tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44479202006923520232024-03-13T21:58:16.799+01:00Martin's ChroniclesMartinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-59984358866777249062013-11-19T17:08:00.001+01:002013-11-19T23:27:35.936+01:00Fedora 20 Supplemental WallpapersSo, because I'm kinda busy with my $ job and aikido training, it took me a while to get it done, but supplemental wallpapers for Fedora 20 are packaged and <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-21575/heisenbug-backgrounds-20.0.0-1.fc20">update submitted</a>. Please test and karma :) They're prepared for use with xfce, kde, gnome/cinnamon and mate. If there's a way to make them available via bg selector in other DEs in Fedora, let me know how, I'd be happy to expand the portfolio ;-)
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGTR_axusSmJTY3I0dW5juVh8sEHY3urgUKmghWm9a4_og1VxtvIgUnJpCh87J8EJjcTtb5esL32VpW-_M7vdpLdrFTwKGdmx20dtF-zh-1Knc_tLCOBCL-URkIIYyHutus5o-KkPpPhs/s1600/f20-wallpapers-supplemental.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGTR_axusSmJTY3I0dW5juVh8sEHY3urgUKmghWm9a4_og1VxtvIgUnJpCh87J8EJjcTtb5esL32VpW-_M7vdpLdrFTwKGdmx20dtF-zh-1Knc_tLCOBCL-URkIIYyHutus5o-KkPpPhs/s400/f20-wallpapers-supplemental.png" /></a></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-36910679143738418402013-03-03T15:27:00.000+01:002013-03-03T15:48:45.446+01:00My Impression of Gnome Situation<p>To me it seems, and with the Gnome Shell release this has become even more pronounced, that the situation around Gnome is like the situation around political parties in Czech Republic. They mostly lost touch with reality and majority of people either lost their interest in them, became their haters or their (almost) unconditional adorers. Pointing out an issue equals hating now (and yes there are some exceptions). <i>I</i> have lost faith. Sadly. In both. Does it need to happen to Fedora as well? If we gnomeifficate anaconda, we might end-up like this as well. Users aren't as dumb as we tend to make them. People don't want grey lives with nothing to look forward to, with nothing to choose from. With computers treating them as monkeys. I don't want an environment where I cannot choose between grey two-colour symbolic icons and colorful normal ones. Is reaching out specifically to women making them feel equal?</p>
<p>No, I'm not promoting choice in general. Linux is <i>not</i> about choice. I realize there are lines you should not cross. <a href="http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2008-January/msg00861.html">We cannot sensibly support two parallel audio stacks</a> in Fedora. We cannot sensibly support Hurd or BSD kernel in Fedora. We cannot sensibly support any random combination of system libraries. But we can let user customize their HDD layout when installing. We can show them nice professional looking installer (don't get me wrong, I agree that the installer needed rewrite of its internals, I just don't agree with many of the UI changes that went along with the code redesign). We can show them KDE quality design. We can promote open standards while <a href="http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-shoot-yourself-in-foot-story-on.html">not setting the hurdle too high for using proprietary or patent encumbered</a>. We can let them choose desktop background by clicking on desktop. We can let them turn off their computer. We can let them install OpenOffice without breaking LibreOffice. Are we?</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-42610303175093199342013-03-03T14:47:00.000+01:002013-03-03T14:47:00.572+01:00Fedora Desktops – Quick Look<p>Hello to all.</p>
<p>Yesterday and today I've been working on packaging the wallpapers for Fedora 19. Since we have a couple of new desktops in Fedora, I thought it would be good to expand our coverage to them as well. In short – since Fedora 19, new wallpapers will be visible in backgrounds selectors of Gnome, KDE, Mate and Xfce. LXDE does not show any pictures and has a plain file chooser for that, Cinnamon uses Gnome stack, but has a bug in its backgrounds selector (read on), so the background is usable but not visible.</p>
<p>I've had various experiences with testing the packages in the desktops and as a couple of these were driving me mad, I thought I'd write a quick showcase. I needed precisely two things – terminal to install/remove the WIP packages and means to set the background. So, up to some initial word or two, this will be about how to run a terminal and how to change a background in these desktops. Also, even though I did it in new user account, widget themes might not reflect fedora defaults as I changed them at one point and I also didn't reset configuration between switching the DEs. Maybe someday I'll test default config and do a quick review of look'n'feel.</p>
<p>For convenience I'll review the desktops alphabetically.</p>
<h2>Cinnamon</h2>
<p>On first look I thought this might be good – it had panel, menu and looked almost fine. First problem was the symbolic icons in system-tray. I had no idea what half of them meant, but at least there were bubbles popping out that clarified things a bit. Desktop wasn't clickable. Menu got me mad the more I tried to work with it. I could say, from my point of view (POV), this desktop is a wasted effort. If I wanted Gnome 3 I would use Gnome Shell, if not, I don't see the point of choosing this over Mate or XFCE. For me this was even more painful experience than Gnome Shell. It was like choosing the worst features from all the desktops I tried and putting them together.</p>
<p>So let's look how I start terminal. First I open a menu. Ugh. A bunch of icons, three columns, the first one without any text. Huge padding. The third column changes contents on hoover in the second column. I always hated dynamic menus on web and this is not an exception. Scrollbars everywhere because of the padding and fixed height. As I rarely start apps by typing their names, actually rather dislike doing it that way, this is absolute pain for me.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzq83RtvOxIIWrHTuXcLeJ20hbanyKbIHaujLXKGKRh-Vyfsl-JBHrIuat1l_ZKbFk76ORxzYwpvXB1V8c0CjqnOgtPVZ9Vp_SGZD3guOjNmQin0gS0gMzlPvNIZzznNiy_TDJMgne_M/s1600/cinnamon-start-terminal.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzq83RtvOxIIWrHTuXcLeJ20hbanyKbIHaujLXKGKRh-Vyfsl-JBHrIuat1l_ZKbFk76ORxzYwpvXB1V8c0CjqnOgtPVZ9Vp_SGZD3guOjNmQin0gS0gMzlPvNIZzznNiy_TDJMgne_M/s320/cinnamon-start-terminal.png" /></a>
<p>Now for the desktop background. As I noted earlier, desktop is not clickable. So I had to figure out how to change it. So, let's find settings. Oh, it's one of those icons without text…</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eoQzhNvju6wFYFzN0VwKru_CbkEepsaxwneHnWSW_DFy6SSVhEgBJp6Y6xEedAbj0yLm0MrxzCNts8YqqJYzr_qxP1k_fkEDZRlONpWcsK3t23E0oF5vCvKKHj1yPx0TTBnkxZO-QUo/s1600/cinnamon-desktop-settings-1.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3eoQzhNvju6wFYFzN0VwKru_CbkEepsaxwneHnWSW_DFy6SSVhEgBJp6Y6xEedAbj0yLm0MrxzCNts8YqqJYzr_qxP1k_fkEDZRlONpWcsK3t23E0oF5vCvKKHj1yPx0TTBnkxZO-QUo/s320/cinnamon-desktop-settings-1.png" /></a>
<p>This gets me into a common interface that I know from other desktops as well. This is good. No big issue here. One tiny complaint might be that theme, desktop and background are three separate tools. Also I wonder, why it uses different icons than the rest of the desktop?</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwq6-RVUdApfYKhwRsHSUZRZ4oA_5lYldLcIwC3nD78blR1sp64EeXvSuAbXqXBXyCuYgHji2A3NhW1Y5tiqrzfFfH_waCgRi5Xtw_sBnI1ZCGM_LlRSJo6PBZ8oddMCsPHm-8DpXosEc/s1600/cinnamon-desktop-settings-2.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwq6-RVUdApfYKhwRsHSUZRZ4oA_5lYldLcIwC3nD78blR1sp64EeXvSuAbXqXBXyCuYgHji2A3NhW1Y5tiqrzfFfH_waCgRi5Xtw_sBnI1ZCGM_LlRSJo6PBZ8oddMCsPHm-8DpXosEc/s320/cinnamon-desktop-settings-2.png" /></a>
<p> So, let's click background.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2RVJiOxjAcPj2qWN92DD-JffXDLIhxT16PGwioq8Ll1PnmgyUSWSMgxBJXctpeDPBx9-DGCloIbyCIJ9iacxVMkxUQwLrZVHWgQa0R4nzZ_1hWWbkYi_gYD-CuaWUTikqCSn5PiDJcQ/s1600/cinnamon-desktop-settings-3.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2RVJiOxjAcPj2qWN92DD-JffXDLIhxT16PGwioq8Ll1PnmgyUSWSMgxBJXctpeDPBx9-DGCloIbyCIJ9iacxVMkxUQwLrZVHWgQa0R4nzZ_1hWWbkYi_gYD-CuaWUTikqCSn5PiDJcQ/s320/cinnamon-desktop-settings-3.png" /></a>
<p>Huge. What a huge waste of space. The images are neatly small, probably the ideal size, with a nice shading to boost, but that huge white-space totally kills it. Plus point for showing image name, minus for not showing image author. Furthermore, our background is missing. Because it's XML. It's supported (as evident by it being actually used as background), but not selectable. Someone who actually uses Cinnamon should fill bug about it. The background changes on click. Space waste is common with Gnome. The All Settings button could have been on the same row with the Close one. There is no single reason why one should be at the top and the other at the bottom.</p>
<h2>GNOME</h2>
<p>First impression terrible. Black theme, grey washed-out symbolic icons, no pop-up bubbles, no menu. Animation everywhere. Second impression better than Cinnamon, still not usable for me. Inexplicable removing/hiding of useful features, re-adding some of them three releases later, sometimes adding unneeded steps in-between (read on for more info on this). However it's actually usable desktop. It would be a pain for me, but it would probably be easy to use for my grandma, for kids used to touch interfaces on iPads, for game console or for browsing the internet (after all, it basically behaves like something between the web and modern Android-powered phones and it uses web technologies like javascript and css *ugh*).</p>
<p>Now on to the terminal. First go to top-left to open activities. Empty. As its primary task is probably switching between windows, I haven't entered any menu yet. First I have to click on the icon that looks like grid nodes (what's the idea? It does not even remotely suggest that this will get me app list).</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_a6avcdtfTf9iHioHBCgdg7I0-FIu249WIyU_3c8gSLqu79LEKnLYSoYAxefPCRBXudtXIkuOYVvJg4rKDxYCBTkaIxhWV_fkAvzzSD4tJX_bJablI2651VdlNBnSa1U3nFDMDBxM_c/s1600/gnome-start-terminal-1.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_a6avcdtfTf9iHioHBCgdg7I0-FIu249WIyU_3c8gSLqu79LEKnLYSoYAxefPCRBXudtXIkuOYVvJg4rKDxYCBTkaIxhWV_fkAvzzSD4tJX_bJablI2651VdlNBnSa1U3nFDMDBxM_c/s320/gnome-start-terminal-1.png" /></a>
<p>Huge. So I finally got into the menu. With huge icons and (when compared to the icon size) small text. Weird looking scroll-bars everywhere. So next step is select category (you don't expect me to find Terminal among zillions of uncategorized apps, right?) and find terminal. Animations everywhere.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_HQorlLR75go3AA0A7xfMrTGnn9PJm5MenCWikKMUJs6UZFp0pi3OnYC-WEZJtXi0lv9FA8G0hltI-_hPQMqw0x3_jwPEAsmlsQ0Jr5NBxsYpSgLdgcNNM6tmyKSyqh7sztPJzUETok/s1600/gnome-start-terminal-2.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF_HQorlLR75go3AA0A7xfMrTGnn9PJm5MenCWikKMUJs6UZFp0pi3OnYC-WEZJtXi0lv9FA8G0hltI-_hPQMqw0x3_jwPEAsmlsQ0Jr5NBxsYpSgLdgcNNM6tmyKSyqh7sztPJzUETok/s320/gnome-start-terminal-2.png" /></a>
<p>It's better than cinnamon, but the two steps to get into menu are strange and ineffective. Gnome Shell isn't optimized for using mouse. But lets continue to background selection. This is the worst background selection I've ever seen. I think the following <i>four</i> pictures speak for themselves, but let's explain a little bit first. So again, desktop is not clickable so I need to go through control center. Let's skip for now the fact that I don't see Theme or Appearance there (maybe I forgot to install something), the control center is categorized (like in XFCE) and Background is there. No issue from me. Kudos for the categorization. But then, after selecting Background, a completely useless window appears. It just shows the desktop. Whoa. Does that mean there are no pictures to select from? No. The desktop is actually clickable. I don't understand why this single step is included. It obviously extraneous, unneeded, confusing. Then the selection itself normal. I can select from installed backgrounds, pictures from XDG_PICTURES or plain color. The UI could be better, it could be worse, but it serves its purpose. The pictures are big, but there isn't too much of white space in between them, so no issue. However. Neither picture name, nor its author is present. Fail. The background does not change until I click Select.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ddObncZmPU8OSYzCMpxQXdgqQY7h6aWdIf49xFvK2p-GhFX9ro-A4vG6ENA2gcw7d_h24jCZmsYjZeGNJfEEH6C5bSYK0bEuJKzvPeciHENDn3hzm_BN8aoO3c9YQGzgnkMC4Wh-f8k/s1600/gnome-desktop-settings-1.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ddObncZmPU8OSYzCMpxQXdgqQY7h6aWdIf49xFvK2p-GhFX9ro-A4vG6ENA2gcw7d_h24jCZmsYjZeGNJfEEH6C5bSYK0bEuJKzvPeciHENDn3hzm_BN8aoO3c9YQGzgnkMC4Wh-f8k/s320/gnome-desktop-settings-1.png" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMfYOeivFkFVyJn0MkDRxa_XAd8UZkhv6N1qRde3d8I6EMzzEML1HK5XenK7XHvpLmWZqB1Eq_WSokRd_woWhecdSY5cfVg955_N5DTsVGgd1nNP0Mm7Svx3R2f9tGZVDQM6Ek6AL3Otw/s1600/gnome-desktop-settings-2.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMfYOeivFkFVyJn0MkDRxa_XAd8UZkhv6N1qRde3d8I6EMzzEML1HK5XenK7XHvpLmWZqB1Eq_WSokRd_woWhecdSY5cfVg955_N5DTsVGgd1nNP0Mm7Svx3R2f9tGZVDQM6Ek6AL3Otw/s320/gnome-desktop-settings-2.png" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaATmDQxhGkOfcB52TIe0oKARUII1NI_H8kMD-eWpeP7DUH0H4upzpei0ozrALehyphenhyphenzMqpHeJluuTQ2XqL9xtuOZn4lNIIx113OH-DfVkSp4ggVDt93AnDxNq_sTF1SgPsyPy9kbkwD9QU/s1600/gnome-desktop-settings-3.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaATmDQxhGkOfcB52TIe0oKARUII1NI_H8kMD-eWpeP7DUH0H4upzpei0ozrALehyphenhyphenzMqpHeJluuTQ2XqL9xtuOZn4lNIIx113OH-DfVkSp4ggVDt93AnDxNq_sTF1SgPsyPy9kbkwD9QU/s320/gnome-desktop-settings-3.png" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpCXgaP4hIVlBbMduK4bKoIqaSKKKWK_3Fabu8ilOAqytRp_tJVz-U_8XlmBiqixlc9uT2-MTOPnvxuZzn_8r4klmttS8SnBz-6_O7YSXzV64zHBRP0rG09isSoJV6AaNTqfl-2HctlX4/s1600/gnome-desktop-settings-4.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpCXgaP4hIVlBbMduK4bKoIqaSKKKWK_3Fabu8ilOAqytRp_tJVz-U_8XlmBiqixlc9uT2-MTOPnvxuZzn_8r4klmttS8SnBz-6_O7YSXzV64zHBRP0rG09isSoJV6AaNTqfl-2HctlX4/s320/gnome-desktop-settings-4.png" /></a>
<p>One common thing about gnome and cinnamon is it's use of awful flat grey everywhere. No single hint of colour or shaded gradient. In sheer contrast to the next DE.</p>
<h2>KDE</h2>
<p>This takes a lot of time to actually start, but then you are finally welcomed by a desktop that looks like designed by an artist. Yes. This is the <i>only</i> Fedora desktop that looks great and consistent. It can be clearly seen the theme has been designed by professionals and lots of time has been invested in it. For my taste it has too much animations, but knowing KDE it can be probably turned off. UI is another story though. Not my cup of tea, but about half of linux users like this, so I'll say it's good and detailed but for me it offers too much detail, it easily becomes overwhelming. It does not usually waste space. This is a desktop I could use after a bit of customizing.</p>
<p>Now let's start terminal. Like many people are used to from file managers, right-click on desktop offers you to start terminal in KDE. So +1 from me.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40yaoZL1vXsDdwp60GiCxpBT4UhughUCEpaUO06n3mfzdm8qUt-TuOHmtYvmxySitItSxR3Ji3CeY4xySEafuMo_DjsbI_kL6Jzqu0SLgyuQc9gxkNEL3RRAhlL6vmMFhqo-ye4jFJXM/s1600/kde-start-terminal-desktop.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj40yaoZL1vXsDdwp60GiCxpBT4UhughUCEpaUO06n3mfzdm8qUt-TuOHmtYvmxySitItSxR3Ji3CeY4xySEafuMo_DjsbI_kL6Jzqu0SLgyuQc9gxkNEL3RRAhlL6vmMFhqo-ye4jFJXM/s320/kde-start-terminal-desktop.png" /></a>
<p>Another way is through menu. The design is similar to cinnamon, but works better. It looks like cinnamon took the idea from KDE, kept its worst parts (fixed size, scrollbars anywhere, change menus on hoover) and made it even worse by adding gnome-like bits. While it behaves menu like, it's still in the same place, things get replaced, and due to fixed size, scrollbar is not uncommon. This is one of the worst parts of KDE, from my POV, but unlike Cinnamon or GNOME it does <i>not</i> get on my nerves.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZjmkIIgTWrW926nXQFbwbxXjjKq1oPXsmoSTLrfqhPUegvO1_v8U-7ljzY9rFkPXDajwtjtTLdfnrMEzn4dZZNeg9JPhfXBB5n5tHGemIL6Th04bkjV-n18jedYm4ro1aVpiJhBaD2E/s1600/kde-start-terminal.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZjmkIIgTWrW926nXQFbwbxXjjKq1oPXsmoSTLrfqhPUegvO1_v8U-7ljzY9rFkPXDajwtjtTLdfnrMEzn4dZZNeg9JPhfXBB5n5tHGemIL6Th04bkjV-n18jedYm4ro1aVpiJhBaD2E/s320/kde-start-terminal.png" /></a>
<p>To change desktop wallpaper, right-click on it and select Default Desktop Settings. I don't fathom the word Default in the name, but other then then all cool. What comes up is finally something that has done things right.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2O9XF-NgKcHFwI_pLvL2AkN6FPUmrYK1vIBEbN0dLcwDVLP7NXTCg68RuJP3QtzlAId5_XpbQ39L6f08UmaMAzseRMh-Hnq3LVbOIyhL0QwL-YiGZDhmlVztQ0uB1sn7Q4TseNTQ7RtU/s1600/kde-wallpaper-selection.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2O9XF-NgKcHFwI_pLvL2AkN6FPUmrYK1vIBEbN0dLcwDVLP7NXTCg68RuJP3QtzlAId5_XpbQ39L6f08UmaMAzseRMh-Hnq3LVbOIyhL0QwL-YiGZDhmlVztQ0uB1sn7Q4TseNTQ7RtU/s320/kde-wallpaper-selection.png" /></a>
<p>The image sizes are reasonable, white space is neither too big nor too small and most importantly, it <i>shows both name and author of the wallpaper</i>. Let's repeat it because it's important. KDE is the only Fedora desktop environment that shows both wallpaper name and its author in its Desktop Background selection app. This is how it should be done. The only thing that would make it even better would be to also show the license. You need to click Apply to change the background.</p>
<h2>LXDE</h2>
<p>Lightweight desktop with all it takes. It's fast, it works, but it's simple. Configuration might take longer than in other DEs but it looks like highly usable desktop if you don't mind less features. Now let's start terminal. Finally a sensible categorized menu without scroll-bars. As expected, terminal is quickly found.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbQfIw9CJOdoYTqCnlsZU7gFUbrQDYBeaYxhpW9H3l13J854AShd6HjPNkaB_6ZFDanSiMuwFu-E0M1e2id5WmKx0NVflMAiMkfZXzjcf2q5vgFkZBgHAwk9vvNo2fnvA_rEO-NR42GhY/s1600/lxde-start-terminal.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbQfIw9CJOdoYTqCnlsZU7gFUbrQDYBeaYxhpW9H3l13J854AShd6HjPNkaB_6ZFDanSiMuwFu-E0M1e2id5WmKx0NVflMAiMkfZXzjcf2q5vgFkZBgHAwk9vvNo2fnvA_rEO-NR42GhY/s320/lxde-start-terminal.png" /></a>
<p>Changing the wallpaper is also standard. Right-click on desktop and select Desktop Preferences.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zs0VUrSm229mfcnFbtjZsQsA4YayZgTYoWY0qEzb41rqEuw-TkVgWWsUGUw0KCKVELkQUnuaKpGWLcBi9lIM9ZGrlSkkY1ERvwOqTvBdbNf-MyHczKxMs7NCC8nSKk8g8F8fSx-6YWU/s1600/lxde-desktop-settings.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zs0VUrSm229mfcnFbtjZsQsA4YayZgTYoWY0qEzb41rqEuw-TkVgWWsUGUw0KCKVELkQUnuaKpGWLcBi9lIM9ZGrlSkkY1ERvwOqTvBdbNf-MyHczKxMs7NCC8nSKk8g8F8fSx-6YWU/s320/lxde-desktop-settings.png" /></a>
<p>The selector itself is light weight. No previews, just a file chooser and a few more options. Cannot probably expect much more from a lightweight desktop, right? And it does it's work without any unnecessary steps.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBn_kvKIFYrfUFrkbDCHsTMk9BxtoRagxxhJCKYRT4K_w_35_4mXbVyfBxAyiDAargR1Uuhvl_t72Ddy4idtPwqRx0cC4OmjYuyU8u287veu4ai3yzvXjOUiMP80W1RECHCLoc5VRmad0/s1600/lxde-wallpaper-selection.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBn_kvKIFYrfUFrkbDCHsTMk9BxtoRagxxhJCKYRT4K_w_35_4mXbVyfBxAyiDAargR1Uuhvl_t72Ddy4idtPwqRx0cC4OmjYuyU8u287veu4ai3yzvXjOUiMP80W1RECHCLoc5VRmad0/s320/lxde-wallpaper-selection.png" /></a>
<h2>Mate</h2>
<p>A direct continuation of a desktop I used to use. This is fork of Gnome 2 with the intention to provide and upgrade Gnome 2 experience and as such it behaves. Nothing unexpected. Menus work as usual, icons have colour, things are usually efficient. I still could use this, but nowadays I prefer XFCE. So let's start terminal. It's almost the same as in LXDE.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7FSpqY1k_WdhVIBQ-r9uO1G4LULyRdSmwylezxp4kcnb4WwZjlHAYbbGm6BQxunkfvgRZtO7K2Gf15dfVqFuLaTIbv5zkeTgg6YB1N3Kxazi7KiMJeH8xma69Wbs5lJQ37NsmzhW5Imo/s1600/mate-start-terminal.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7FSpqY1k_WdhVIBQ-r9uO1G4LULyRdSmwylezxp4kcnb4WwZjlHAYbbGm6BQxunkfvgRZtO7K2Gf15dfVqFuLaTIbv5zkeTgg6YB1N3Kxazi7KiMJeH8xma69Wbs5lJQ37NsmzhW5Imo/s320/mate-start-terminal.png" /></a>
<p>Nothing really wrong here, but too big icons and too much padding. If you have small screen or many apps, scrollbars appear. There's an option to start it from desktop context menu like in KDE as well.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRsN0H5zkXj2J9tlABVmbMZYCwd4M6BRcPqLZNsRNO0OIB1LAha8OlnVMpZherJbRnbaFnydcDb-QUhkbFa3cEs9PAGmsgg0nTpAxgBG8h5XUDiNZUzZYck9hwWJ7brzBFpfINQsOku8/s1600/mate-desktop-settings.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRsN0H5zkXj2J9tlABVmbMZYCwd4M6BRcPqLZNsRNO0OIB1LAha8OlnVMpZherJbRnbaFnydcDb-QUhkbFa3cEs9PAGmsgg0nTpAxgBG8h5XUDiNZUzZYck9hwWJ7brzBFpfINQsOku8/s320/mate-desktop-settings.png" /></a>
<p>Same goes with desktop settings. Directly accessible from desktop context menu. This is what we get.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUi1Z83zT_Q0P6iyhvrbVXE5FIe9KhntqjFA8ytfcJ1KvcJRGZYwB1UcHUMoXXs5XIuRUmWGTGHmAs_Evr6U4EjWjN2wp-DO-OKHzsrnAymDksiifpU2rTzgU3pDEVgoREfRyBC0_IgRY/s1600/mate-wallpaper-selection.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUi1Z83zT_Q0P6iyhvrbVXE5FIe9KhntqjFA8ytfcJ1KvcJRGZYwB1UcHUMoXXs5XIuRUmWGTGHmAs_Evr6U4EjWjN2wp-DO-OKHzsrnAymDksiifpU2rTzgU3pDEVgoREfRyBC0_IgRY/s320/mate-wallpaper-selection.png" /></a>
<p>Image size good, padding could be smaller, but just like with GNOME – no name, no author. Fail. Wallpaper changes on click.</p>
<h2>Xfce</h2>
<p>I'm not sure in which category this falls. It's not lightweight like LXDE, it's similar to gnome 2, but it's not gnome 2 ;-) Currently my desktop of choice so I skip on praising this time, only one note – the default config looks "bleh", but its actually highly tweakable and after some time it can be made look really good (although partly due to the lack of really professional looking GTK2/3 themes not as good as KDE). Starting terminal in XFCE is quickest of all the DEs I've tried thanks to special launchers to "Preferred Applications" that are also included in default bottom panel.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hpyJZrVVDK9XRT8VRHKPhjqVXYquBaDJxkxtLqZnVn5aakR_3QgZtzXV1LNlcjqNEsH6IohmbiPWmiZsNlO1WIBVc_fm_KbR-Rl5RCuGYTs1DX0Lia7w9OF5h8goBmlSxL5oERUY_ic/s1600/xfce-start-terminal.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hpyJZrVVDK9XRT8VRHKPhjqVXYquBaDJxkxtLqZnVn5aakR_3QgZtzXV1LNlcjqNEsH6IohmbiPWmiZsNlO1WIBVc_fm_KbR-Rl5RCuGYTs1DX0Lia7w9OF5h8goBmlSxL5oERUY_ic/s320/xfce-start-terminal.png" /></a>
<p>It can be also started from menu. It's similar to Mate, but it's all-in-one solution. There isn't separate menu for Settings and Administration. The icons are smaller, there's less padding so it takes much longer for scrollbars to appear. This is what I like the most.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUx-4ndbcaBB1FHUaifQk-KCkfifaxrIxI4rrEG88ABJCX72PlljZl0MbJP2QD_f-UZDp6wHKlaizj1iUt-arX2Z1MffaP-Tbev-SZVjU-yVrcW8rzdO_O1FmQP6tZ6INy-M4Ws_oiiE/s1600/xfce-start-terminal-menu.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMUx-4ndbcaBB1FHUaifQk-KCkfifaxrIxI4rrEG88ABJCX72PlljZl0MbJP2QD_f-UZDp6wHKlaizj1iUt-arX2Z1MffaP-Tbev-SZVjU-yVrcW8rzdO_O1FmQP6tZ6INy-M4Ws_oiiE/s320/xfce-start-terminal-menu.png" /></a>
<p>Terminal can also be stared from desktop context menu.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1QxF2znnOpL8RoIpxd7FMwOQPcWn7NQ0xqHePZqK08NSK3d-MOA5Bvtyr302xxNltpXQhyphenhyphenLh4idpgNQMAnJ7XduTOhfUweRWuLvN6UIlQkf_t0ssf5krdkLJL920Lg0iyMaMO68diIw/s1600/xfce-desktop-settings.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz1QxF2znnOpL8RoIpxd7FMwOQPcWn7NQ0xqHePZqK08NSK3d-MOA5Bvtyr302xxNltpXQhyphenhyphenLh4idpgNQMAnJ7XduTOhfUweRWuLvN6UIlQkf_t0ssf5krdkLJL920Lg0iyMaMO68diIw/s320/xfce-desktop-settings.png" /></a>
<p>Background selector can be run from the same place as well. This is what it looks like.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqefrQDP9jjQlOV_fEBNAmQQ2T98158SgugTDizxAb0i4few6kHC09YhkgCHWpMKAXKPv9o3ECrIeAUmiPpVsp89Q21kgzSYM_zAr0naV16ARooMmCj6X_U6cDKJUjzRanbb5V5V_LN4I/s1600/xfce-select-background.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqefrQDP9jjQlOV_fEBNAmQQ2T98158SgugTDizxAb0i4few6kHC09YhkgCHWpMKAXKPv9o3ECrIeAUmiPpVsp89Q21kgzSYM_zAr0naV16ARooMmCj6X_U6cDKJUjzRanbb5V5V_LN4I/s320/xfce-select-background.png" /></a>
<p>No waste of space, preview included, simple selector. No name, no author, but filename is present, so while it isn't fail, there's still lots of room to improve. Wallpaper changes on select.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>While I was writing this, I realized that even though I write it alphabetically, it also reflects how I like the DE I write about – the first one least, the last one most. Interesting coincidence. If I had to draw some conclusion I'd say that traditional desktops are very good for starting applications, terminal especially, KDE is midway and GNOME and Cinnamon lag behind. I think the change from menu to something else is making things worse rather than better (this counts for Windows 7 as well, I find it very hard to find an app I want to start there without using keyboard). When selecting background, KDE is the obvious winner with both being quick and easy and providing most of important information. Gnome and Cinnamon both fail tremendously in this. Last, when it comes to design, KDE is the obvious winner with a very professional polished look, traditional GTK2 based desktops are so-so with lots of room for improvement, Cinnamon and GNOME are terrible and very amateurish from my POV.</p>
<p>So in short, while I use Xfce, and will continue doing so, from this short comparison, KDE comes out as the winner.</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-6614070287713319792013-02-27T18:30:00.000+01:002013-02-27T18:43:48.293+01:00Consistent Perspective in a Group of Icons – How To<p>I've been creating a bunch of Echo icons lately and one thing I wondered how to do properly is perspective. It's easy to do thinks consistently if you're using some kind of metric projection (e.g. isometric), because you have simple linear transformations from (X, Y, Z) to (x, y). That's not true for perspective. How the 3D projects to 2D depends on the shape, on the position, on the size and many more factors when projecting with perspective. Because I was creating many icons at once, all flat ones with constant thickness, I wanted to do this not only consistently, but also quickly. I've came up with the following workflow.</p>
<p>Start with drawing the front face of the icon on the canvas, just like if you were drawing pure 2D.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt-zWcxmNhhxyVZ0GPbtgHIoPv4b7Hqk2iE-XoulAqdsSw6xA4v5UWjOA0AR3ProlxmVLrSVT8huK9P5SvvAhkiXhhexYG7_2J5j5ZFXXahot9ZFKREgtTwL4g3KxlMwjGgnTtyOk87e4/s1600/echo-perspective-1.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt-zWcxmNhhxyVZ0GPbtgHIoPv4b7Hqk2iE-XoulAqdsSw6xA4v5UWjOA0AR3ProlxmVLrSVT8huK9P5SvvAhkiXhhexYG7_2J5j5ZFXXahot9ZFKREgtTwL4g3KxlMwjGgnTtyOk87e4/s320/echo-perspective-1.png" /></a>
<p>Then duplicate the canvas as well as the icon shape. Don't forget to change colours so that you can easily tell them apart.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4d-sZ4ylI9yFjBXbhHh1QD_ioOGIhWbX_9U49uJRQxQdExnEYRueBXvk3szsmnMdOq7syLvK6OGeqoQopbBTjS-UG8CAVNUCxfEgdsqq0x2NGzifMyp27AsLvRX-werJsyGb-hgmRpA/s1600/echo-perspective-2.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4d-sZ4ylI9yFjBXbhHh1QD_ioOGIhWbX_9U49uJRQxQdExnEYRueBXvk3szsmnMdOq7syLvK6OGeqoQopbBTjS-UG8CAVNUCxfEgdsqq0x2NGzifMyp27AsLvRX-werJsyGb-hgmRpA/s320/echo-perspective-2.png" /></a>
<p>Next change the size of them by some factor and use the same factor for every icon you create and is supposed to have the same thickness. The resize should be done to both canvas and the icon shape at the same time so that it scales properly, keeping the ratios and position of the icon on canvas.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_y6EuB_6FaFb0hH_VaEOq_Owvb9loMBVK2R2LJZRx-isVqwbX48meX6a_Q-FU_0hLx9UHlTTjHqLXyUExq3dPtuclkd24oUVcBm5MatcR7mjIbFDwtPH6i6DL9Jr34kyKVtsyZe9hfk/s1600/echo-perspective-3.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_y6EuB_6FaFb0hH_VaEOq_Owvb9loMBVK2R2LJZRx-isVqwbX48meX6a_Q-FU_0hLx9UHlTTjHqLXyUExq3dPtuclkd24oUVcBm5MatcR7mjIbFDwtPH6i6DL9Jr34kyKVtsyZe9hfk/s320/echo-perspective-3.png" /></a>
<p>Then move the resized canvas together with the icon shape to it's new position. Again this has to be done consistently for all icons with the same thickness. You can imagine that the original and edited canvas create together some kind of cuboid whose front and back faces are squares, even in the 2D projected image its thickness regulates thickness of the icons and the relative position of its back side to the front side controls your point of view.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuHHpeL-AxQSs5nmeixMC63ySEsq47Ca3y4XmvbpfbKOzD29hqPrUHW6FvkxIT7C5l1XK3LGA-vfG-5L1SdnI7iSqPXtl85pjyIqjAyf8B0j2eZADVz_6xYi7cOi3VoxvlxMINjwTmQs/s1600/echo-perspective-4.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOuHHpeL-AxQSs5nmeixMC63ySEsq47Ca3y4XmvbpfbKOzD29hqPrUHW6FvkxIT7C5l1XK3LGA-vfG-5L1SdnI7iSqPXtl85pjyIqjAyf8B0j2eZADVz_6xYi7cOi3VoxvlxMINjwTmQs/s320/echo-perspective-4.png" /></a>
<p>Next delete the changed canvas (we don't need it anymore) and put the back side of the icon behind the front one.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQIB61csVp9liPrvAJy_1kewDcWdgu8C5hlcROzJFnm096_Mjk5t2tI0Ar6Sa0K329tLSlLeYrxnq51dODphnlMDLxM3xox3ZRsY-dn7P1d0TPzo9T-SBI5qkUtZgx9KxqxDbVu1ci1qs/s1600/echo-perspective-5.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQIB61csVp9liPrvAJy_1kewDcWdgu8C5hlcROzJFnm096_Mjk5t2tI0Ar6Sa0K329tLSlLeYrxnq51dODphnlMDLxM3xox3ZRsY-dn7P1d0TPzo9T-SBI5qkUtZgx9KxqxDbVu1ci1qs/s320/echo-perspective-5.png" /></a>
<p>Next you should remember that you're doing an icon so it should be properly aligned to pixel grid in order to look crisp. This can be done quickly with the help of inkscape grid feature.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEY9kdls10mwb_4EEEShPa19MRIzo9Xrh-_eiL04tuj1smGLj9Zih5mwTFMR5gcWmhWi_W-ngTAuorsLdBMNjjPDilrLNoW2tks1ud5Xg6fDN2eDZp95V-vCvJkYM4nrecySTzcaQsoYg/s1600/echo-perspective-6.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEY9kdls10mwb_4EEEShPa19MRIzo9Xrh-_eiL04tuj1smGLj9Zih5mwTFMR5gcWmhWi_W-ngTAuorsLdBMNjjPDilrLNoW2tks1ud5Xg6fDN2eDZp95V-vCvJkYM4nrecySTzcaQsoYg/s320/echo-perspective-6.png" /></a>
<p>Now we have front and back side of the icon, but we still don't have it's sides, as can be seen on the next picture.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUm7J1OezmxVyqPQm_2YaDQXT3Lfuiol8jgI6C8NNWS0PC24jqORD25baQ3za9YrhbnozcgeUxhy2TPFKVoimmHxDnKdBpxfylufiiR7rKZ084bsoE27SnAeutzgNGHrB6lpSmfGfFjY/s1600/echo-perspective-7.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUm7J1OezmxVyqPQm_2YaDQXT3Lfuiol8jgI6C8NNWS0PC24jqORD25baQ3za9YrhbnozcgeUxhy2TPFKVoimmHxDnKdBpxfylufiiR7rKZ084bsoE27SnAeutzgNGHrB6lpSmfGfFjY/s320/echo-perspective-7.png" /></a>
<p>The easiest and for simple icons also the best way to do them is to duplicate the front side again, merge it with the back side and fix those bumpy parts to look as you'd expect them using the node tool.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChitG9HKgn6V4aC7he7Ed6PH2Y6n8pdlKYmU142OH5MSnhmH3zYlRnh1t0poMwRYNSW5LvHVD2Jckdh3K4-ROs9V0j-9zYa9bhMQM8jR2HJTKJPKgSzBE5Lf2kxbIv7U-bLghdetRFBo/s1600/echo-perspective-8.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChitG9HKgn6V4aC7he7Ed6PH2Y6n8pdlKYmU142OH5MSnhmH3zYlRnh1t0poMwRYNSW5LvHVD2Jckdh3K4-ROs9V0j-9zYa9bhMQM8jR2HJTKJPKgSzBE5Lf2kxbIv7U-bLghdetRFBo/s320/echo-perspective-8.png" /></a>
<p>Now the icon is only missing some shading and outline.</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWUbBiPH_BG8ar1gI9pZtE5L0e4MpzQjpRxUzSxVgdga7CELDGeJSr8nGR0DoJdSVMtLQBuxTT9hCFVXAuNsGYNfmP-Z0wCxQeTgoaG9a6HTjWZPg7XQqJ4YcAgy6UyHpCyZ2B_PDwDA/s1600/echo-perspective-9.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWUbBiPH_BG8ar1gI9pZtE5L0e4MpzQjpRxUzSxVgdga7CELDGeJSr8nGR0DoJdSVMtLQBuxTT9hCFVXAuNsGYNfmP-Z0wCxQeTgoaG9a6HTjWZPg7XQqJ4YcAgy6UyHpCyZ2B_PDwDA/s320/echo-perspective-9.png" /></a>
<p>So next we add some gradients to make it look as we wish – this can be a tedious task, depending on how realistic we want the icon to look. On small size like this one it can be greatly simplified though. And finally we add an outline. This can be done by duplicating the edited shape again, adding an outline that is twice as wide as we want it to be (because half of it will be hidden) and push it bellow the whole icon. The result looks like this:</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuivIJ8Z8j2x8JnT57XlkL-fkKusfS4HwG_YsxeEpS4izjlRWYqcWI_Waep-6Sgdqa4PPLhZpIih_mZHk11vf-uaIvIHiHA38ZAYEi1i_3dsJQeG2Kx6bpDkKDrgvSVZ3vKAGDjanITL8/s1600/echo-perspective-10.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuivIJ8Z8j2x8JnT57XlkL-fkKusfS4HwG_YsxeEpS4izjlRWYqcWI_Waep-6Sgdqa4PPLhZpIih_mZHk11vf-uaIvIHiHA38ZAYEi1i_3dsJQeG2Kx6bpDkKDrgvSVZ3vKAGDjanITL8/s320/echo-perspective-10.png" /></a>
<p>Finally we render the icon in desired size with transparent canvas and it looks like this:</p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tvuDpP9jsum3leaKlPxcfQ57bM-dz30T5BMyU17gnPaH6ghnxfHJOCzinVDaQT7KmYlt8TCPSzJbxtZd6PqtiWsmGFTKYfUJSA6vmsLTyg3MuCWT2Vis6-tyH3q4bu_dx-Keb1DvzC0/s1600/go-bottom.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-tvuDpP9jsum3leaKlPxcfQ57bM-dz30T5BMyU17gnPaH6ghnxfHJOCzinVDaQT7KmYlt8TCPSzJbxtZd6PqtiWsmGFTKYfUJSA6vmsLTyg3MuCWT2Vis6-tyH3q4bu_dx-Keb1DvzC0/s320/go-bottom.png" /></a>
<p>I hope you like my today's how-to :-) Also, bear in mind that this is greatly simplified perspective projection as we use it in icons, if you were going for fully realistic painting you'd quickly find this workflow isn't suited for such task.</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-10081096774562652013-02-07T21:14:00.000+01:002013-08-08T13:10:35.053+02:00(XFCE) Terminal and XChat Colour Scheme<p>I'm a regular terminal user and with F18 I switched back from Sakura to XFCE Terminal, because for some reason sakura refused to get configured as before (I think I wasn't able to remove window borders anymore)—I prefer terminal in some kind of semi-full-screen mode, i.e. maximized (but with DE panel[s] still visible), without menu, without window borders, without scrollbars. And while I was at the configuring, I decided to change the default colour scheme. It's not like I particularly dislike it, but as a regular mc (midnight-commander—there isn't a better file manager out there) user, I kinda grew to dislike the blueness of the default blue and some kind of colour combinations weren't exactly easy to read (hinted fonts are partially to blame for that though, by design). So first I searched a bit over the net, but didn't find anything satisfactory, so I decided to adapt Echo Icon Theme Palette for terminal use (black terminal, I've also prepared a bright/inverse version for xchat). First how it looks:</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3at3_vdorKDrH-8idiem9NPMF9rX83vUMvm_GMJcxahcrHWNKEqq_dN5ihe-doIAOnluJJucT-4wb0ZXxEljJ7Ts8FXEbXaEOeCm6GQ2vIK_cn5Zx3x15OWYP9RjhDSAIVC56wUaQiA/s1600/terminal-echo-palette.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="250" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3at3_vdorKDrH-8idiem9NPMF9rX83vUMvm_GMJcxahcrHWNKEqq_dN5ihe-doIAOnluJJucT-4wb0ZXxEljJ7Ts8FXEbXaEOeCm6GQ2vIK_cn5Zx3x15OWYP9RjhDSAIVC56wUaQiA/s400/terminal-echo-palette.png" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYmZj2I-u0oy9-vqjDEC-8Hp7iZIY9Fp-P4SJc-XmN-I35m09ZXQa7eDELwtPM2VtXgPTYWoTzplG_UJcGBnonSGn0UyEhQvzIfH4PZuEucDg0HrGSHm0p-kwUrMqxfmJTGDQFPTABbIM/s1600/xchat-echo-palette.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="261" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYmZj2I-u0oy9-vqjDEC-8Hp7iZIY9Fp-P4SJc-XmN-I35m09ZXQa7eDELwtPM2VtXgPTYWoTzplG_UJcGBnonSGn0UyEhQvzIfH4PZuEucDg0HrGSHm0p-kwUrMqxfmJTGDQFPTABbIM/s400/xchat-echo-palette.png" /></a></div>
<p>And now for the actual colours. Here's an excerpt from <code>~/.config/Terminal/terminalrc</code>:</p>
<pre>
BackgroundMode=TERMINAL_BACKGROUND_TRANSPARENT
BackgroundDarkness=0.950000
ColorPalette1=#000000000000
ColorPalette2=#b4b400000000
ColorPalette3=#0000aaaa0000
ColorPalette4=#cbcb7c7c0000
ColorPalette5=#00003f3f6868
ColorPalette6=#bfbf0000efef
ColorPalette7=#0000a61dd074
ColorPalette8=#c6c6c6c6c6c6
ColorPalette9=#5ef75ef75ef7
ColorPalette10=#ffff52990000
ColorPalette11=#9393dada0000
ColorPalette12=#ffffe1e13939
ColorPalette13=#00007373a2a2
ColorPalette14=#dbdb8181ffff
ColorPalette15=#8181e3e3ffff
ColorPalette16=#ffffffffffff
ColorForeground=#c6c6c6c6c6c6
ColorCursor=#c6c6c6c6c6c6
TabActivityColor=#00003f3f6868
ScrollingSingleLine=FALSE
</pre>
<p>You can notice I also included <code>ScrollingSingleLine=FALSE</code>—that makes shift+arrows work in mc to select items ;-)</p>
<p>And now from <code>~/.xchat2/colors.conf</code></p>
<pre>
color_0 = 0000 0000 0000
color_1 = ffff ffff ffff
color_2 = 5050 d8d8 ffff
color_3 = 5b5b b5b5 0000
color_4 = ecec 2828 0000
color_5 = d7d7 a1a1 3c3c
color_6 = d4d4 6767 ffff
color_7 = b4b4 0000 0000
color_8 = 6666 3c3c 0000
color_9 = 0606 9090 0000
color_10 = 0000 7373 a2a2
color_11 = 0000 3f3f 6868
color_12 = 0000 adad dbdb
color_13 = bfbf 0000 efef
color_14 = 5e5e 5e5e 5e5e
color_15 = 3030 3030 3030
color_16 = 0000 0000 0000
color_17 = ffff ffff ffff
color_18 = 5050 d8d8 ffff
color_19 = 5b5b b5b5 0000
color_20 = ecec 2828 0000
color_21 = d7d7 a1a1 3c3c
color_22 = d4d4 6767 ffff
color_23 = b4b4 0000 0000
color_24 = 6666 3c3c 0000
color_25 = 0606 9090 0000
color_26 = 0000 7373 a2a2
color_27 = 0000 3f3f 6868
color_28 = 0000 adad dbdb
color_29 = bfbf 0000 efef
color_30 = 5e5e 5e5e 5e5e
color_31 = 3030 3030 3030
color_256 = ffff ffff ffff
color_257 = 0000 7373 a2a2
color_258 = 0000 0000 0000
color_259 = ffff ffff ffff
color_260 = cccc 1010 1010
color_261 = 0606 9090 0000
color_262 = 0000 7373 a2a2
color_263 = 5b5b b5b5 0000
color_264 = 5e5e 5e5e 5e5e
</pre>
<p>Hope it's useful to other people than me as well. I find it both easier on eyes, and having better readability (with the font I'm using, it seems this one is important too).</p>
<p>PS: For those wondering about some differences of my desktop compared to previous screenshots—when trying out CentOS 6, I got addicted to analog clock ;-) And a little while before I decided to hide the bottom panel automagically to have more space for apps.</p>
<p>PPS: My apologies for having some comments in my moderation queue for too long, somehow I wasn't notified via mail, or missed them. I definitely don't censor, the moderation is for spam purposes only (or for cases were people post the same reaction multiple times).</p>
<p><b>Update (2013/08/08): </b>In Fedora 19 (and newer), the xfce terminal config is in different place and colours are specified slightly different. Here's excerpt from <code>~/.config/xfce4/terminal/terminalrc</code>:</p>
<pre>
ColorPalette=#000000;#b40000;#00aa00;#cb7c00;#003f68;#bf00ef;#00a6d0;#c6c6c6;#5e5e5e;#ff5200;#93da00;#ffe139;#0073a2;#db81ff;#81e3ff;#ffffff
ColorCursor=#c6c6c6c6c6c6
TabActivityColor=#00003f3f6868
ColorForeground=#c6c6c6c6c6c6
</pre>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-81740960005290273652012-12-31T15:34:00.000+01:002012-12-31T15:34:15.618+01:00Designing Echo icons again<p>It's been a while since I designed my last icon but for one reason or another I decided I need to make some progress with Echo Perspective Icon Theme again… The final push was me playing with colours—when I had started writing code for Nodoka, I begun with a colour representation. Since we use gradients and shades a lot, I decided to go colour managed and started researching about colour representations and ended up redoing Echo colour palette in sRGB using CIE Luv (in Luma, Chroma, Hue coordinates) as a working space.</p>
<p>The resultant palette is redone from scratch based on the Echo (Perspective) icons that have been already released instead of the current palette for better consistency, but it's "normalized" WRT CIE Luv colour space. The result looks like this:</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIjef-p0b8It7x8UCQagoR683LjPBl9ZyUhUvDrz3GeauZz-M5hvkPo5TESziLKAiOPmr6GtuWeFDunf2vMQhFGps5cZy16MjJl7rgujvdhVI6tsqKvE4Inbe757GXBs0FR41FRFPZFE/s1600/echo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="295" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIjef-p0b8It7x8UCQagoR683LjPBl9ZyUhUvDrz3GeauZz-M5hvkPo5TESziLKAiOPmr6GtuWeFDunf2vMQhFGps5cZy16MjJl7rgujvdhVI6tsqKvE4Inbe757GXBs0FR41FRFPZFE/s400/echo.png" /></a></div>
<p>The right column actually uses normalization WRT CIE Lab colour space, but I decided to stick with the CIE Luv one, which is in the left column. The differences are subtle though.</p>
<p>From there it was ony one step to doing icons, actually. I went all out and decided that I'll
<ul><li>make more sizes than before to better support current and future DEs, i.e. 16×16, 22×22(24×24), 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 128×128 and 256×256;</li><li>make similar icons in a single file svg (which means I'll need to write some helper libraries to help split it automatically during build);</li><li>start with action icons in media player, browser and related, which is 23 icons in two groups.</li></ul></p>
<p>Well, it's a lot of work—23 icons, each in 7(8) sizes, that's 161 pictures. Ugh, that will take a while... Some preview WIP is bellow:</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXe4ssf2BSU8Lqukit1-BG7mLPc2p8jMf1wqOK1ZZJLUSUfoMfdQKj28qHXdL19_AHGGXsiQl0meTl48Lu0MhCByiDMmqepvbIuZckzaKVcsJdIo-y6YVP-SyOdy3mvFzqZLhzB0ExHA/s1600/test.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="156" width="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnXe4ssf2BSU8Lqukit1-BG7mLPc2p8jMf1wqOK1ZZJLUSUfoMfdQKj28qHXdL19_AHGGXsiQl0meTl48Lu0MhCByiDMmqepvbIuZckzaKVcsJdIo-y6YVP-SyOdy3mvFzqZLhzB0ExHA/s400/test.png" /></a></div>
<p>You can notice some design changes, some are new, some have been appearing for a while already, albeit inconsistently. First I went back to slightly darker blue hues than what we were doing recently, it makes better contrast and should work a bit better with darker backgrounds. You could have noticed this design change in my nodoka designs as well (there were three icons in them).</p>
<p>Second change that has been already visible in nodoka designs, is departure from sharp corners. They make the images unnecessary bigger (especially the arrows) and look kinda oldish. I decided that the white outline as well as border should have rounded corners. IMHO it looks better and I hope to retain this style consistently throughout Echo Perspective.</p>
<p>Last change is to shapes—first one I did was view-refresh. The old two big arrows looks sort of heavy and are hard to do at smaller sizes. So I've done something simpler and later I noticed that my new e-book reader uses similar style while loading, lol. My primary source of inspiration in this was an anime I liked for its easygoing style and, believe it or not, typesetting (the anime is called acchi kocchi):</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0IKIjIBjAw5zyJox_qbR8KAC5VlW7HTiplXVN1dL9-6056ZEHlInnwFIXhIeKeEBgy3pXp9KcD9VaOJJlLrAgLb-Ld07OtDP8Q313K-yWJnYOXax8WYpZEX9quDzdVtTkGIpawZPAcA/s1600/acchi-kocchi.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="225" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0IKIjIBjAw5zyJox_qbR8KAC5VlW7HTiplXVN1dL9-6056ZEHlInnwFIXhIeKeEBgy3pXp9KcD9VaOJJlLrAgLb-Ld07OtDP8Q313K-yWJnYOXax8WYpZEX9quDzdVtTkGIpawZPAcA/s400/acchi-kocchi.png" /></a></div>
<p>Second shape change was for process-stop icon from circle to the more common octagon. And finally a small change to media-record icon for it to be better distinguished from similar dialog related icons like dialog-no.</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-21018067512764653702012-11-30T00:31:00.000+01:002012-11-30T00:31:34.058+01:00Color ChallengeIt took up <a href="http://tatica.org/en/2012/11/29/reto-de-color/">tatica's challenge</a>, and to my own astonishment I scored perfect. I did it in a room, at night with medium bright indirect lighting, on a LCD screen that came with my 6 years old laptop. There where a couple of colours I wasn't 100 % sure of, but it seems I leaned towards the correct choices after a couple of switch-compare-switch-compare rounds. What helped me was that while two colours seemed sometimes almost same, when grouped with other already sorted colours, when they were in wrong order, they stood out.
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Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-64858622738386772322012-09-09T17:37:00.000+02:002012-09-09T17:49:15.273+02:00Nodoka Concept Art—FinishedIt's been a year, a month and a day (and a couple of hours) since my last update to Nodoka concept art (well, I've been lazy, busy with other stuff and since vast majority of my apps are still GTK2, there was also no need). Over the weekend I've finished the last one—Noir. The current Nodoka style will remain as Classic. As it will be mostly unchanged (sans maybe some small modifications to shadows) I haven't done any concept art for that. I hope it won't be another year before I start writing code, actually… Anyway, here are the pics (roughly sorted from brightest to darkest), enjoy!
<h3>Nodoka Glossy</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh21AerpVFIlIXKBATpApiudXvvYsjL15ezFIxtGJyfBu3Cj17XIIClhn6YnhKPmCUoCEscY9UC1EBBVUrQj_ORzr6RnygjXBz74HV0FMlsezP6kGum_7uo7G1tlu6AWeXZ-Op04dbhtfw/s1600/glossy-layout.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="378" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh21AerpVFIlIXKBATpApiudXvvYsjL15ezFIxtGJyfBu3Cj17XIIClhn6YnhKPmCUoCEscY9UC1EBBVUrQj_ORzr6RnygjXBz74HV0FMlsezP6kGum_7uo7G1tlu6AWeXZ-Op04dbhtfw/s400/glossy-layout.png" /></a></div>
<h3>Nodoka Classic</h3>
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<h3>Nodoka Modern</h3>
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<h3>Nodoka Noir</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxOsOPdMQYy1xHkbsby3aLQVVtgUYPQA80z6X_q6EBm41ERoBzHIabkAGVBgtsizXpNM9840vxUn6l8B0lyaE12NhShxxllco6WE44SWR7_xId4-E6bM3UplAMKry0YWME85yDjNn6V0Y/s1600/noir-layout.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="378" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxOsOPdMQYy1xHkbsby3aLQVVtgUYPQA80z6X_q6EBm41ERoBzHIabkAGVBgtsizXpNM9840vxUn6l8B0lyaE12NhShxxllco6WE44SWR7_xId4-E6bM3UplAMKry0YWME85yDjNn6V0Y/s400/noir-layout.png" /></a></div>
<p>If the pictures are blurry you can see them in original size on <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/nodoka/wiki/1.x_Brainstorm/Initial_Widget_Design">Nodoka 1.x concept art</a> wiki page.</p>
<p>I hope you like it, comments are welcomed. Also bear in mind that this is <i>concept art</i>, not a working example. So the working example will look slightly different and moreover I haven't started writing it yet.</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-28546901627888099012012-09-06T14:17:00.000+02:002012-09-08T20:53:50.232+02:00Fedora 18 Alpha Wallpaper<p>It's rather old news, but today it has been finally set as default—yes the wallpaper for Fedora 18 Spherical Cow release. It took so much time because I didn't manage to update the package that sets the defaults in time before Alpha freeze.</p>
<p>You probably have a general idea of what the wallpaper looks like from my <a href="http://mso-chronicles.blogspot.cz/2012/08/fedora-18-pre-alpha-wallpaper.html">post about pre-alpha version</a> of it, but since then it has been polished a bit—mizmo did a great job on that—and now it looks like this ;-)</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzCGLlBUWUQpr5n_jN6cJuwLqOTNjg9oGuVNAZJ3Yneepk_wKBdWi7Y27vpZKan07Oe1hTElO5Q0tJs4MrnvU2IQh56kjFVLKylcogA80kqDu5EdqeEB65kum-ZnC3-MM04njCTd1VAk/s1600/fedora-18-alpha-wallpaper.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="250" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzCGLlBUWUQpr5n_jN6cJuwLqOTNjg9oGuVNAZJ3Yneepk_wKBdWi7Y27vpZKan07Oe1hTElO5Q0tJs4MrnvU2IQh56kjFVLKylcogA80kqDu5EdqeEB65kum-ZnC3-MM04njCTd1VAk/s400/fedora-18-alpha-wallpaper.png" /></a></div>
<p>Enjoy.</p>
<p><b>Update Sep 08: </b>I'm <i>not</i> the author of the wallpaper, just a packager, so do not thank <i>me</i> ;-) However, I'm relaying your feedback to the design-team, so I really appreciate all the comments you've posted so far. I'll keep both my readers as well as the design team informed about news on both sides, so comment more and stay tuned for updates ;-)</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-40249601524225881142012-08-11T13:53:00.000+02:002012-08-11T15:38:43.494+02:00Fedora 18 Pre-Alpha Wallpaper<p>It's been a while since I last blogged, but as I have some design news, it's worth writing a blog post again. Yesterday there was another design team meeting&hackfest and we were able to agree on the theme for the Fedora 18 Sperical Cow wallpaper. The latest iteration, I still call it pre-alpha because I expect there'll be some polishing yet before alpha release looks like this:</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-coF_JKcjUNW425rn1LmEo2hMxnqWmQIrGthqPM0rYkkTZIVIbSP5EgLee9IKvpBQsCcrmoBhfKbuHcPJOgzitjEsBWg9fRdQgUvKiDCVUeLo_gIyHoHvmhrRFAyPGmu33Ela-BtUnjY/s1600/spherical-cow5-xfce-screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="250" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-coF_JKcjUNW425rn1LmEo2hMxnqWmQIrGthqPM0rYkkTZIVIbSP5EgLee9IKvpBQsCcrmoBhfKbuHcPJOgzitjEsBWg9fRdQgUvKiDCVUeLo_gIyHoHvmhrRFAyPGmu33Ela-BtUnjY/s400/spherical-cow5-xfce-screenshot.png" /></a></div>
<p>I've packaged it and submitted a <a href="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=847436">review request</a>, which is currently in need of a reviewer.</p>
<p>We at the design team hope you'll like it and of course are open to comments and suggestions. We'll hear you out in our usual channels: #fedora-design @ irc.freenode.net and <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/design-team">Fedora Design Team Mailing List</a>.</p>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-13571668911378915282011-11-23T12:06:00.002+01:002011-11-23T12:11:18.997+01:00Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle Wallpaper—Accepting Concept ArtworkWe're a little bit behind and should have started much sooner, so the time is running short. We are now open for submissions for the Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle default wallpaper concept artwork. If you are interested, please submit your work as soon as possible, the closing date is about one month ahead (the deadline will be officially announced next week).<br /><br />Submit your concept work here:<br /><a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F17_Artwork/Submissions/Wallpaper_Concept">https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F17_Artwork/Submissions/Wallpaper_Concept</a>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-16448672444645304122011-09-21T08:30:00.000+02:002011-09-21T08:30:42.660+02:00Fedora 16 Verne Beta WallpapersIt's been a while since I pushed the updated wallpapers but now I finally got the will to post about it. First see the updated beta wallpaper:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihF5wtMQX9VbEaieqXz71X1IOegZRJFj_ni1uHn3KmchVzFb9hBefUM9szg_acH1UsLZrOBs-QLVbyQmiAn1doefiaLdhi0x96xnmvARdjzgzY3Ki_HDEQzsxfxVj26uep34r60WWPpBw/s1600/verne-02-noon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="250" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihF5wtMQX9VbEaieqXz71X1IOegZRJFj_ni1uHn3KmchVzFb9hBefUM9szg_acH1UsLZrOBs-QLVbyQmiAn1doefiaLdhi0x96xnmvARdjzgzY3Ki_HDEQzsxfxVj26uep34r60WWPpBw/s400/verne-02-noon.png" /></a></div>
Next, I'd like to remind you that in Fedora 16 we again have supplemental wallpapers and what's more: since Fedora 16 all the supplemental wallpapers appear not only in GNOME's and KDE's wallpaper choosers but also in XFCE's. Enjoy:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Ks32i5QJv04JyEeJnYEoiwkJt6zG3YuMAfI-O6tOP5e7WILhJnsnByOlvoT_YY_c7zxsVK5fS-tYXXz_4Ax_HVIo9Cm78OjZinjhd3XOf_JMRQLxj33BsQ50-AqR_CSD68xrX7iMVk8/s1600/xfce-f16-supplemental.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="250" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Ks32i5QJv04JyEeJnYEoiwkJt6zG3YuMAfI-O6tOP5e7WILhJnsnByOlvoT_YY_c7zxsVK5fS-tYXXz_4Ax_HVIo9Cm78OjZinjhd3XOf_JMRQLxj33BsQ50-AqR_CSD68xrX7iMVk8/s400/xfce-f16-supplemental.png" /></a></div>
The full selection (with original images and info) is available at <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F16_Artwork/Submissions/Supplemental_Wallpapers#Selected_Backgrounds">F16 Artwork wiki page</a>.Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-87839052562674195672011-08-07T21:35:00.006+02:002011-08-07T21:51:25.999+02:00Nodoka Concept Art – Noir WIPWell, err, it's been a while ;-) And in order not to stall forever I made an attempt to start designing a really, really dark version of Nodoka. Perhaps it would be more fitting to say that I started playing around with Inkscape as I still don't have a clear idea what it should look like… Anyway, here's some preview, I've called it [fittingly] Noir (click on it to see it in actual size):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRMn-3C7AsQnyVK8eeLKjf82BOC1pzRtJOkeMmGZBGi1s2R8KWsxkQ2y2lZtKUFFH9DyTrq-IvUmLcSRR0z_LDpqVoXS33yr1nw_skiBEG41ZYNU_mfxteBoVq6dCDTiysXDwlwATgeLc/s1600/nodoka-concept-artwork-noir-layout-20110807.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRMn-3C7AsQnyVK8eeLKjf82BOC1pzRtJOkeMmGZBGi1s2R8KWsxkQ2y2lZtKUFFH9DyTrq-IvUmLcSRR0z_LDpqVoXS33yr1nw_skiBEG41ZYNU_mfxteBoVq6dCDTiysXDwlwATgeLc/s400/nodoka-concept-artwork-noir-layout-20110807.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638201122834859282" /></a><br />Hopefully, sometime in the future I'll finish all these concepts and start writing the actual code but seeing how much spare time I have, it seems to be rather distant future… Anyway, comments are welcome and sketches even more so. Get <a href="http://mso.fedorapeople.org/nodoka/rewrite/noir-layout.svg">source SVG</a> now!<br /><br />See <a href="http://mso-chronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/another-update-to-nodoka-concept.html">an older post</a> for the other two styles concept art.Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-24738578153189138662011-07-30T10:20:00.004+02:002011-08-02T14:46:29.315+02:00Fedora 16 Verne Wallpaper<span style="font-weight:bold;">Update</span>: <span style="font-style:italic;">test and give <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/lovelock-kde-theme-14.90.1-2.fc16,verne-kde-theme-15.91.0-1.fc16,kde-settings-4.7-3.fc16">karma to KDE side of things</a> so that KDE won't be left out for Alpha when it comes to default ;-) Thanks to <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JaroslavReznik">Jaroslav "Rezza" Reznik</a> for doing the quick work!</span><br /><br />Alpha release of next Fedora installment codenamed Verne is nearing and so is its Alpha freeze. Hence the Fedora Design Team selected a winning wallpaper design and I packaged it for F16 onward. It's currently pending pushing to stable. If you're on F16 or rawhide you'll be able to install these with <code># yum install verne-backgrounds-gnome</code> for GNOME, <code># yum install verne-backgrounds-kde</code> for KDE and <code># yum install verne-backgrounds-xfce</code> for XFCE. At the same time as the new package hits repos an updated desktop-backgrounds that sets is as default for GNOME, XFCE and LXDE-and-alike (e.g. LXDM) will also appear and so in Alpha this should be default everywhere except KDE (these need some more work first and sadly we didn't realized that when creating a design team schedule for F16).<br /><br />And for those wondering what is the winning picture, here's a screenshot of it in my F15 XFCE desktop ;-)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6I_IMoL7QADhgWilyQC8tbEevmm35BX5yfhEQndmLGyLlJbf6ub3XAUYhf3NCxa21BrBTYEiMZbmZKUb9Q2O4XsSVB0dF32VPQGTyFAcz8tMKucsKXlM-4bmIotgbiZUbOFRvtlSy0o/s1600/verne-alpha-wallpaper-xfce.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6I_IMoL7QADhgWilyQC8tbEevmm35BX5yfhEQndmLGyLlJbf6ub3XAUYhf3NCxa21BrBTYEiMZbmZKUb9Q2O4XsSVB0dF32VPQGTyFAcz8tMKucsKXlM-4bmIotgbiZUbOFRvtlSy0o/s400/verne-alpha-wallpaper-xfce.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635059534286081010" /></a><br /><br />As usual, the Fedora Design Team is looking for feedback on this via the usual channels:<br /><ul><li>You can comment under this blog post and I'll summarize your opinions to the Design Team.</li><li><a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/design-team">Fedora Design Team mailing list</a></li><li>at #fedora-design on irc.freenode.net, supposing you catch one of the Design Team members there.</li></ul>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-58730809600356916422011-07-22T14:42:00.008+02:002011-07-22T15:40:41.252+02:00Font Rendering in FedoraShortly said, it's not very impressive. But what are the options we have? Can we improve it? Well, there are some font settings that are available. See e.g. <a href="http://blog.andreas-haerter.com/2011/07/18/tune-improve-fedora-fonts-typeface-ubuntu-like-sharp-fonts">this blogpost about making fedora fonts look Ubuntu-like</a>. Although I personally see that as making things worse, there are people who think otherwise. What I decided to do was to skim through most of the hinting options we have and decide for myself what looks best. And of course, provide my readers with some images so that they could decide for themselves.<br /><br />So, I decided to do screenshots of some simple highlighted html code to showcase more than black-one white ;-) Initially I decided to make 9pt versions (which is what I use) and 12pt versions (which is standard text size on A4 paper) both for the "gui" variant (white background) and "tui" variant (black background). Halfway I got lazy, so I fully completed only the 9pt variant as you can see in the next two images (click on them to see unscaled). The sorting is this: on left side there are renderings <span style="font-style:italic;">without</span> freetype-freeworld, on the right side there are renderings <span style="font-style:italic;">with</span> freetype-freeworld (and thus with subpixel hinting). From top to bottom: none hinting, slight hinting and full hinting. For some reason, medium and full hinting looks exactly the same on my laptop which is probably a bug (it didn't used to), that's why I hadn't included it.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2G0EnEUr3Gq9uUNHIUGIegD7FfnE5tGkTsxFsYTxxNLuJS9UW9k9G5VHIjxp46bAf8_9Ea_fvLiKqA_kpJ0Al2Aab4FH3fVce5bqEurVKAfrs9D3NU-weL1zq_1bc3yL3kP-pRrtub3c/s1600/compare-dark-9pt.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 389px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2G0EnEUr3Gq9uUNHIUGIegD7FfnE5tGkTsxFsYTxxNLuJS9UW9k9G5VHIjxp46bAf8_9Ea_fvLiKqA_kpJ0Al2Aab4FH3fVce5bqEurVKAfrs9D3NU-weL1zq_1bc3yL3kP-pRrtub3c/s400/compare-dark-9pt.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632158703474348498" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK90fVcZdJl5RJ0Uopt2AoAAEF5O0hT2mFp9SBoa8-SAJ8lyLIxMrSX_4cohkk9B3LRcUUCHhGRRe6oebCDCVhhOdDkjsaH1qZqVDuMcouBIeL230Dd299Vfg6AhSKFsnD7nf1hVMzhks/s1600/compare-bright-9pt.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 298px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK90fVcZdJl5RJ0Uopt2AoAAEF5O0hT2mFp9SBoa8-SAJ8lyLIxMrSX_4cohkk9B3LRcUUCHhGRRe6oebCDCVhhOdDkjsaH1qZqVDuMcouBIeL230Dd299Vfg6AhSKFsnD7nf1hVMzhks/s400/compare-bright-9pt.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632158698989448866" /></a><br /><br />From these few images I believe I can confidently say this: <br /><ul><li>increasing amount of hinting increases crispness of the characters (can be seen especially for horizontal lines that are often "smudged")</li><li>Freetype-freeworld tends to produce better results than freetype for smaller amount of hinting.</li><li>Freetype-freeworld introduces colour halo around the strokes.</li><li>Japanese is unhinted (I sense <a href="http://mso-chronicles.blogspot.com/2009/10/mark-difference-ugly-fonts-in-fedora.html">problems with autohinter</a>)</li><li>Freetype-freeworld has better shapes, more smooth curves and better antialiasing, however it sacrifices crispness of the strokes (especially seen with full hinting)</li><li>Freetype-freeworld gives nicer results for e.g. orange on white, yellow on black or dark green black, while freetype gives nicer results for green on white, blue on white or red on black. At this size. I noticed that increasing the size is more favourable for freetype-freeworld.</li></ul><br /><br />I also include two shots with 12pt. Both with full hinting, both include whole geany window (app font is 9pt big), the first one is freetype (save xfwm which uses freetype-freeworld in both cases), the second one freetype-freeworld.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMzsDPDOPO5_cZsRvBAIrjd2Dzp5RA724W4lVN5euaHsAS2OzelWWnoGo3vNev-9Z6TYab2Y6C1ypIdRpSFw0Zka_JKG1zI-jxIvfRewNdYQ9ed0Ek_nsRxvobBqbZ7UUPtTS77RhHk00/s1600/bright-fullhint-12pt.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 231px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMzsDPDOPO5_cZsRvBAIrjd2Dzp5RA724W4lVN5euaHsAS2OzelWWnoGo3vNev-9Z6TYab2Y6C1ypIdRpSFw0Zka_JKG1zI-jxIvfRewNdYQ9ed0Ek_nsRxvobBqbZ7UUPtTS77RhHk00/s400/bright-fullhint-12pt.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632162330117681858" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJV7bfg3BZdqRDJj1GzfaVBeRG57Pc4uiheMhhg4bP5Prf78yVcHGY6871mdUgI51aAZVh1_i0MNpd2bS8oP2-F3ZlRZ6d3OgXzvmRlMHIiB7UERBDBw03soHUOGvD7H9Wj00ag-qKhyphenhypheno/s1600/freeworld-bright-fullhint-12pt.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJV7bfg3BZdqRDJj1GzfaVBeRG57Pc4uiheMhhg4bP5Prf78yVcHGY6871mdUgI51aAZVh1_i0MNpd2bS8oP2-F3ZlRZ6d3OgXzvmRlMHIiB7UERBDBw03soHUOGvD7H9Wj00ag-qKhyphenhypheno/s400/freeworld-bright-fullhint-12pt.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632162499724464290" /></a><br /><br />Well, decide for yourself what's best for you, but since the blurriness bugs me more than slight aliasing, I'll probably stay without freetype-freeworld and with full hinting.Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-72000884183232262742011-07-14T12:53:00.003+02:002011-07-14T13:03:13.116+02:00T-shirt? Erm, what?So, after seeing <a href="http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/">nicu's</a> <a href="http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2011/07/whats-your-t-shirt.html">t-shirt meme</a> I felt a strong urge to join it. However, I don't have any other t-shirts than plain black (or at most dark blue) :-D But an idea sprang to my mind – does it have to be t-shirt? Isn't any piece of cloth good? Why not aikidō-gi? And while I am at it, why not add my complete weaponry? Well, here's the result:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-KIh68Kp6-5grBZL7WSvUL6bR1L3shfHFL06Fk6O1PyEraiyUVQJXbkfvyUFhW9Ff6UJx2wk6EDfbZUu1KYrbxPuQAG5SgLmjPk0Lk9BO7kOoM-Y2WosZwTaiNIrRcsdm9RUf-SnGszo/s1600/aikido-gi%252Bweapons.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 208px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-KIh68Kp6-5grBZL7WSvUL6bR1L3shfHFL06Fk6O1PyEraiyUVQJXbkfvyUFhW9Ff6UJx2wk6EDfbZUu1KYrbxPuQAG5SgLmjPk0Lk9BO7kOoM-Y2WosZwTaiNIrRcsdm9RUf-SnGszo/s400/aikido-gi%252Bweapons.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5629160597431871138" /></a><br /><br />Included weapons are: jō (the one I'm doing tsuki with), bokken (wooden sword; well maybe bokutō – what the hell is the difference between those two words?) and tantō (knife). From anime and various samurai films I picked up that tantō should be kept inside the upper part of kimono, but it wouldn't be on the photo then, right? So I put it where samurais used to put their shōto (short version of katana).Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-30612159180262996912011-06-23T13:35:00.005+02:002011-06-23T22:53:13.070+02:00Vertical Text Layout — How To?Over the past few years I have been getting more and more interested in Japanese culture, language, aikido, etc. and as some of you might know, traditionally Japanese text is written vertically (starting at top-right corner). Here's an example of such text in LibreOffice Calc (where I discovered how to do it)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_28Uv6N734ACcGmIngKmxnA4i1mUbx0l3nND7bOAdCgTp8mi66bjqTnWsYlYbOdqWlf9oRQ8WFpWY3tFUqsAhviPfXzC18COQ6QmU3ORs6p2-ZkKFx8pKTkXlrkBZoHPhyphenhyphenxIBy6DEwk/s1600/vertical-text.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 356px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_28Uv6N734ACcGmIngKmxnA4i1mUbx0l3nND7bOAdCgTp8mi66bjqTnWsYlYbOdqWlf9oRQ8WFpWY3tFUqsAhviPfXzC18COQ6QmU3ORs6p2-ZkKFx8pKTkXlrkBZoHPhyphenhyphenxIBy6DEwk/s400/vertical-text.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621378140077820066" /></a><br /><br />What I don't know how to do, or if it's even possible, is typesetting a book / story / poem in such layout. I am basically looking for two approaches:<br /><ol><li>LibreOffice Writer way. Here I know how to write Japanese, I even have some nice free, but sadly not libre fonts, but I don't know how to set vertical text layout. Anyone knows if it is possible and if so, how to do it?</li><li>TeX way. I've been using plain TeX for ages but I still neither know how to typeset Japanese nor how to use vertical text layout there. Any pointers for both of these are welcome.</li></ol><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">EDIT</span>: ad 1. Looks like I have been blind. Thanks to <a href="http://vorbote.myopenid.com/">Vorbote</a> for useful links. It's as easy as doing Format->Page->Page->Text Direction = Right-to-left (vertical).Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-69098227650771332882011-05-01T19:51:00.003+02:002011-05-01T20:03:10.220+02:00Another Update to Nodoka Concept ArtworkWith another time spared to working on Nodoka I've finished the GLOSSY style concept artwork. See for yourself:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitrNRPhyphenhyphenPte5igTWLUJwHAcSeAA2ZqoWV2k9rrpAXms3tWBthstMTavbf5XJ7csN6WTTsOoVt4lPC0vgYQKt75V6e02I-We9VXs__VIrdSC-agyijamPeHjipvn6PQBswL4gHTtDdBvsA/s1600/nodoka-concept-artwork-glossy-layout-20110501.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitrNRPhyphenhyphenPte5igTWLUJwHAcSeAA2ZqoWV2k9rrpAXms3tWBthstMTavbf5XJ7csN6WTTsOoVt4lPC0vgYQKt75V6e02I-We9VXs__VIrdSC-agyijamPeHjipvn6PQBswL4gHTtDdBvsA/s400/nodoka-concept-artwork-glossy-layout-20110501.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601807318362726546" /></a><br />To remind you, here's the MODERN style concept artwork – this will be the default style once the code will have been written…<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbrCmy_udtLJdAeGkJPz5Tm8tPGeKrdaYWR5TxkIj0h5PCyGUJyWFzsG4CyqnJaByIQhqGgtOwoTx7NZbrmCyL_ixGBVDvJPMCqvi488PmFrOfrXeGcRKgk1NVU9hI_UfrVuLNTiASWo/s1600/nodoka-rewrite-modern-20110227.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbrCmy_udtLJdAeGkJPz5Tm8tPGeKrdaYWR5TxkIj0h5PCyGUJyWFzsG4CyqnJaByIQhqGgtOwoTx7NZbrmCyL_ixGBVDvJPMCqvi488PmFrOfrXeGcRKgk1NVU9hI_UfrVuLNTiASWo/s400/nodoka-rewrite-modern-20110227.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578488691190744690" /></a><br />Before moving on onto the next stage of development I plan to prepare a special style aimed for especially dark themes but I don't have yet a clear image of what it should like yet so *hint, hint* if you'd like to propose something now's the time *hint, hint* ;-)<br /><br />PS: The progress indicator (the blue round snake-like thing) in GLOSSY style was real pain in the butt to design to look at least approximately how I'd like it to and the result is quite messy. If there's any inkcape guru who might know some pointers how to make it more easily and cleanly, please spare a little bit of your skills with me ;-)Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-56651579679794442772011-04-20T15:03:00.006+02:002011-04-20T15:21:52.123+02:00Change is sometimes good, but……at other times it might not be so. The example of the latter is IMHO the abrt icon. Originally it was something like this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB_0qMhg_3pWUWBD-IDCMcaHfyefNf0JSYrEa8ZSEeQDNKFZgHRmlhyHhf0c92iMCDVzMvLMhZeBX6L7ZomxdB7Eo33Iqqks8USgLn6jlmfOlwoS5bj9e622Kmfyev64Z8XVNOoLXk-qs/s1600/abrt-old.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 48px; height: 48px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB_0qMhg_3pWUWBD-IDCMcaHfyefNf0JSYrEa8ZSEeQDNKFZgHRmlhyHhf0c92iMCDVzMvLMhZeBX6L7ZomxdB7Eo33Iqqks8USgLn6jlmfOlwoS5bj9e622Kmfyev64Z8XVNOoLXk-qs/s400/abrt-old.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597651209568945474" /></a><br />and now it looks like this:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscuAsPHsF2LwW2FHxTFA5yoG5sAziTekyNL71qwWIMYnQreAuOG-biL08N3VpFPZNQC2P9WPw-M_0L2hsH6LqCp3IpLuulxIq64JN6tUtgHNJIRSl01L8miNuc9dqP861dv84SS0E8uQ/s1600/abrt.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 48px; height: 48px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscuAsPHsF2LwW2FHxTFA5yoG5sAziTekyNL71qwWIMYnQreAuOG-biL08N3VpFPZNQC2P9WPw-M_0L2hsH6LqCp3IpLuulxIq64JN6tUtgHNJIRSl01L8miNuc9dqP861dv84SS0E8uQ/s400/abrt.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597651431665712706" /></a><br /><br />What I'm getting at, you might ask. Well, the new icon obviously looks much better and more polished but has one serious problem – I have not the slightest idea what the hell does it mean. Not to talk about the tiny fact that e.g. when it appears in my [bottom] panel (which is transparent and bellow it is F15's default background) it looks like nothing more than a strange 'A'. You know, when the old red siren with exclamation mark appeared everyone could tell that something went wrong, now he'll be just confused with what the strange 'A' means.<br /><br />On a side note – almost all these GNOME3 greyscale icons are IMHO either ugly (good example of this is the new input-method sys-tray icon) or unusable with any other background than what they were designed for. Please, I want my colourful icons in systray in XFCE back, tell me what to do.<br /><br />On another side note – if I find the time, I'll write a, hopefully short, critique on Gnome 3 default GTK theme Adwaitha which I think has great albeit wasted potential drown in inconsistency (like some widgets are designed very nicely with evidently lots of effort being put into them while others look like half-finished lets-put-something-plain-and-suggestive-here-and-maybe-improve-it-later kind of designs).Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-64380080046435389572011-04-12T20:21:00.003+02:002011-04-12T20:28:31.481+02:00Beefy Miracle Lost, But…… since <a href="http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2011-April/002948.html">the winner is Verne</a>, I believe the time is ripe to finish the old <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/Gears">Gears theme proposal</a> from F10:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://fedoraproject.org/w/uploads/thumb/0/0c/Gears-r2_largegoldengear.png/800px-Gears-r2_largegoldengear.png" width=400px /></div>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-53434427235451443982011-03-15T21:20:00.007+01:002011-03-15T21:47:04.902+01:00Make XFCE Rock, Part I. Panel LayoutBunch of us are unhappy with the direction of Gnome 3. For us, the best desktop to replace gnome with is probably XFCE. However XFCE isn't as mature as Gnome 2 was before Gnome 3 took over. So here's the idea: make XFCE first class citizen in Fedora. And this blog post is the first (and one of the both most easy most controversial) part of that great task—the default panel layout.<br /><br />I think the current default layout suffers many shortcomings and redesign is needed. After some <a href="http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/xfce/2011-March/000425.html">initial discussion</a> of what applets we should use I sketched and propose for consideration two layouts. One single-panel and one two-panel.<br /><br />The single panel layout is very minimalistic and tries to retain good usability within the constraints:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFHfzv35Nt4cBIbI8joZF4Ru4kJj62MY6kn8yaQ_5JDPP9QFX7kg-Va9_bL49NQC2R6uX3-VmusfNePqRIibJtX6tFap65Q-8VEaPARegz2iF_Q8ZcgyaRUWyenvHkSSOq7KJi8dte0g/s1600/panel-layout-a.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFHfzv35Nt4cBIbI8joZF4Ru4kJj62MY6kn8yaQ_5JDPP9QFX7kg-Va9_bL49NQC2R6uX3-VmusfNePqRIibJtX6tFap65Q-8VEaPARegz2iF_Q8ZcgyaRUWyenvHkSSOq7KJi8dte0g/s400/panel-layout-a.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584406594272967922" /></a><br /><br />The two-panel layout on the other hand can sport some more applets and thus improve the usability a lot. I believe that the splitting of applets into the panels should be easy to understand/use, functional and look stylish. I obviously see analogy between panel menus and app menus – hence they are in top panel. Similarly for window buttons – they practically work like tabs and we are used from web browsers to have tabs on top. <br /><br />Next idea is for workspace switcher – it's best to put it somewhere where it is both easily accessible and not getting in the way. Similarly for lock-screen and log-out buttons. Obvious positions for these are corners then and as shutdown button is quite commonly in bottom-right corner (old versions of GDM, LXDM, …) it's quite easy to place them. We use the remaining corner for clock. And finally group together all other applets that use icons. And voila, we have almost dock-like bottom panel (just add some transparency to it and you'll see the similarity). And of course, not to forgot, one of the most important decision here is that window list and system tray should be on different panels as they each tend to take up lots of space.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVwLIgkm81lmU53pi89-q5hdtjmoq0H_leFodCT7CUft8YOR8dhik7mOTdCdGoh0Z9PM9Io3WHY46L6kBHAox4edCKGCqxzCRIj9s8QaVQgx1zixoolvxMfJgc7jFMS2lfarXfTo3oNg/s1600/panel-layout-b.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVwLIgkm81lmU53pi89-q5hdtjmoq0H_leFodCT7CUft8YOR8dhik7mOTdCdGoh0Z9PM9Io3WHY46L6kBHAox4edCKGCqxzCRIj9s8QaVQgx1zixoolvxMfJgc7jFMS2lfarXfTo3oNg/s400/panel-layout-b.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584409514638203298" /></a><br /><br />Feel free to join the discussion either on <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/xfce">fedora xfce list</a>, <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Mso/XFCE/Panel">dedicated wiki page</a> or here ;-)Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-84849867931878635772011-03-12T15:59:00.006+01:002011-03-13T19:20:19.581+01:00Tiny Update to Nodoka Glossy Concept ArtworkSo, yesterday evening and today after lunch (I was cooking <a href="http://leitesculinaria.com/5441/recipes-kung-pao-chicken-with-peanuts.html">kung pao</a>) I had some spare time so I progressed a little on the nodoka glossy style concept artwork. From the experience I've gained over the years of working on nodoka I have to say that designing scrollbars is one of the hardest part of widget theming… Here's the preview (click on the image to see it in full size):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5wDTnCG6QRyzL-M6eJM4-Al0XuqiEQtQA1eOLUnaLIZwF5UX5f-fsn8lYAl9z4vntSF4-4-gtFFf06ygZb0zFt82N35kL-tgB9QxU8oZ54xKrA9wM-wbZnKa0lWIcCPMmdP2nlI-q5s/s1600/nodoka-glossy-concept-20110312.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5wDTnCG6QRyzL-M6eJM4-Al0XuqiEQtQA1eOLUnaLIZwF5UX5f-fsn8lYAl9z4vntSF4-4-gtFFf06ygZb0zFt82N35kL-tgB9QxU8oZ54xKrA9wM-wbZnKa0lWIcCPMmdP2nlI-q5s/s400/nodoka-glossy-concept-20110312.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583209262091377154" /></a><br /><br />And as usual, comments welcome, help even more so ;-)<br /><br />PS: for the people who'd like to complain about blue, windows or mac:<br /><ul><li>This is concept art. Colours are previews.</li><li>Blue is the colour of Fedora.</li><li>I like this shade of blue.</li><li>Yet I don't like the blue Windows XP theme.</li><li>I haven't ever used Mac and I don't know very much the theme they're using, this concept is based on what Andy Fitzsimon once send me ;-)</li></ul>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-50904849877305046422011-02-28T11:55:00.002+01:002011-02-28T12:41:16.199+01:00Why I Think Gnome 3 Is a Dead EndIn short because it's cat-dog. What I mean is – what is the new gnome target audience? To me it seems like it tries to satisfy everyone which obviously cannot work. Let's look at the potential users who might want to use it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Newcomers.</span> Imagine a computer virgin. He buys a computer (like he would buy say a television) already preconfigured and pushes the power button. Now what should he do when it is fully booted? How to present the workspace to him? I think "start" button from windows wasn't a totally wrong idea – the user sees it and thinks: "oh, I'm probably supposed to start here". The menu itself however was always badly executed. Too many applications with strange names, sometimes even in categories. <br /><br />Gnome shell uses activities button instead of start button which is probably a little bit less suggestive but should give away pretty easily what it does. And instead of menu you're presented with table. Again filled with zillions of icons and non-familiar names like firefox. What the hell is that? And the user is lost. Now one thing that I don't completely understand is the need for activities button at all if there was made a decision to keep desktop clean of icons. The desktop could be well used for presenting the user with what he can do. However the main point is how to present him the apps. Surely a big globe labeled "browse the web", two heads seemingly chatting labelled "chat with friends" or notebook with pen writing something on it labeled "write a document" would give the user much better idea what to do than firefox wrapped around globe labeled "firefox", blue connected heads labeled "empathy" and stylized oo-writer icon labeled "OpenOffice.org Writer".<br /><br />Furthermore, the less options the user is presented with, the better. He does not need to be presented on his workspace with 10 different apps doing the same thing. The maximum that could be presented to him is some sort of artsy icon labeled "personalise your workspace" with all the settings. The settings would, as its label suggest, let him stylize his desktop look and for slightly more knowledgeable users let them choose whether they want to browse the internet with firefox or chrome (for example) or how early they want screensaver to kick in in case of inactivity. <br /><br />Also, since people use their notebooks increasingly also for presenting, setting up dual head should be almost one of the easiest things on the world. User plugs in an external projector/monitor, dialog pops up that he did so and how he wants to set it up – clone or extend his current workspace. Nothing more, nothing less.<br /><br />He is also the type of user that will probably not work on multiple things at once, however e.g. when writing a document he'll switch to and fro between the composer window and one or other window with a reference he uses. This needs to be done also suggestively and ideally without zooming out/in. Probably some sort of semi-intelligent sliding.<br /><br />As you can guess, gnome-shell tries a bit to appeal to these users but it's stuck up half way because of the following groups.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Windows/Mac Escapee.</span> This kind of users already know how to use a computer, have some favourite apps and are expecting to be more or less able to keep their current work-flow. Gnome shell breaks that and will probably scare them away. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Power users.</span> Working with many apps at the same time, relying a lot on terminal, customizing their desktop to best fit their needs. These will be annoyed with how gnome shell works. It slows their workflow, shuts them off of some settings they've been using for ages (like turn off display on laptop lid close) presents them with unnecessary animations. I don't know how for others, but for me gnome-shell makes e.g. writing a code (which in my case requires switching to and fro between terminal, file manager, gedit and web browser) pain it the butt. <br /><br />Still from the design it seems like these people were thought of as well when making gnome shell. But that's the problem. It stopped halfway. It tries to be both for power users and newbies and ends up neither. Sorry, but I really can't see a way to satisfy both camps and that's why I think gnome 3 is bound to fail. And it's going to drag Fedora 15 down with it (being the default DE). But only time will show whether I'm right or wrong.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Disclaimer.</span> This post contains only my personal opinions and it does not represent any usability studies or interest groups' positions and as such it might be utterly wrong, so the best you can do is to disagree with me and wait a few months/years to see who was actually wrong :DMartinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-31525564224401094022011-02-27T22:26:00.005+01:002011-02-27T22:49:19.417+01:00What's Up With NodokaIt's been a while since I've written something about nodoka and as some questions keep flowing I decided to write up a short status update. Let's start from the beginning. When gtk3 started to get into Fedora during F14 development I updated the engine to work with it. However as time and gtk3 development progressed the themeing was completely rewritten in a way that basically warrants a complete engine rewrite to make it work properly.<br /><br />So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you all as you'll have to live without nodoka for gtk3 for still some time (basically until I find enough motivation and time to port it). Of course if there'd be a volunteer(s) who would port the engine code and/or rewrite at least one of the themes to work with gtk3 that would be greatly appreciated.<br /><br />However, I've not been completely stale either. Since I'll need a rewrite for the gtk3 version as well I slowly resumed on the design part of things and updated a little the glossy style. Here's what I've got so far, comments are welcome.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbSUQkRA1p0kiDLHiR9GRWQ9zz5I-YKxsVTyUMfe739X5sQB4qofs9tpWEiSAU3AeJyYqc1ViB_XHitWwj7FFon9G-84hbklua-baQeMhGKACO5t9etGEwgokmOuei2qX7A4Hsx18Rus/s1600/nodoka-rewrite-glossy-20110227.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbSUQkRA1p0kiDLHiR9GRWQ9zz5I-YKxsVTyUMfe739X5sQB4qofs9tpWEiSAU3AeJyYqc1ViB_XHitWwj7FFon9G-84hbklua-baQeMhGKACO5t9etGEwgokmOuei2qX7A4Hsx18Rus/s400/nodoka-rewrite-glossy-20110227.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578487612918397058" /></a><br /><br />And here's the other style concept work (that I completed some months ago) for comparison:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbrCmy_udtLJdAeGkJPz5Tm8tPGeKrdaYWR5TxkIj0h5PCyGUJyWFzsG4CyqnJaByIQhqGgtOwoTx7NZbrmCyL_ixGBVDvJPMCqvi488PmFrOfrXeGcRKgk1NVU9hI_UfrVuLNTiASWo/s1600/nodoka-rewrite-modern-20110227.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimbrCmy_udtLJdAeGkJPz5Tm8tPGeKrdaYWR5TxkIj0h5PCyGUJyWFzsG4CyqnJaByIQhqGgtOwoTx7NZbrmCyL_ixGBVDvJPMCqvi488PmFrOfrXeGcRKgk1NVU9hI_UfrVuLNTiASWo/s400/nodoka-rewrite-modern-20110227.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578488691190744690" /></a>Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4447920200692352023.post-65266340135956692232011-02-02T22:33:00.005+01:002011-02-03T09:38:21.560+01:00F15 Alpha Wallpaper — Package Review NeededSo, it's the time of year again, alpha freeze approaches and first version of wallpaper is being packaged and thus I need someone to do a <a href="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=674673">quick review</a>. I could do a swap review if desired.<br /><br />And here's an obligatory screenshot (yes, it is rawhide and no, it is <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> gnome, <a href="http://mso-chronicles.blogspot.com/2011/01/back-to-future-on-rawhide-again.html">it is xfce</a>).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS33tkapNfrawgBcssVPePd_KuBplaUe6I17yFu9rceVqfAPSkJ185UuAdXBsbEKsxqYchDXf2izLHC_rCW5dPkwEFcKhIpqq68QkENnmcuzi79eluLR-2dDHvzlkhjYGZ0wutAr5VyG8/s1600/f15-prealpha-walpaper-xfce.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS33tkapNfrawgBcssVPePd_KuBplaUe6I17yFu9rceVqfAPSkJ185UuAdXBsbEKsxqYchDXf2izLHC_rCW5dPkwEFcKhIpqq68QkENnmcuzi79eluLR-2dDHvzlkhjYGZ0wutAr5VyG8/s400/f15-prealpha-walpaper-xfce.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569209369963707746" /></a><br /><br />Comments on the wallpaper are welcome (as well as pointers on how to make it appear in xfce background chooser other than adding manually).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">EDIT</span>: Thanks to Tim Lauridsen the package is now reviewed :-)Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18184701134359021954noreply@blogger.com8