechanisms to find things you visited previously. Why does themes need it's own? (2) Limited to the set of themes you've actually shown interest in by using. Think about if the gallery had several thousand themes (the way Firefox has several thousand Personas). I don't even buy that this would work. You can't tell which themes you like by looking at the picture. I suspect it is more typical to actually try it on for size before deciding it is hideous/awesome. (3) Usable while offline/unable to access gallery (silly reason). You're right, silly. The first two are sufficient reasons to me that I've been surprised to not see this kind of a switch in the WIndows UI. Funny, you recently argued in a different thread (about a different feature request) that the cost for following a link is basically nil, so there shouldn't be any separate UI other than that ;-). Agree right now that installing a theme is slightly higher cost than following a link. But it shouldn't be. On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 9:02 PM, PhistucKphist...@gmail.com wrote: Seeing as there is currently no UI for it other than actually installing a theme again, I would say the theme selection dropdown is kind of a needed element. We should change the word install to pick. Why should there be a different UI for re-picking a theme than there is for the initial pick? On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Caleb Eggenspergercaleb...@gmail.com wrote: It would be nice for the UI for installing a theme to be the same as for choosing it again. Maybe the themes directory could have an already installed section, although I think the fact that I've installed a theme and moved on to another means I'm less interested in using it again. A dropdown would become kinda unmanageable with a large number of themes, unless there's a way to remove them, and not nearly as usable as the themes directory is now. What if I can't remember what legal pad looks like? Good points! On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:13 PM, PhistucKphist...@gmail.com wrote: I meant it would be nice as a temporary solution, until a chrome://themes page or something comes up. And per your wondering - when you mouse over\select a theme with the keyboard arrows (but no mouse click, nor Enter key press is made), a preview can be shown, or the whole theme can change. That would have to make the theme transitioning faster and more fluid, of course, but that is the intention anyway, so this could be step one. If you do not select a theme at last (clicking otherwise), the theme will revert to the one it has been. I think
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 7:46 AM, Mohamed Mansour m...@chromium.org wrote: I have been told that once you installed a new theme, the old theme will not be archived (stored on the system), so switching themes would be harder when the CL comes in. That isn't the case today; that may be the case in the future. I thought you guys are picky when it comes to options This one's mine, so I'll take the blame/praise as it goes. Right now there's no real control over themes. Once they're installed, they're permanently installed; there's no easy way to remove them (chrome://extensions used to list them so they could be removed, but now you can't even do that). So why not let the user switch? Assuming that the themes gallery will be the only source of themes and that the users would just have to go there is silly. The Get Themes button is only a suggestion, and while we have themes that we think are nice, there will be third-party providers. If you don't think the popup does an adequate job of showing previews/management, you are absolutely correct. I'd love a chrome://themes page that - showed installed themes -- with previews -- with deinstall buttons - allowed switching themes - allowed tinting for themes (which I've heard only Cole talk about but no one else mention) Until then I figured that throwing a picker into prefs would be something useful. Avi --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Avi Drissmana...@google.com wrote: Right now there's no real control over themes. Once they're installed, they're permanently installed; there's no easy way to remove them We should completely drop the concept of theme installation. We can do this by changing the language around themes in the UI. For example, instead of get themes, the button could read pick new theme. There can only be one theme active at a time, so whether the themes are still on your computer when you switch away from them is sorta irrelevant. From a cleanliness perspective, I would like to remove them, but the fact that you currently can't remove a theme after you switch away from it should not be an issue for most people. (chrome://extensions used to list them so they could be removed, but now you can't even do that). So why not let the user switch? I'm not saying the user shouldn't be able to switch. I'm saying why have two ways to switch, one that is inferior to the other. Assuming that the themes gallery will be the only source of themes and that the users would just have to go there is silly. The Get Themes button is only a suggestion, and while we have themes that we think are nice, there will be third-party providers. Of course, but if you want to reinstall one of those themes, you can just go back to the page you originally got it from. Why is it useful to have a list of every theme you have ever picked in the options menu? Like others have said, I expect this list to get long and there is no way to manage it. If you don't think the popup does an adequate job of showing previews/management, you are absolutely correct. I'd love a chrome://themes page that - showed installed themes - allowed switching themes It sounds like you want something almost like favorite themes - a list that can be managed. I can see some minor utility in this above just going back to the web page that has the theme you want and picking it again, but it seems pretty thin. I don't believe it is worth the implementation, maintenance, and simplicity costs to implement it. -- with previews Why do we need a separate concept of preview when you can just install a theme, and if you don't like it switch back to the one you had before. If the infobar said (and did) undo instead of back to default, doesn't this meet the need? -- with deinstall buttons Why does it matter to uninstall a theme that you aren't using? Particularly if we automatically delete theme resources when they are switched away from? - allowed tinting for themes (which I've heard only Cole talk about but no one else mention) Once we have this, you're right that we'll need some UI around it. I'd prefer to wait until we know what the needs. - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Steve Vandebogartvand...@google.com wrote: Undoubtedly, there will be hundreds of themes, finding the same one you were using last week before you decided to try a different one will be a daunting task. From a usability perspective, it seems to me that keeping around a small set of recently used themes makes sense. That seems better. I'm a lot more interested in a recently used themes or previously used themes (in the style of the history page) chrome://themes/ page than having the dropdown in the options menu. On the same page, we could combine the theme customization controls (tinting, etc). - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
Seems like all of this can be done on the page. The nice property of the page is that there's room to show a preview of the theme, which in many cases is more memorable than the name. -Ben On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Aaron Boodmana...@chromium.org wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Steve Vandebogartvand...@google.com wrote: Undoubtedly, there will be hundreds of themes, finding the same one you were using last week before you decided to try a different one will be a daunting task. From a usability perspective, it seems to me that keeping around a small set of recently used themes makes sense. That seems better. I'm a lot more interested in a recently used themes or previously used themes (in the style of the history page) chrome://themes/ page than having the dropdown in the options menu. On the same page, we could combine the theme customization controls (tinting, etc). - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
[Edit: right as I was going to send this, I see you seem to be thinking along similar lines.] You're right that a dropdown with the names of every theme the user has ever used is both unwieldy and unhelpful. How about this: We replace the Options buttons with a page with the 5 MRU themes (perhaps that have been used for more than 1 minute) and the default theme, each with a name, a thumbnail, and perhaps a link to the container page; and a link to the main theme gallery called pick another theme or get more themes or something. Click on a theme and it changes the current theme instantly, but doesn't reorder the list until you close the page. Or, instead of building this list in locally, we could build it in to the themes gallery. When you go there these MRU themes (and the default) are right on the first page. This can also help when you're trying to set up another machine with the theme you like and need to remember what it is. I hope you can understand why having the MRU themes at your fingertips can be convenient even if there is some way (the history page?) to try and find past themes. Incidentally, two other asks: * When installing a theme, give the user a way to switch back to the previous theme (e.g. an infobar). We currently have an option to switch back to the default theme, which is also useful, in different cases. Perhaps have both? * Don't leave crud (.crx files, anything in downloads directory, files in the user profile) on disk for previously installed themes. Clean them up. (Low priority.) PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Peter Kastingpkast...@google.com wrote: [Edit: right as I was going to send this, I see you seem to be thinking along similar lines.] You're right that a dropdown with the names of every theme the user has ever used is both unwieldy and unhelpful. How about this: We replace the Options buttons with a page with the 5 MRU themes (perhaps that have been used for more than 1 minute) and the default theme, each with a name, a thumbnail, and perhaps a link to the container page; and a link to the main theme gallery called pick another theme or get more themes or something. Click on a theme and it changes the current theme instantly, but doesn't reorder the list until you close the page. Or, instead of building this list in locally, we could build it in to the themes gallery. When you go there these MRU themes (and the default) are right on the first page. This can also help when you're trying to set up another machine with the theme you like and need to remember what it is. I hope you can understand why having the MRU themes at your fingertips can be convenient even if there is some way (the history page?) to try and find past themes. I think that building this into the gallery makes a lot of sense. And I realized that by preview you all might mean a picture of what this looks like, before you click anything. Similar to what is on the current gallery pages. Incidentally, two other asks: * When installing a theme, give the user a way to switch back to the previous theme (e.g. an infobar). We currently have an option to switch back to the default theme, which is also useful, in different cases. We have a bug open on this. It requires some changes to the themes service. I think that Avi is working on this. Perhaps have both? I'd rather it be just undo alone. We have an emergency exit back to default theme hidden in the prefs. Maybe it could also be in the gallery. * Don't leave crud (.crx files, anything in downloads directory, files in the user profile) on disk for previously installed themes. Clean them up. (Low priority.) It actually deletes them as of right now. You're remembering the way it used to behave. However, they still show up on the downloads page. There is a bug open on that. - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that these are gallery features. We should remove them from options/prefs panels. On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Avi Drissman a...@google.com wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Incidentally, two other asks: * When installing a theme, give the user a way to switch back to the previous theme (e.g. an infobar). We currently have an option to switch back to the default theme, which is also useful, in different cases. We have a bug open on this. It requires some changes to the themes service. I think that Avi is working on this. I am? Please assign the bug, then, because I was unaware of it. Avi --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
As a user I don't mind going back to the gallery each time I want to change theme (and my mood will make me change themes regularly), but what is frustrating is that everytime I go back to one that I've tried in the past it redownloads the file again rather than using the .crx that is already present. Maybe the themes/extensions shouldn't be downloaded into the main download folder and checked to see if already present. Can themes auto-update? --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Avi Drissmana...@google.com wrote: On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Incidentally, two other asks: * When installing a theme, give the user a way to switch back to the previous theme (e.g. an infobar). We currently have an option to switch back to the default theme, which is also useful, in different cases. We have a bug open on this. It requires some changes to the themes service. I think that Avi is working on this. I am? Please assign the bug, then, because I was unaware of it. FYI, just so interested parties know the resolution, the work I was thinking of Avi was working on, but it i done now. We can now implement the undo UI, I will create a bug on myself. - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Currently the mac port has a dropdown in the preferences that allows you to switch between themes that happen to be installed. None of the other ports have this, and I think it should be removed from mac. All it allows you to do is switch between themes you have previously installed. How is that better than the web UI, which allows you to switch between all themes in the gallery? FWIW, I'd prefer if all the ports have this. There are three reasons for this, one of them silly: (1) Shows themes you've gotten from sources other than the gallery (I don't know if this is possible at this moment, but it will be someday, right?) (2) Limited to the set of themes you've actually shown interest in by using. Think about if the gallery had several thousand themes (the way Firefox has several thousand Personas). (3) Usable while offline/unable to access gallery (silly reason). The first two are sufficient reasons to me that I've been surprised to not see this kind of a switch in the WIndows UI. PK --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
Seeing as there is currently no UI for it other than actually installing a theme again, I would say the theme selection dropdown is kind of a needed element. ☆PhistucK On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 02:42, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Currently the mac port has a dropdown in the preferences that allows you to switch between themes that happen to be installed. None of the other ports have this, and I think it should be removed from mac. All it allows you to do is switch between themes you have previously installed. How is that better than the web UI, which allows you to switch between all themes in the gallery? - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
I meant it would be nice as a temporary solution, until a chrome://themes page or something comes up.And per your wondering - when you mouse over\select a theme with the keyboard arrows (but no mouse click, nor Enter key press is made), a preview can be shown, or the whole theme can change. That would have to make the theme transitioning faster and more fluid, of course, but that is the intention anyway, so this could be step one. If you do not select a theme at last (clicking otherwise), the theme will revert to the one it has been. ☆PhistucK On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 08:04, Caleb Eggensperger caleb...@gmail.comwrote: It would be nice for the UI for installing a theme to be the same as for choosing it again. Maybe the themes directory could have an already installed section, although I think the fact that I've installed a theme and moved on to another means I'm less interested in using it again. A dropdown would become kinda unmanageable with a large number of themes, unless there's a way to remove them, and not nearly as usable as the themes directory is now. What if I can't remember what legal pad looks like? On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 21:02, PhistucKphist...@gmail.com wrote: Seeing as there is currently no UI for it other than actually installing a theme again, I would say the theme selection dropdown is kind of a needed element. ☆PhistucK On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 02:42, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: Currently the mac port has a dropdown in the preferences that allows you to switch between themes that happen to be installed. None of the other ports have this, and I think it should be removed from mac. All it allows you to do is switch between themes you have previously installed. How is that better than the web UI, which allows you to switch between all themes in the gallery? - a -- Caleb Eggensperger http://calebegg.com/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
[chromium-dev] Re: Why does Chromium on mac have a theme switch UI in the preferences?
But people like to change themes periodically and also, to choose from themes they have already installed and new themes, you (currently) cannot incorporate both of them in the theme gallery. I saw that happening with regular, non techy users - all of the time (not in Chrome, obviously, since they did not have an option up until now, but with tons of other programs). They choose one, they choose another, they select from their collection again and also look for new ones. So these should either be combined (existing and total in one page), or an option to select a theme should be present, in my opinion. ☆PhistucK On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 08:19, Aaron Boodman a...@chromium.org wrote: On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Peter Kastingpkast...@google.com wrote: FWIW, I'd prefer if all the ports have this. There are three reasons for this, one of them silly: (1) Shows themes you've gotten from sources other than the gallery (I don't know if this is possible at this moment, but it will be someday, right?) No, why is it useful to see themes you've previously installed? I mean, why is it anymore than seeing any other webpage you've previously visited. We already have mechanisms to find things you visited previously. Why does themes need it's own? (2) Limited to the set of themes you've actually shown interest in by using. Think about if the gallery had several thousand themes (the way Firefox has several thousand Personas). I don't even buy that this would work. You can't tell which themes you like by looking at the picture. I suspect it is more typical to actually try it on for size before deciding it is hideous/awesome. (3) Usable while offline/unable to access gallery (silly reason). You're right, silly. The first two are sufficient reasons to me that I've been surprised to not see this kind of a switch in the WIndows UI. Funny, you recently argued in a different thread (about a different feature request) that the cost for following a link is basically nil, so there shouldn't be any separate UI other than that ;-). Agree right now that installing a theme is slightly higher cost than following a link. But it shouldn't be. On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 9:02 PM, PhistucKphist...@gmail.com wrote: Seeing as there is currently no UI for it other than actually installing a theme again, I would say the theme selection dropdown is kind of a needed element. We should change the word install to pick. Why should there be a different UI for re-picking a theme than there is for the initial pick? On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Caleb Eggenspergercaleb...@gmail.com wrote: It would be nice for the UI for installing a theme to be the same as for choosing it again. Maybe the themes directory could have an already installed section, although I think the fact that I've installed a theme and moved on to another means I'm less interested in using it again. A dropdown would become kinda unmanageable with a large number of themes, unless there's a way to remove them, and not nearly as usable as the themes directory is now. What if I can't remember what legal pad looks like? Good points! On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:13 PM, PhistucKphist...@gmail.com wrote: I meant it would be nice as a temporary solution, until a chrome://themes page or something comes up. And per your wondering - when you mouse over\select a theme with the keyboard arrows (but no mouse click, nor Enter key press is made), a preview can be shown, or the whole theme can change. That would have to make the theme transitioning faster and more fluid, of course, but that is the intention anyway, so this could be step one. If you do not select a theme at last (clicking otherwise), the theme will revert to the one it has been. I think we should just make the install process more fluid, less costly. - a --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
