Which is the best theme ever?

[davbren]

Hey all,
I know that this is probably gonna end up being huge with lots of opinions. But I was just wondering, which does everyone think, is the very best theme? Artisitically, and professionally.

I was looking at the new ubuntu theme, I generally think it looks good. I like it. But it doesn't make me *want* to use it. So my question is this really.

Which themes make you *want* to use your PC?

[Rhubarb]

I like this simple wmii theme:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=91676

I've almost finished custom making a variant of it, and while it wouldn't be appealing to most people, I like it :)

I might even go for a a bold purple tinge to it too someday :)

[wojox]

I like the Shiki themes.

[Ginsu]

I seem to always gravitate back to moomex, but I'd imagine some would find it overly vista-ish.

[DaymItzJack]

The Dust Sand theme that comes with Ubuntu 10.04 looks great to me. The default (Ambiance) one looks pretty bad (in my opinion) with the buttons like that.

[3rdalbum]

Dust Sand is good, but a bit of an OS X ripoff.

Shiki Human with the Striped Metacity and RGBA turned on looks awesome.

[josh0930]

SlicknesS-Black is good :)

[Jay Car]

I think Ian Mclean's Lithium (http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Lithium+-+GTK,+Emerald,+Metacity?content=113368) theme is quite nice. Very elegant.

[nmaster]

I like Showtime: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/nice-themes-for-ubuntu-9-10-karmic-users.html

i haven't upgraded to 10.04 yet though, i might just stick with the default on lucid. it looks pretty sweet :)

[vaiocomputer]

I use Turrican right now. But I think some of the community submitted themes for, Ubuntu 9.10 were really impressive. There's this one window border theme for Human that looks really smooth. Reinvigorates the subtle pretty glows in Human.

[davbren]

Dust Sand is good, really good imho. It needs something though. The theme needs depth. Not sure how to achieve that but I'd like to give it a good go...

[nothingtoprove]

I haven't found a satisfactory theme for Ubuntu yet.
It's one of the big failings of the OS.
It looks shabby and dated out of the box.
I know a lot of people will say "but it can all be customised etc etc etc", but the more you customise, the more of a pigs ear it looks. And besides, I want a new fully ready clean but attractive design in a few click - I don't want to be have to be customising every single thing.

I'm not quite sure what it is, but the Microsoft and Apple designers have a huge head start on this.

I was surprised to see that there is an actual design team for Ubuntu.

The new logo and splash screen all looked so promising...

PS.
I am willing to be proved wrong on this.

[infamous-online]

I like themes where everything is pretty much transparent. I'm still tweaking my Cairo Dock, so whenever I have it setup perfectly I'll post a few screencaps. :guitar:

[infamous-online]

I haven't found a satisfactory theme for Ubuntu yet.
It's one of the big failings of the OS.
It looks shabby and dated out of the box.
I know a lot of people will say "but it can all be customised etc etc etc", but the more you customise, the more of a pigs ear it looks. And besides, I want a new fully ready clean but attractive design in a few click - I don't want to be have to be customising every single thing.

I'm not quite sure what it is, but the Microsoft and Apple designers have a huge head start on this.

I was surprised to see that there is an actual design team for Ubuntu.

The new logo and splash screen all looked so promising...

PS.
I am willing to be proved wrong on this.

I agree with you, we need some better looks for the OS considering most of the interface is mostly outdated. I know Ubuntu will get there I'm pretty sure they'll be the ones to do it first. Give them time that's all you can do at this point!

[QIII]

The best theme ever is the one that, after looking at several, most pleases you.


As for "pig's ear"... If you don't like it, change it.

You want the Ubuntu team to provide you with the perfect theme out of the box? Whose perfect theme? You want your user experience to be dictated by someone else's aesthetic sensibilities?

Windows looks "good" (if it pleases you) out of the box because that is pretty much what you are going to get. Someone else's aesthetic.

What you get "out of the box" with Ubuntu is a canvas you can paint with whatever colors you please.

As for me, I DON'T want someone else deciding for me what looks good "out of the box". I want to make it look good to ME.

[moongia]

I like the silent night,dark,light,and II themes at gnome look.Or just mess with themes you have all ready,I look for the ''window-bg.png'' in a theme folder,and use gimp to add to it.this is what i did with mine.

[theZoid]

I like this simple wmii theme:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=91676

I've almost finished custom making a variant of it, and while it wouldn't be appealing to most people, I like it :)

I might even go for a a bold purple tinge to it too someday :)

whoa....I would go blind, real quick....:)

[kerrynmitch]

I seem to always gravitate back to moomex, but I'd imagine some would find it overly vista-ish.

Same here, fantastic theme, moomex..

[ankspo71]

I can't decide what's best, so...

My favorite semi-dark theme is "slicknessie" (http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/SlickNessie?content=113200)

My favorite theme packs:
Wasp from "community-themes" (found in synaptic). I like the Turrican theme too.
Airplane in "bisigi-themes" PPA (https://launchpad.net/~bisigi/+archive/ppa) (the round buttons are a nice touch). I like others in there too.
Overall both are great theme packs.
Happy theme hunting :)

[davbren]

the best theme ever is the one that, after looking at several, most pleases you.


As for "pig's ear"... If you don't like it, change it.

You want the ubuntu team to provide you with the perfect theme out of the box? Whose perfect theme? You want your user experience to be dictated by someone else's aesthetic sensibilities?

Windows looks "good" (if it pleases you) out of the box because that is pretty much what you are going to get. Someone else's aesthetic.

What you get "out of the box" with ubuntu is a canvas you can paint with whatever colors you please.

As for me, i don't want someone else deciding for me what looks good "out of the box". I want to make it look good to me.

+1

[nothingtoprove]

The best theme ever is the one that, after looking at several, most pleases you.


As for "pig's ear"... If you don't like it, change it.

You want the Ubuntu team to provide you with the perfect theme out of the box? Whose perfect theme? You want your user experience to be dictated by someone else's aesthetic sensibilities?

Windows looks "good" (if it pleases you) out of the box because that is pretty much what you are going to get. Someone else's aesthetic.

What you get "out of the box" with Ubuntu is a canvas you can paint with whatever colors you please.

As for me, I DON'T want someone else deciding for me what looks good "out of the box". I want to make it look good to ME.

You misunderstood me.
I don't want the perfect theme out of the box, but for an OS tat wants to compete for users it has to look professionally designed.
At the moment it doesn't.
As I stated, I know that it can be customised, but I don't want to spend my days tweaking a theme to make it easy on the eye - the basic colour schemes and fonts on Ubuntu are all wrong.
To give the stock Linux user reply that it can all be changed to do whatever you want is a cop out.

[QIII]

Take this as a philosophical discussion only. Don't take this as a flame. And I hate to belabor my point ...


the basic colour schemes and fonts on Ubuntu are all wrong.

By what measure?

What fonts do you suggest? Colors?

Is your personal aesthetic sense (or anyone else's) what should drive the way Ubuntu (or any distro) looks? Would you like to tell everyone what would be right?

What does a modern system look like? Is it a glossy paint job with metal flake and flames?

What defines "shabby"? What defines "modern"?

Mine looks a d*mn sight better (in MY opinion) than Windows, because I had the freedom to make it look that way.

We have been taught by Microsoft that a slick new interface is somehow indicative of a better engine under the hood. We have been duped into what "looks" modern. "Ah, look! Windows 7! Now that's modern, man!" Are they ahead of the game on this? Sure -- if what you think is an attractive, slick and modern package is what Microsoft delivers.

I don't buy cars from guys with pencil-thin mustaches who give me that sell.

But if I found a plain white quality car with all I wanted under the skin and the salesman showed me a set of buttons I could use to change the paint color, amount of chrome, window tinting, door handles, fins, spoilers, hood scoops, fog lamps, horn tones, rims, seat coverings ...

Microsoft flashes a new paint job and everyone falls all over himself to be like everyone else in singing its praise.

What is that story about the Emperor's New Clothes?

[nvdm]

I use Elegant Brit (http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Elegant+Brit?content=74553).

[QIII]

I'm working on SmokeAndMirrorsBuntu to make Windows users wet their pants before they even take it out of the box.

"Now that's modern, dude!"

The next project is DogAndPonyShowBuntu for Mac users.


(That's a JOKE everyone! Lighten up!)

[lazymangaka]

Personally, I love the classically Ubuntu look of DarkRoom. The mix of the browns and oranges just give the operating system a feel entirely all its own. I don't want my Ubuntu to look just like ******* or OS X--I just want it to look like Ubuntu.

[cobolt01]

Well, I must say the new default theme really makes Ubuntu a lot more attractive for basic users. After the substantial technical achievements of Ubuntu and Linux I think it's about time the default theme looked a little better than mud.

[hok00age]

I like NOX + Darkfire Evolution icon theme from DevianArt with RGBA enabled.

[icek]

Unified (http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Unified?content=121728) is awesome!

[belochkka]

You misunderstood me.
I don't want the perfect theme out of the box, but for an OS tat wants to compete for users it has to look professionally designed.
At the moment it doesn't.
As I stated, I know that it can be customized, but I don't want to spend my days tweaking a theme to make it easy on the eye - the basic color schemes and fonts on Ubuntu are all wrong.
To give the stock Linux user reply that it can all be changed to do whatever you want is a cop out.
Okay, so I switched to Ubuntu (from Windows 7+ XP, on two machines) like two weeks ago, so I'm a total newbie.
It took me maybe 10 minutes to get my desktop to look gorgeous (Gnome-Step-Into-Freedom+Docky+Maraetai before sunrise background). I have since been asked (twice) how I got my Mac to look so cool:KS
For my netbook I use Elanna+another of the backgrounds, again could COMPLETELY customize everything so that the fonts and contrast seemed right - to me!

PS I've checked out the styles posted so far in this thread - it's a good indicator that different styles are liked by different people, and one man's trash is another's treasure. The fact that Ubuntu gives people the opportunity and desire to out-of-the-box customize should be seen as its selling point, not a defect!

[davbren]

Ok, so I'm using a mac at the moment :( to be honest it isn't anything special. My ubuntu does just as much. What I do notice is the attention to detail. The consistent interfaces. The...Je ne c'est quoi.

I believe there are design guidelines for gnome, I'm not sure if everyone follows them and even if they do, they need to be reviewed. How easy would if be eto change the interfaces of each one of the default gnome/ubuntu applications?

Elegant Brit is very nice and I prefer it to Unified as its less maccy and has its own identity. especially with Ekon icons...

[danbuk]

ambience not so bad,i was installing 10.04 at afternoon..
and im really excited.:KS

[Linuxforall]

If you like dark, the only one that works well with all programs is clearlooks dark, you can install it via sudo apt-get install gnome-theme-extras and then select clearlooks dark in theme manager.