On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Christoph Wickert <[email protected]> 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-settings-4.9.4-fedora.patch > > 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 > [email protected] > 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. -- -jayson _______________________________________________ xfce mailing list [email protected] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce
