Unofficial Human theme update: "Humanity"

[psyke83]

I don't think the bottom should be rounded at all. It is harder to make the borders on the bottom look any good.

Yes, let's keep the squared bottom for now. Grey borders also look more aliased, so it also helps make the theme look more professional.

The Metacity theme looks great! Impressive colouring for focused windows.

The only major thing that really stands out as needing a bit of tweaking is the title text. It looks like it could do with dropping down a bit, to make it look vertically centred.

Fixed . See attachment.

The concept of a drop-shadow might be better if you put it directly under the text. Presumably, this would have the effect of creating a small shadowy border around all of the text, giving it depth without elevating it a mile above the window

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. At the moment, the shadow drops 1 pixel to the right and 1 pixel down. Do you mean to change the shadow so it drops only 1 pixel down?

[Merk42]

So.. you're going for a blatant Windows 7 rip-off with those borders?

I don't mind the idea of a border, but that look with the dramatic color change a quarter the way down is just a copy.
windows7calcuators.png

[psyke83]

So.. you're going for a blatant Windows 7 rip-off with those borders?

I don't mind the idea of a border, but that look with the dramatic color change a quarter the way down is just a copy.
windows7calcuators.png

I doubt that Microsoft has filed a patent on a two-part gradient on window borders, if that's your concern. If you're annoyed that it's a copy, well then there's not much I can say to you. Just because somebody else did it first does not mean that nobody can ever re-implement the idea again, especially for something as trivial as a border.

Also, it's a logical extension of the gloss effect (which is quite common in Murrine's glass themes) and you can see the same effect on the actual button gradients (which precede Aero in Vista and Windows 7, by the way). Look at the division in the default wallpaper too.

I originally set a single gradient which also looks nice, but I thought I would show off the "inspired" version to see how people react. As far as I know, nobody has ever tried this in a Metacity theme (of which the theming community has somewhat stagnated in the past few years).

[froggyswamp]

Just because somebody else did it first does not mean that nobody can ever re-implement the idea again,

(a bit offtopic)
Agree, also, I hope rather sooner then later corporations would understand there's no such thing as original idea in the first place, but then it would abolish patents hence it won't happen any time soon.

[Merk42]

Just because somebody else did it first does not mean that nobody can ever re-implement the idea again,

(a bit offtopic)
Agree, also, I hope rather sooner then later corporations would understand there's no such thing as original idea in the first place, but then it would abolish patents hence it won't happen any time soon.

Riiight, but when Microsoft copies from Linux (or Apple) for something then they're all evil.


What was the other gradient you had psyke83?

Maybe make the frame the sort of grey as the buttons, but the active window the darker grey that a button is when it is pressed down?

[shafin]

The thread isn't updated, that's all. The darker brown has been chosen as the selected background colour for the theme. After the beta freeze some more changes may happen.

Here's a screenshot of a work in progress - the metacity is lighter and the colours are slightly changed.

I'm also going to spend some time on the metacity to see if I can smoothen the window decoration edges.

What about the progress bars? New progress bars debuted here looked better than the old striped one's. I see they have made a comeback here. Do you plan to change the progress bars to better match the last orange theme?

[psyke83]

What about the progress bars? New progress bars debuted here looked better than the old striped one's. I see they have made a comeback here. Do you plan to change the progress bars to better match the last orange theme?

The "new" progress bars from the orange version of the theme didn't translate well to the new darker brown selection colour. I'm going to play around with the GTK theme soon to try and improve things a bit, as soon as I clear everything with Microsoft's lawyers...

[psyke83]

Riiight, but when Microsoft copies from Linux (or Apple) for something then they're all evil.


What was the other gradient you had psyke83?

Maybe make the frame the sort of grey as the buttons, but the active window the darker grey that a button is when it is pressed down?

Imagine that instead of the two gradients, there is just one, from the top to bottom. That was the original gradient. It looks fine, but emulating gloss helps it to fit with the other glassy elements such as the titlebar, buttons and to a lesser degree, the GTK theme.

[Merk42]

Imagine that instead of the two gradients, there is just one, from the top to bottom. That was the original gradient. It looks fine, but emulating gloss helps it to fit with the other glassy elements such as the titlebar, buttons and to a lesser degree, the GTK theme.

I see the titlebar is glossy, but isn't the border adding a second gloss and therefore the whole windows gloss seems odd?
The buttons seem pretty matte to me. Not FLAT mind you, I see the gradient.

Also I never meant that you'd get sued by Microsoft; just called unoriginal by anyone familiar with Windows.

[psyke83]

I see the titlebar is glossy, but isn't the border adding a second gloss and therefore the whole windows gloss seems odd?
The buttons seem pretty matte to me. Not FLAT mind you, I see the gradient.

Also I never meant that you'd get sued by Microsoft; just called unoriginal by anyone familiar with Windows.

The buttons are fairly matte at the moment, but an update will slightly increase the gloss (this is necessary especially for coloured widgets including the progressbar and scrollbars, due to the dark selection colour). It's a bit of a balancing act (as many don't appreciate overt gloss, as seen in most Murrine GTK themes).

I understand your criticism about originality - if it concerns you so much, suggest something more original, then. Make a mockup and show us. It's quite difficult to have an inspired, original thought with regards to UI appearance (appearance, not functionality - I'm not a programmer).