A first preview for the new SeaMonkey theme
Manuel Reimer
I want to show my current progress in making new icons for the SeaMonkey
default theme with this screenshot:
http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot1.png
I took many ideas from "Really Modern" made by thumper (I think his
homepage is http://thumper.kicks-ass.org/ but currently it seems to be
unavailable).
All icons were recreated using vector graphics in hope to make it easier
to create different icon sizes in future.
It would be great if you could just tell what you think about the icons,
what you like and what you don't like.
One thing I'm unsure about: The new "stop"-icon (the X) looks like the
"Delete"-Icon used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Maybe we should get back
to "round icons" for this one and keep the new stop icon for delete,
which may be probably needed in future?
Another solution may be a new icon for "delete" (a rubber, for example),
but maybe this confuses users coming from FF and TB.
As soon as I did some changes based on the comments, I'll publish new
screenshots.
CU
Manuel
Justin Wood (Callek)
> Hello,
>
> I want to show my current progress in making new icons for the SeaMonkey
> default theme with this screenshot:
>
> http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot1.png
>
> I took many ideas from "Really Modern" made by thumper (I think his
> homepage is http://thumper.kicks-ass.org/ but currently it seems to be
> unavailable).
>
> All icons were recreated using vector graphics in hope to make it easier
> to create different icon sizes in future.
>
> It would be great if you could just tell what you think about the icons,
> what you like and what you don't like.
I personally am not "too" fond of those back/forward buttons, a bit too
rounded for me, but I can easily live with them; I am by _no_ means a
graphic artist.
> One thing I'm unsure about: The new "stop"-icon (the X) looks like the
> "Delete"-Icon used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Maybe we should get back
> to "round icons" for this one and keep the new stop icon for delete,
> which may be probably needed in future?
That was one of the few things which caught my eye in terms of "ick".
Only due to the confusing aspect of simply an 'x', we could use a
hexagon outline, like FF's default theme to imply a stop-sign to most
users, or we could use a rounded-like image here, I'm not too picky.
> Another solution may be a new icon for "delete" (a rubber, for example),
> but maybe this confuses users coming from FF and TB.
What would work well as a delete button would probably depend heavily on
where it is used and what for.
>
> As soon as I did some changes based on the comments, I'll publish new
> screenshots.
just my two cents,
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Manuel Reimer
> I personally am not "too" fond of those back/forward buttons, a bit too
> rounded for me, but I can easily live with them; I am by _no_ means a
> graphic artist.
It would be easy to reduce the roundings a bit, but let's wait for
further comments.
> That was one of the few things which caught my eye in terms of "ick".
> Only due to the confusing aspect of simply an 'x', we could use a
> hexagon outline, like FF's default theme to imply a stop-sign to most
> users, or we could use a rounded-like image here, I'm not too picky.
I already have a round one, but I think it may look bad together with
the other icons.
>> Another solution may be a new icon for "delete" (a rubber, for
>> example), but maybe this confuses users coming from FF and TB.
> What would work well as a delete button would probably depend heavily on
> where it is used and what for.
ACK. Thunderbird uses the icon for the button which deletes mails.
CU
Manuel
Ricardo Palomares Martinez
> Hello,
>
> I want to show my current progress in making new icons for the SeaMonkey
> default theme with this screenshot:
>
> http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot1.png
>
> what you like and what you don't like.
>
I'd say that the diskette icon is a bit too square when compared with
the rest.
> One thing I'm unsure about: The new "stop"-icon (the X) looks like the
> "Delete"-Icon used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Maybe we should get back
> to "round icons" for this one and keep the new stop icon for delete,
> which may be probably needed in future?
I'm with Justin in this, enclosing it inside an hexagon or a circle
would remove ambiguity. Anyway, the STOP sign is nearly a universal one.
>
> Another solution may be a new icon for "delete" (a rubber, for example),
> but maybe this confuses users coming from FF and TB.
>
<joke>
Well, they surely are not so smart as SM users (otherwise, they would
be using SM for a start), but I don't think they can be thought of as
so dumb! :-)
</joke>
Ricardo.
--
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?
Neil
> Manuel Reimer wrote:
>
>> One thing I'm unsure about: The new "stop"-icon (the X) looks like
>> the "Delete"-Icon used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Maybe we should
>> get back to "round icons" for this one and keep the new stop icon for
>> delete, which may be probably needed in future?
>
> That was one of the few things which caught my eye in terms of "ick".
> Only due to the confusing aspect of simply an 'x', we could use a
> hexagon outline, like FF's default theme to imply a stop-sign to most
> users, or we could use a rounded-like image here, I'm not too picky.
I think you'll find that STOP signs are octagonal, rather than hexagonal...
--
Warning: May contain traces of nuts.
Robert Kaiser
> One thing I'm unsure about: The new "stop"-icon (the X) looks like the
> "Delete"-Icon used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Maybe we should get back
> to "round icons" for this one and keep the new stop icon for delete,
> which may be probably needed in future?
The "stop" icon should probably go more towards an actual "STOP" sign
(octagonal shape, red with white writing)
> Another solution may be a new icon for "delete" (a rubber, for example),
> but maybe this confuses users coming from FF and TB.
Using a different sign for "delete" should probably be more like a trash
can than a rubber - if needed at all.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> Hello,
>
> I want to show my current progress in making new icons for the SeaMonkey
> default theme with this screenshot:
>
> http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot1.png
Two more notes: The mailnews "security" lock icon is hard to recognize
as a lock, and the Composer "preview" icon is hard to identify as we're
going away from the navigation wheel identifying a browser... maybe it
should use an eye metaphor to represent "view that page " a bit more...
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
from folks generally interested in themes]
Manuel Reimer schrieb:
Miles
The icons are quite nice. Just wish you could come up with a better
background color than the lifeless grey! For instance, what about the
light and darker blues such as in Sky Pilot? They are not garish (such
as bright yellows or orange) and at the same time the verbiage is very
clear 99 white on darker blue and black on light or blue-grey.
Miles
Bruno Escherl
Compared to the current modern theme, the icons look too childish und
way too flat (I like the "3D"-ish style of the current icon set).
I always considered Seamonkey as the more mature brother of Firefox, but
with this cartoon icon set, Firefox looks more mature at first sight.
And I miss all the little details like the envelope in MailNews or the
letter in the MailNews compose window.
Manuel, I appreciate the work you're doing, but my taste apparently is
quite different from yours :)
Bruno
Bruno Escherl
Karsten Düsterloh
> Just wish you could come up with a better background color
The point of Classic, especially on Windows and Mac, is its "native
theming", i.e. background or font colours etc. are taken from the
_system_ (where possible), not the theme!
Karsten
--
Feel free to correct my English. :)
Karsten Düsterloh
> One thing I'm unsure about: The new "stop"-icon (the X) looks like the
> "Delete"-Icon used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Maybe we should get back
> to "round icons" for this one and keep the new stop icon for delete,
> which may be probably needed in future?
The 'X' for 'Stop' is just weird.
How about a plain (red?) square, like most HiFi consumer devices do?
Robert Kaiser
> Compared to the current modern theme, the icons look too childish und
> way too flat (I like the "3D"-ish style of the current icon set).
>
> I always considered Seamonkey as the more mature brother of Firefox, but
> with this cartoon icon set, Firefox looks more mature at first sight.
>
> And I miss all the little details like the envelope in MailNews or the
> letter in the MailNews compose window.
They never were in Classic, and we are talking of new icons for the
Classic theme here, modern will stay as it was (btw, those icons are
almost the same as the current modern icons)
Robert Kaiser
Steve Wendt
> modern will stay as it was
My vote is for GrayModern, the colors look much better to me.
http://mozilla-themes.schellen.net/
Serge GAUTHERIE
> Hi!
>
> Compared to the current modern theme, the icons look too childish und
> way too flat (I like the "3D"-ish style of the current icon set).
My first impression is also of a certain "childishness":
maybe the shapes/edges are a little to round (like the anchor makes me
think of a smiling emoticon),
and other things like that.
> I always considered Seamonkey as the more mature brother of Firefox, but
> with this cartoon icon set, Firefox looks more mature at first sight.
>
> Manuel, I appreciate the work you're doing, but my taste apparently is
> quite different from yours :)
But remember that I use Classic ... in Text-only mode :->
(I've only used graphics mode in SM/FF/TB while testing.)
Chris Thomas
> All icons were recreated using vector graphics in hope to make it easier
> to create different icon sizes in future.
Are the originals available somewhere?
Chris
Justin Wood (Callek)
>
> I think you'll find that STOP signs are octagonal, rather than hexagonal...
>
Heh, yes... a slip of the tounge.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Manuel Reimer
> Are the originals available somewhere?
No, currently not.
CU
Manuel
--
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Informieren, bevor es zu spät ist! Es sind auch deine Rechte!
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Bruno Escherl
> They never were in Classic, and we are talking of new icons for the
> Classic theme here, modern will stay as it was (btw, those icons are
> almost the same as the current modern icons)
They may resemble the current modern icon set, but the modern icons look
more stylish with unobtrusiv colors.
Bruno
Manuel Reimer
> The "stop" icon should probably go more towards an actual "STOP" sign
> (octagonal shape, red with white writing)
I think so, too.
Manuel Reimer
> They may resemble the current modern icon set, but the modern icons look
> more stylish with unobtrusiv colors.
I think it would be much more work to resemble the classic theme. The
icons are just some pixels. As soon as you zoom a bit you not longer see
the edges.
Robert Kaiser
> But remember that I use Classic ... in Text-only mode :->
> (I've only used graphics mode in SM/FF/TB while testing.)
Looks like everyone really complaining here doesn't use Classic anyways ;-)
Robert Kaiser
PK
> They never were in Classic, and we are talking of new icons for the
> Classic theme here, modern will stay as it was (btw, those icons are
> almost the same as the current modern icons)
This new theme will replace Classic? Now, I think Manuel did a great
job with the icons, and I think this will make a nice default theme, but
I was under the assumption that this would either replace Modern or be
available as a third theme alongside Modern and Classic. Personally, I
think that it would be somewhat redundant if the two themes installed by
default have very similar icon sets.
Two of the main reasons why I currently use Classic are its familiar,
professional-looking icons and its ability to take up minimal space in
"Pictures only" mode. Unfortunately, these are two areas in which the
Modern icon set are somewhat weak. Many of its icons are somewhat
abstract and are not as recognizable as Classic's at a glance, and
Modern in "Pictures only" mode takes up quite a bit more room than
Classic does. This could be improved by making the icons smaller, but
due to the higher level of detail, the icons may become more difficult
to decipher.
I do agree that Classic is dated and could definitely use a new set of
icons, but I was hoping for something more along the lines of New
Classic/Classique (see
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150535 for more
information). Although that theme was never completed, its icons had a
familiar feel and similar size to Classic while still providing a
much-needed revision. In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to
have Manuel's new theme replace Modern (and be set to default) and a
separate Classic-based theme eventually replace Classic.
Serge GAUTHERIE
> On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:53:52 UTC, PK wrote:
>
>> I do agree that Classic is dated and could definitely use a new set of
>> icons, but I was hoping for something more along the lines of New
>> Classic/Classique (see
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150535 for more
>> information). Although that theme was never completed, its icons had a
>> familiar feel and similar size to Classic while still providing a
>> much-needed revision.
>
> You are right, those revisions while subtle work really well!
(I concur.)
Adam Hauner
> much-needed revision. In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to
> have Manuel's new theme replace Modern (and be set to default) and a
> separate Classic-based theme eventually replace Classic.
Actual Modern theme is much more polished and superior than Manuel's new
theme.
Best regards,
--
Adam Hauner
Projekt CZilla
http://www.czilla.cz/ - http://start.czilla.cz/
http://firefox.czilla.cz/ - http://thunderbird.czilla.cz/
Ricardo Palomares Martinez
I have to agree; while I also like Manuel's icons, it's true that
those icons are in some cases too similar to Modern ones, so using
them to replace Classic theme would end with two too similar themes.
--
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?
Robert Kaiser
> I have to agree; while I also like Manuel's icons, it's true that
> those icons are in some cases too similar to Modern ones, so using
> them to replace Classic theme would end with two too similar themes.
Our problem is that we have a very small team and maintaining two
completely different themes is hard for such a msall team in the long
run. What Manuel wants to achieve is to have a common set of SVGs that
the icons of both themes are derived from, so that it's easier to
maintain both at the same time.
The other possibility may be to find someone who'll own and maintain a
new default theme and probably drop Modern completely to save on
maintenance. Obviously, that's not what we (and Manuel) want to do though.
Robert Kaiser
Cédric Corazza
> It would be great if you could just tell what you think about the icons,
> what you like and what you don't like.
Maybe pastel tones would render better, especially the blue, the green
and the brown; but well, it's only my taste.
Ricardo Palomares Martinez
> Our problem is that we have a very small team and maintaining two
> completely different themes is hard for such a msall team in the long
> run. What Manuel wants to achieve is to have a common set of SVGs that
> the icons of both themes are derived from, so that it's easier to
> maintain both at the same time.
Oh, I didn't know that. In the long term, then, the main difference
between Classic and Modern theme would be the background color, as a
consequence of the fact that Classic integrates with system style
while Modern doesn't. Am I right?
If so, I'd dare to say that SeaMonkey users like me are used to the
luxury of having a product with two shipped themes, something that,
AFAIK, even Firefox doesn't do. I'd be very happy to try a renewed
Classic theme with either Manuel's work or a complete icon set in the
way of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150535. Unless
something turns up to be really ugly, SeaMonkey could end shipping
just one that theme.
Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
SeaMonkey Council could follow a course of action similar to what
Calendar Team has done with Calendar extension: they stopped the
maintenance for it, but they kept it to download (to use it, in the
theme case) as something working for Mozilla 1.7.x series. No
workload, but the feature is there for everyone willing to use it as
long as it works.
However, if such a decission was to be made, I strongly advocate for
renaming "Classic" to "New Classic", as it would be weird to remove
the modern theme and keep the classic one; it would sound like going
backwards. :-)
Ricardo
Simon Paquet
> Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
> SeaMonkey Council could follow a course of action similar to what
> Calendar Team has done with Calendar extension: they stopped the
> maintenance for it, but they kept it to download (to use it, in the
> theme case) as something working for Mozilla 1.7.x series. No
> workload, but the feature is there for everyone willing to use it as
> long as it works.
This approach will still give you a certain workload, because there will
still be people filing bugs against this outdated code, which have to be
marked INVALID or WONTFIX. (if they are easily recognizable) or have to
be identified as being from outdated code (which is far more often the
case) and then marked INVALID or WONTFIX.
--
Simon Paquet
Sunbird/Lightning/Calendar website maintainer
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar
Serge GAUTHERIE
> Our problem is that we have a very small team and maintaining two
> completely different themes is hard for such a msall team in the long
> run. What Manuel wants to achieve is to have a common set of SVGs that
> the icons of both themes are derived from, so that it's easier to
> maintain both at the same time.
Oh, I did not know.
Actually, I somehow read a previous comment of yours as "wanting only a
(+/-) renewed Classic":
[
we are talking of new icons for the Classic theme here, modern will stay
as it was (btw, those icons are almost the same as the current modern icons)
]
Then, in a way, we'd be looking to "merge"/replace Classic and Modern !?
> The other possibility may be to find someone who'll own and maintain a
> new default theme and probably drop Modern completely to save on
> maintenance. Obviously, that's not what we (and Manuel) want to do though.
Well, even if I don't use graphics much myself,
I never liked the (all blue(s), all-round) Modern theme.
PS: Then, I'm not the one to do the work.
Philip Chee
> Our problem is that we have a very small team and maintaining two
> completely different themes is hard for such a msall team in the long
> run. What Manuel wants to achieve is to have a common set of SVGs that
> the icons of both themes are derived from, so that it's easier to
> maintain both at the same time.
Over in the SeaMonkey forums at Mozillazine there are several people
working on third party themes (check out orb colours classic). Perhaps
you could recruit/co-opt some of these people in to an official SM-Theme
team?
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]Tagline theft is a compliment.
* TagZilla 0.059
Robert Kaiser
> Oh, I didn't know that. In the long term, then, the main difference
> between Classic and Modern theme would be the background color, as a
> consequence of the fact that Classic integrates with system style
> while Modern doesn't. Am I right?
The difference is more, as all the widgets of Classic try to integrate
with the system, while Modern styles them in it own way - and even icon
coloring differs, but the icons will be derived from the same SVGs only
with minor differences like colors, from what I know.
> Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
We will try to still fully maintain Modern, and even porting it over to
our new toolkit base and toolbar customization that will come on trunk.
For being able to do that, the idea is to have one common set of SVG
files to derive icons for both themes from.
> However, if such a decission was to be made, I strongly advocate for
> renaming "Classic" to "New Classic", as it would be weird to remove
> the modern theme and keep the classic one; it would sound like going
> backwards. :-)
I'm very much for looking into renaming it, but I'm more for calling it
"SeaMonkey default" instead of "Classic" after the changes, so it's
clear that it's something different.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> Over in the SeaMonkey forums at Mozillazine there are several people
> working on third party themes (check out orb colours classic). Perhaps
> you could recruit/co-opt some of these people in to an official SM-Theme
> team?
We hope to still have plenty of thrid-party themes after we've done the
change, and as we have noone dedicated to project management, managing a
sparate and bigger theme team would be very challenging, I don't think
I'd be up to that and I don't know whom to offload it to, as everyone
around is deeply covered in other work already...
We'd be very glad to have people helping us in the effort to renew and
improve the theme/look of SeaMonkey, and we especially would need
someone (or a group of people) to design really good new
component/window icons...
I don't have much time to read/post in mozine forums though, so we need
interested people to come over here or someone to act as a communication
link between here and there...
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> Then, in a way, we'd be looking to "merge"/replace Classic and Modern !?
No, Classic will be replaced (that is, the icons will be replaced and on
trunk the core of Classic theming will be replaced by *stripe thming)
and Modern will stay, but the icons of both will derive from a common
set of SVG files, only with slightly different colring, where needed.
Robert Kaiser
PK
> Our problem is that we have a very small team and maintaining two
> completely different themes is hard for such a msall team in the long
> run. What Manuel wants to achieve is to have a common set of SVGs that
> the icons of both themes are derived from, so that it's easier to
> maintain both at the same time.
I see your point, but how often do the icon sets themselves really need
to be maintained? The vast majority of theme changes that I've seen are
CSS-related and are not specific to any theme, so the same amount of
work would be required for those changes regardless of which icons the
themes use.
If the conversion to toolkit requires rewriting the themes from the
ground up, I can understand a little more, but wouldn't that just be a
one-time process? If so, you could ask volunteers (such as those from
MozillaZine as Phil suggested) to do the conversion, and after that, the
maintenance wouldn't require any more work than it does now.
> The other possibility may be to find someone who'll own and maintain a
> new default theme and probably drop Modern completely to save on
> maintenance. Obviously, that's not what we (and Manuel) want to do though.
It would require less maintenance on your part to keep Modern and to
have someone maintain a new default theme than it would to do what
you're planning to do with Classic and Modern, so why would you need to
drop Modern?
Thorsten Dorr
> Ricardo Palomares Martinez schrieb:
>
> The other possibility may be to find someone who'll own and maintain a
> new default theme and probably drop Modern completely to save on
> maintenance. Obviously, that's not what we (and Manuel) want to do though.
Please. Don't drop Modern. Let it stay at it is. I like it very much.
I have tried all available Sets for Mozilla nothing is so nice as the
original Modern theme.
Thank you.
Thorsten
GuruJ
I agree wholeheartedly! Modern is one of the reasons I stuck with
Mozilla back in the 0.7 days (it really highlighted that Mozilla was
completely new) and I would hate to lose it.
-- Stephen.
Philip Chee
> We hope to still have plenty of thrid-party themes after we've done the
> change, and as we have noone dedicated to project management, managing a
> sparate and bigger theme team would be very challenging, I don't think
> I'd be up to that and I don't know whom to offload it to, as everyone
> around is deeply covered in other work already...
> We'd be very glad to have people helping us in the effort to renew and
> improve the theme/look of SeaMonkey, and we especially would need
> someone (or a group of people) to design really good new
> component/window icons...
> I don't have much time to read/post in mozine forums though, so we need
> interested people to come over here or someone to act as a communication
> link between here and there...
I'm there. However:
a. I can't speak for the SeaMonkey Council.
b. (As all the females in my family say) I have the fashion sense of a
colour-blind earthworm.
CTho does hang out there though, perhaps the first order is to recruit
someone there with project management skills.
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]Do televangelists do more than lay people?
* TagZilla 0.059
Chris Thomas
> Ricardo Palomares Martinez schrieb:
>> I have to agree; while I also like Manuel's icons, it's true that
>> those icons are in some cases too similar to Modern ones, so using
>> them to replace Classic theme would end with two too similar themes.
>
> Our problem is that we have a very small team and maintaining two
> completely different themes is hard for such a msall team in the long
> run. What Manuel wants to achieve is to have a common set of SVGs that
> the icons of both themes are derived from, so that it's easier to
> maintain both at the same time.
As others have pointed out, I think having more-unified CSS would be a
bigger deal. It's not very often that we add new icons.
Chris
Robert Kaiser
> As others have pointed out, I think having more-unified CSS would be a
> bigger deal. It's not very often that we add new icons.
True, but if we want to add full toolbar customization after the change
to the new toolkit, we need most icons in multiple sizes, which is very
hard to do from the static bitmap images we have now - of course, esp.
for the Classic icons. That's why MReimer is basing all the new image on
SVGs, which are easy to resize to get the differently sized images we
need. And that fitted well with us needing a refreshed icon set for the
default theme anyways, as the current Classic icon set just feels like
we all would still use 16 color EGA displays.
Robert Kaiser
Chris Thomas
Ah, that hadn't occurred to me.
Chris
Neil
> the current Classic icon set just feels like we all would still use 16
> color EGA displays.
Actually it's a 256-colour palette which works just fine on non-cairo
builds running in Windows 2000 Terminal Server (cairo builds don't like
256-colour modes and dither to the stock palette).
Still, anyone who likes the old icons could just wait for me to find
time to update my Retro theme ;-)
--
Warning: May contain traces of nuts.
Manuel Reimer
>> Please. Don't drop Modern. Let it stay at it is. I like it very much.
>> I have tried all available Sets for Mozilla nothing is so nice as the
>> original Modern theme.
> I agree wholeheartedly! Modern is one of the reasons I stuck with
> Mozilla back in the 0.7 days (it really highlighted that Mozilla was
> completely new) and I would hate to lose it.
Noone wants to remove modern. We just plan to use the icons of modern,
rework it as vector graphics and create a new "classic" and a new
"modern" based on the new icons.
The SVG-work is already done. Now I plan to rework all the icons to fit
to the needs of the users. Then new themes based on the new icons will
be added to SeaMonkey.
CU
Manuel
Adrian (Adrianer) Kalla
> Please. Don't drop Modern. Let it stay at it is. I like it very much.
> I have tried all available Sets for Mozilla nothing is so nice as the
> original Modern theme.
I think, that GrayModern looks much more modern than the (Blue-)Modern.
If the theme will be reworked, couldn't be the color changed to gray?
Adrian
Peter Weilbacher
themes at <http://www.incognu.com/occ.html> and
<http://www.incognu.com/nereid.html>. While I don't like at all what
they do to my scrollbars the icons are extremely well thought out both
in color and content and all of them have a very consistent look.
Additionally, these themes bring with them nice icons for the SeaMonkey
components. They could use a little bit of color to make them more easy
to separate visually but then they could well be used as replacements
for the old Mozilla-like component icons.
Peter.
PK
> True, but if we want to add full toolbar customization after the change
> to the new toolkit, we need most icons in multiple sizes, which is very
> hard to do from the static bitmap images we have now - of course, esp.
> for the Classic icons. That's why MReimer is basing all the new image on
> SVGs, which are easy to resize to get the differently sized images we
> need.
Good point, and I can see why you would need to replace the current
themes for SeaMonkey 1.5. But why is it necessary to change them for
1.1 (as you mentioned in
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.seamonkey/msg/123d5c78d8ea3c8e)?
That seems more like changing things just for the sake of changing
them rather than keeping the target audience in mind (see
http://wiki.mozilla.org/SeaMonkey:Project_Goals). Judging by the number
of votes on some of the feature requests in the tracking bug
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=sm1.1), I think there are
many other things that could be added to 1.1 that would appeal to users
more than an unnecessary theme change (which would probably drive away
many existing users).
> And that fitted well with us needing a refreshed icon set for the
> default theme anyways, as the current Classic icon set just feels like
> we all would still use 16 color EGA displays.
If you're looking to refresh the icon set, I don't think Modern is the
right place to look. Most of its icons are over 5 years old, and people
probably still associate them with the not-so-popular Netscape 6 and 7
(I've dealt with that problem when trying to promote SeaMonkey). It
makes a good theme to include by default, but I don't think we need
another theme based on its icon set.
While I agree that Classic needs new icons, I think an entirely new,
professional-looking icon set with the same general shapes and color
schemes as Classic would appeal to many more users than the current
plan. Current users of Classic would appreciate the fact that the new
theme would be reminiscent of the old one, while potential new users may
be willing to give SeaMonkey a chance if it has a theme that they
haven't already seen.
I just don't like the idea of completely removing Classic without a
suitable replacement, since that alienates everyone who uses Classic by
disregarding the reasons why they use it in the first place. As a
product based on the Mozilla platform, doesn't SeaMonkey also aim to
promote choice and innovation?
Robert Kaiser
> Good point, and I can see why you would need to replace the current
> themes for SeaMonkey 1.5. But why is it necessary to change them for
It's not necessary. But when we have a better-looking, more modern
theme, it might make sense to also use it there.
And to repeat this once again, working on that icon set does NOT block
any work on any other parts of SeaMonkey and not working on it in the
1.1 timeframe wouldn't make room for anything else, as it's different
people needing to work on the other things than Manuel, who is solely
working on theming - also due to his skills.
Actually, some developers reading repeatedly the same here and writing
the same things all over again here takes away more valuable time from
other tasks than Manuel's theming work ;-)
> While I agree that Classic needs new icons, I think an entirely new,
> professional-looking icon set with the same general shapes and color
> schemes as Classic would appeal to many more users than the current
> plan.
If you give us a complete icon theme licensed under the MPL/GPL/LGPL
tri-license along with a complete patch to integrate it and someone who
promises to maintain it actively for the next few years, then we'll
think about it.
This all is as much a prerequisite as having the idea.
> As a
> product based on the Mozilla platform, doesn't SeaMonkey also aim to
> promote choice and innovation?
We do, that's why we support user-installable third-party themes.
Robert Kaiser
PK
> It's not necessary. But when we have a better-looking, more modern
> theme, it might make sense to also use it there.
True, 5-year-old icons do beat 9-year-old icons as far as age goes. :-P
But which one looks better is a matter of opinion. Modern does have
more contemporary-looking icons, but they also happen to look less
professional, which appeals less to corporate users. Additionally, they
are quite a bit larger, which appeals less to people who prefer minimal
themes (short of using text only). The current two themes appeal to two
separate user bases, and this plan to remove Classic leaves one of them
in the dust.
> And to repeat this once again, working on that icon set does NOT block
> any work on any other parts of SeaMonkey and not working on it in the
> 1.1 timeframe wouldn't make room for anything else, as it's different
> people needing to work on the other things than Manuel, who is solely
> working on theming - also due to his skills.
>
> Actually, some developers reading repeatedly the same here and writing
> the same things all over again here takes away more valuable time from
> other tasks than Manuel's theming work ;-)
That may be what the other thread is about, but that's not what I was
trying to say (and I apologize if it sounded that way). I meant that if
you're looking to make SM 1.1 more attractive to users, there are other
ways to do that (e.g., RSS reader, undo tabs, inline bookmark editing,
etc.). But is a theme change something that people actually want?
Where is the bug in which people are asking for a new default theme, and
how many votes does it have?
> If you give us a complete icon theme licensed under the MPL/GPL/LGPL
> tri-license along with a complete patch to integrate it and someone who
> promises to maintain it actively for the next few years, then we'll
> think about it.
> This all is as much a prerequisite as having the idea.
I could do the CSS work and probably find someone to do the icons, but
it's not worth the effort if there's no chance of it being included in
SeaMonkey. I guess I was just thinking that something as important as a
new default theme would have been handled similar to how the SeaMonkey
logo was handled rather than some decision made quietly behind the scenes.
Justin Wood (Callek)
> Robert Kaiser wrote:
>> It's not necessary. But when we have a better-looking, more modern
>> theme, it might make sense to also use it there.
>
> True, 5-year-old icons do beat 9-year-old icons as far as age goes. :-P
> But which one looks better is a matter of opinion. Modern does have
> more contemporary-looking icons, but they also happen to look less
> professional, which appeals less to corporate users. Additionally, they
> are quite a bit larger, which appeals less to people who prefer minimal
> themes (short of using text only). The current two themes appeal to two
> separate user bases, and this plan to remove Classic leaves one of them
> in the dust.
>
Lets leave "how this looks and feels" ridicule until _after_ this is
done please, I remember the same "stop energy" being developed for Ben
Goodgers Extension Manager system, and well... thats one of the *big*
pluses of Firefox currently.
>> And to repeat this once again, working on that icon set does NOT block
>> any work on any other parts of SeaMonkey and not working on it in the
>> 1.1 timeframe wouldn't make room for anything else, as it's different
>> people needing to work on the other things than Manuel, who is solely
>> working on theming - also due to his skills.
>>
>> Actually, some developers reading repeatedly the same here and writing
>> the same things all over again here takes away more valuable time from
>> other tasks than Manuel's theming work ;-)
>
> That may be what the other thread is about, but that's not what I was
> trying to say (and I apologize if it sounded that way). I meant that if
> you're looking to make SM 1.1 more attractive to users, there are other
> ways to do that (e.g., RSS reader, undo tabs, inline bookmark editing,
> etc.). But is a theme change something that people actually want? Where
> is the bug in which people are asking for a new default theme, and how
> many votes does it have?
>
And how does Manuel working on this block _any_ of those things, (his
skillset is theming). How does this block you from completing these,
which the SeaMonkey council would likely be open arms in accepting into
1.1/trunk. The point is, the SeaMonkey council, and many others are
aware we need a theme re-write, Manuel is willing to do it, and he is
willing to do it for 1.1 if he completes it in time. Manuel is not and
would not be working on any of the other things we want/desire for our
future releases (including 1.1); how many times does that need to be said?
>> If you give us a complete icon theme licensed under the MPL/GPL/LGPL
>> tri-license along with a complete patch to integrate it and someone
>> who promises to maintain it actively for the next few years, then
>> we'll think about it.
>> This all is as much a prerequisite as having the idea.
>
> I could do the CSS work and probably find someone to do the icons, but
> it's not worth the effort if there's no chance of it being included in
> SeaMonkey. I guess I was just thinking that something as important as a
> new default theme would have been handled similar to how the SeaMonkey
> logo was handled rather than some decision made quietly behind the scenes.
But that's just the problem, "I could give it to you, and probably have
a complete set". But it's the commitment to continuing it that is the
problem.
We need someone who is willing to create new icons when needed, update
them when needed, ensure the theme works during nightlies, and
releases... etc. etc. etc.
Doing that as a community drive is both taxing (as the process behind
the scenes for the icon was time consuming) and hard to guarantee to
most council's assurance that the person who submitted it, will actually
stick around enough to keep the theme up to date.
So, needless to say, until and unless there is a better choice, I'm
embracing Manuel's themeing ability.
~Justin Wood (Callek), spare-time developer for SeaMonkey (not Council)
PK
> Lets leave "how this looks and feels" ridicule until _after_ this is
> done please
At that point, it will be too late. I was merely presenting my
suggestions as someone who favors the style of the Classic icon set and
explaining my reasons why I prefer it. If I'm not welcome to share my
opinions and offer suggestions, let me know and I will willingly stop
posting here.
> I remember the same "stop energy" being developed for Ben
> Goodgers Extension Manager system, and well... thats one of the *big*
> pluses of Firefox currently.
I don't think that's comparable to a theme, which serves as a
representation of SeaMonkey and is something that everyone uses.
> And how does Manuel working on this block _any_ of those things, (his
> skillset is theming). How does this block you from completing these,
> which the SeaMonkey council would likely be open arms in accepting into
> 1.1/trunk. The point is, the SeaMonkey council, and many others are
> aware we need a theme re-write, Manuel is willing to do it, and he is
> willing to do it for 1.1 if he completes it in time. Manuel is not and
> would not be working on any of the other things we want/desire for our
> future releases (including 1.1); how many times does that need to be said?
It doesn't, and I never said it did. I'm saying that if this theme
change is being used to make 1.1 more attractive to users, there are
other things which will be much more effective if they are completed in
time. In other words, with a bunch of other great new features on the
list, the theme change becomes unnecessary. 1.1 doesn't _need_ a theme
change like 1.5 does, so at this point it is merely an enhancement (one
which I still question whether or not people actually want).
> But that's just the problem, "I could give it to you, and probably have
> a complete set". But it's the commitment to continuing it that is the
> problem.
>
> We need someone who is willing to create new icons when needed, update
> them when needed, ensure the theme works during nightlies, and
> releases... etc. etc. etc.
I'm not offering to do it. In fact, I haven't even considered how
feasible it would be with my work schedule. I'm only saying that *if* I
were to spend all the time necessary to complete a theme, there's no
guarantee that my hard work would actually be put to use.
> Doing that as a community drive is both taxing (as the process behind
> the scenes for the icon was time consuming) and hard to guarantee to
> most council's assurance that the person who submitted it, will actually
> stick around enough to keep the theme up to date.
>
> So, needless to say, until and unless there is a better choice, I'm
> embracing Manuel's themeing ability.
Ok, fair enough. I just think the fact that this major decision was
made behind the community's back is beginning to reek of the Microsoft
mentality of "only we know what's best for you."
Justin Wood (Callek)
> Justin Wood (Callek) wrote:
>> Lets leave "how this looks and feels" ridicule until _after_ this is
>> done please
>
> At that point, it will be too late. I was merely presenting my
> suggestions as someone who favors the style of the Classic icon set and
> explaining my reasons why I prefer it. If I'm not welcome to share my
> opinions and offer suggestions, let me know and I will willingly stop
> posting here.
>
I had not meant that in any form of personal attack, but was merely
meant as a deterrent to continuing this 'dead-horse' of a thread.
>> I remember the same "stop energy" being developed for Ben Goodgers
>> Extension Manager system, and well... thats one of the *big* pluses of
>> Firefox currently.
>
> I don't think that's comparable to a theme, which serves as a
> representation of SeaMonkey and is something that everyone uses.
>
How about comparing it to FF's change from Qute? ... Qute is still
(sorta?) maintained, as an addon, Neil is still going to create a theme
with (same?) icons as original Classic, etc. It's a theme, you can
always change it ;-).
>> And how does Manuel working on this block _any_ of those things, (his
>> skillset is theming).....
>
> It doesn't, and I never said it did. I'm saying that if this theme
> change is being used to make 1.1 more attractive to users, there are
> other things which will be much more effective if they are completed in
> time. In other words, with a bunch of other great new features on the
> list, the theme change becomes unnecessary....
Well, yes, but currently we don't have anyone who is able to actively
work on many of these things, such as RSS integration etc. Most of
these things would (a) need to be re-written completely to work with
SuiteRunner, which most dev's know we are migrating to and (b) we get
alot of features for "free" which would make implementing these much
easier on SuiteRunner. Now, with so many actual _bugs_ and other
problems, would you rather have a (core) developer waste their time by
implementing something twice, completely seperately, (usually completely
differently); or work on getting the platform more stable and work to
make SeaMonkey overall better, I'd rather the latter, which is why I
focus all my attention on the latter.
As I said, if someone wants to do any of this work, the SeaMonkey
Council would likely love to have them do it, and they would likely
accept it.
> I'm not offering to do it. In fact, I haven't even considered how
> feasible it would be with my work schedule. I'm only saying that *if* I
> were to spend all the time necessary to complete a theme, there's no
> guarantee that my hard work would actually be put to use.
>
But you *could* release your hard work as a Theme for
"addons.mozilla.org", and see how the _community_ likes it. There are
features even in Firefox which were added/changed only after large
community use as an extension. (for an example)
> Ok, fair enough. I just think the fact that this major decision was
> made behind the community's back is beginning to reek of the Microsoft
> mentality of "only we know what's best for you."
That is one of the misconceptions with open-source, and is
co-incidentally why many open source projects never reach the same
stature as the Mozilla products.
You can't (effectively) have a project without project management. And
having project management doesn't mean "hey community, what do we do
here". As, (a) you can't please _everyone_. (b) Given different tasks,
and different current situations, differing users will see the request
for comment, and even less of those who see it will even make an effort
to comment, while every single user has an opinion (usually) in how such
a change would affect them.
While I also have to call you on your comment here, we did not simply
"hey, heres the new theme, live with it", we *did* post to the newsgroup
asking for comment on the new theme, which gave valuable (constructive)
feedback, like the stop-icon issue. etc.
With a theme anyway, it is easily replaced with a new theme, as long as
someone wants to make a new theme in the first place. So if there is a
theme that is produced in the future, that SeaMonkey Council, and the
community as a whole like, _and_ the developer is willing to release it
to the tri-licence and commit to working on it in future releases,
_nothing_ is stopping the Council from using that as a future default
theme. But for now, failing all the above, we go with a decision to
rely on a respected person (amoungst the council) to create and maintain
a theme, this person is Manuel.
... At this point we seem to be arguing about nothing but the same
points, except that you (seem to) not like the theme without even trying
it, and I accept that we need this theme and am confident in Manuel's
skill, without even trying it; Who knows, it may come to pass that I
hate the theme and wish to use a community one (after all my years using
the built-in-theme here). I don't see that happening, but it is a
situation I'd only know of when the theme is complete.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Robert Kaiser
[...]
Good words, Callek. I couldn't say that in a better way ;-)
Robert Kaiser
Chris Thomas
Yeah, what he said :)
Chris
Chris Thomas
We've heard UI people like beltzner say that having everything in the
same shape is bad for usability - that's one of the problems with
Modern, and it disqualifies all the various Orbit derivatives.
Chris
Manuel Reimer
> While I agree that Classic needs new icons, I think an entirely new,
> professional-looking icon set with the same general shapes and color
> schemes as Classic would appeal to many more users than the current
> plan. Current users of Classic would appreciate the fact that the new
> theme would be reminiscent of the old one, while potential new users may
> be willing to give SeaMonkey a chance if it has a theme that they
> haven't already seen.
> I just don't like the idea of completely removing Classic without a
> suitable replacement, since that alienates everyone who uses Classic by
> disregarding the reasons why they use it in the first place. As a
> product based on the Mozilla platform, doesn't SeaMonkey also aim to
> promote choice and innovation?
So please just tell me clearly what you want!
I tried to create a few icons of classic in SVG and yes, it's possible,
but this would mean very much work as classic doesn't have clear edges
and shapes. It's just "pixel waste".
And how does it help to just vectorize classic? Just to get higher
resolutions/bigger icons?
CU
Manuel
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Peter Weilbacher
> We've heard UI people like beltzner say that having everything in the
> same shape is bad for usability - that's one of the problems with
> Modern, and it disqualifies all the various Orbit derivatives.
Sure, I didn't mean that one should take those icons directly. But they
could be looked at as an example of how to construct a very consistent
look which is really missing from Manuel's first draft.
Peter.
PK
> How about comparing it to FF's change from Qute? ... Qute is still
> (sorta?) maintained, as an addon, Neil is still going to create a theme
> with (same?) icons as original Classic, etc. It's a theme, you can
> always change it ;-).
I hadn't been following Firefox development at that time, so I'm not
sure how its theme change came about. It was all pre-1.0, though, so
it's still not quite the same. But I'm not looking to continue using
Classic, I wanted to see something new that is still reminiscent of it.
But it's apparent now that the decision has already been made and
we're stuck with 2 Moderns.
> Well, yes, but currently we don't have anyone who is able to actively
> work on many of these things, such as RSS integration etc. Most of
> these things would (a) need to be re-written completely to work with
> SuiteRunner, which most dev's know we are migrating to and (b) we get
> alot of features for "free" which would make implementing these much
> easier on SuiteRunner. Now, with so many actual _bugs_ and other
> problems, would you rather have a (core) developer waste their time by
> implementing something twice, completely seperately, (usually completely
> differently); or work on getting the platform more stable and work to
> make SeaMonkey overall better, I'd rather the latter, which is why I
> focus all my attention on the latter.
All the examples I mentioned are features that are listed on the
SeaMonkey 1.1 tracking bug
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=sm1.1). I wasn't aware
that the plans to try to implement some of those have been canceled, so
I apologize for being out of the loop. It might be a good idea to close
that bug and update the wiki to avoid confusing anyone else. But if the
only new feature in 1.1 will be the theme, maybe it would be better to
either brand it as a 1.0.x release or not release it at all and maintain
the 1.0.x branch until 1.5 is ready.
> But you *could* release your hard work as a Theme for
> "addons.mozilla.org", and see how the _community_ likes it. There are
> features even in Firefox which were added/changed only after large
> community use as an extension. (for an example)
Good idea, but with a user base as small as SeaMonkey's, it won't work
that way. Besides, I don't even think AMO accepts SeaMonkey themes, so
I would have to be responsible for hosting and promoting it as well,
which makes the time and money commitments even bigger.
> You can't (effectively) have a project without project management. And
> having project management doesn't mean "hey community, what do we do
> here". As, (a) you can't please _everyone_. (b) Given different tasks,
> and different current situations, differing users will see the request
> for comment, and even less of those who see it will even make an effort
> to comment, while every single user has an opinion (usually) in how such
> a change would affect them.
>
> While I also have to call you on your comment here, we did not simply
> "hey, heres the new theme, live with it", we *did* post to the newsgroup
> asking for comment on the new theme, which gave valuable (constructive)
> feedback, like the stop-icon issue. etc.
I don't think the management should have to ask before making any
changes, but a little more advance warning *in public* would have been
nice. This newsgroup is not exactly friendly for non-developers, and
anyone who doesn't read it will be in for a surprise when they download
the 1.8.1-based SeaMonkey and see a new default theme out of nowhere.
> With a theme anyway, it is easily replaced with a new theme, as long as
> someone wants to make a new theme in the first place. So if there is a
> theme that is produced in the future, that SeaMonkey Council, and the
> community as a whole like, _and_ the developer is willing to release it
> to the tri-licence and commit to working on it in future releases,
> _nothing_ is stopping the Council from using that as a future default
> theme. But for now, failing all the above, we go with a decision to
> rely on a respected person (amoungst the council) to create and maintain
> a theme, this person is Manuel.
Judging by the antagonistic response to "outsiders" like myself, I
highly doubt that would ever happen unless the developer you're
referring to is an existing SeaMonkey developer.
> ... At this point we seem to be arguing about nothing but the same
> points, except that you (seem to) not like the theme without even trying
> it, and I accept that we need this theme and am confident in Manuel's
> skill, without even trying it; Who knows, it may come to pass that I
> hate the theme and wish to use a community one (after all my years using
> the built-in-theme here). I don't see that happening, but it is a
> situation I'd only know of when the theme is complete.
Don't get me wrong, I like the work that Manuel has done and I think it
makes a great theme. It's just that I don't like seeing redundant
themes included by default, especially not as a replacement for a unique
theme like Classic. I'm sure that Manuel could come up with an even
better original theme, but seeing as the goal is to use the same SVGs
for both themes, he hasn't been given much room for creativity.
PK
> So please just tell me clearly what you want!
>
> I tried to create a few icons of classic in SVG and yes, it's possible,
> but this would mean very much work as classic doesn't have clear edges
> and shapes. It's just "pixel waste".
>
> And how does it help to just vectorize classic? Just to get higher
> resolutions/bigger icons?
My suggestion was not a recreation of Classic in SVG form, but an
entirely new theme that is still somewhat reminiscent of Classic. It
would have new, professional-looking icons that use similar colors and
shapes while still being different enough to provide a refreshing
change. For a good example of this, compare Classic to Classique
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150535) or Eurynome to
Nereid (http://www.incognu.com/).
Robert Kaiser
> All the examples I mentioned are features that are listed on the
> SeaMonkey 1.1 tracking bug
> (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=sm1.1). I wasn't aware
> that the plans to try to implement some of those have been canceled, so
> I apologize for being out of the loop.
Nothing has officially been canceled, but nothing will get fixed unless
people are submitting patches and others are reviewing them. And that,
esp. the first part, hasn't happened yet for many of them, unfortunately.
>> But you *could* release your hard work as a Theme for
>> "addons.mozilla.org", and see how the _community_ likes it. There are
>> features even in Firefox which were added/changed only after large
>> community use as an extension. (for an example)
>
> Good idea, but with a user base as small as SeaMonkey's, it won't work
> that way. Besides, I don't even think AMO accepts SeaMonkey themes, so
> I would have to be responsible for hosting and promoting it as well,
> which makes the time and money commitments even bigger.
You're wrong, and you're wrong. First, SeaMonkey's user base is big
enough for that (believe it or not), and second, AMO accepts SeaMonkey
themes and other Add-Ons, but unfortunately they still get listed in the
"Mozilla Suite" category. At least, that's what I've been told.
> I'm sure that Manuel could come up with an even
> better original theme, but seeing as the goal is to use the same SVGs
> for both themes, he hasn't been given much room for creativity.
It's been his - and only his - choice to do it that way. As always in
Open Source, he has taken the only way that brings new stuff into such
siftware, and that is to not only talk about what may be done, but to
actually work on getting his ideas realized and reviewed until it can
reach the point to be finshed far enough to be included in the product.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> My suggestion was not a recreation of Classic in SVG form, but an
> entirely new theme that is still somewhat reminiscent of Classic. It
> would have new, professional-looking icons that use similar colors and
> shapes while still being different enough to provide a refreshing
> change. For a good example of this, compare Classic to Classique
> (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150535) or Eurynome to
> Nereid (http://www.incognu.com/).
Feel free to work on it and release it under acceptable licenses.
Robert Kaiser
Justin Wood (Callek)
> Justin Wood (Callek) wrote:
>> How about comparing it to FF's change from Qute? ... Qute is still
>> (sorta?) maintained, as an addon, Neil is still going to create a
>> theme with (same?) icons as original Classic, etc. It's a theme, you
>> can always change it ;-).
>
> I hadn't been following Firefox development at that time, so I'm not
> sure how its theme change came about. It was all pre-1.0, though, so
> it's still not quite the same.
Of course, I bet pre-1.0 (0.8/0.9) firefox had more users than current
1.0 SeaMonkey, just a hunch based on download numbers at the time.
> All the examples I mentioned are features that are listed on the
> SeaMonkey 1.1 tracking bug
> (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=sm1.1). I wasn't aware
> that the plans to try to implement some of those have been canceled,
Yes they are listed on the tracking bug, no they are not canceled. I
can only speak for myself directly in this and other postings of course
(I'm not a member of the SeaMonkey council incase you mistook me). But
*I* will not be working on any of those, as I don't want to duplicate
any of my work, or have my work go obsolete in just a few short months
(maybe sooner) when the SuiteRunner switch is turned on. Yes I also
agree that if the only new thing in 1.1 is a theme, I probably would
push to have them not release a 1.1; *but* they doesnt stop the 1.1
tracking bug from having things which should/could be in 1.1. Remember,
unlike MoCo employeees this is all free time for 'us'; where MoCo
employees can look at a roadmap and see "Hey we need Microsummaries for
2.0, hey Myk you are paid by us, why don't you go do it" (disclaimer: I
am unsure if Myk Melez [sp?] is the guy who created microsummaries, nor
if he is even paid by MoCo or does it for fun like us, just used it as
an example).
Because of this 'not a job' aspect, none of us can demand from any other
developer to work on any part they don't want to, or don't have an
interest in. As I said in previous threads, my interest lies solely
with Trunk ++ SuiteRunner, while still knowing that 1.1 is important, I
just won't spend my time developing for it.
>> But you *could* release your hard work as a Theme for
>> "addons.mozilla.org", and see how the _community_ likes it. There are
>> features even in Firefox which were added/changed only after large
>> community use as an extension. (for an example)
>
> Good idea, but with a user base as small as SeaMonkey's, it won't work
> that way. Besides, I don't even think AMO accepts SeaMonkey themes, so
> I would have to be responsible for hosting and promoting it as well,
> which makes the time and money commitments even bigger.
>
As KaiRo allready said, AMO does accept SeaMonkey themes/extensions. And
the user-base is high enough to have a good stock of SeaMonkey
compatable themes anyway. And I vaguely remember AMO devs claiming to
(at some point in the future) revv their UI to make SeaMonkey ==
SeaMonkey, and Mozilla Suite == Mozilla Suite; not both.
>> You can't (effectively) have a project without project management. And
>> having project management doesn't mean "hey community, what do we do
>> here". As, (a) you can't please _everyone_. (b) Given different tasks,
>> and different current situations, differing users will see the request
>> for comment, and even less of those who see it will even make an
>> effort to comment, while every single user has an opinion (usually) in
>> how such a change would affect them.
>>
>> While I also have to call you on your comment here, we did not simply
>> "hey, heres the new theme, live with it", we *did* post to the
>> newsgroup asking for comment on the new theme, which gave valuable
>> (constructive) feedback, like the stop-icon issue. etc.
>
> I don't think the management should have to ask before making any
> changes, but a little more advance warning *in public* would have been
> nice. This newsgroup is not exactly friendly for non-developers, and
> anyone who doesn't read it will be in for a surprise when they download
> the 1.8.1-based SeaMonkey and see a new default theme out of nowhere.
>
As would anyone who doesn't read newsgroups/blog postings, etc. for when
Firefox changed from Qute, or when Firefox added Extension Manager, or
when Firefox does "Places" for 3.0; or when Microsoft upgrades their
Word UI, or when someone upgrades from win98 to winXP... its natural
progression of software, some will embrace change, others will reject
it; it happens, this "you'll suprise users" is a moot point, imho. We
asked for (constructive) input from the developer community, which we
got (from my recollection, from nearly all).
>> With a theme anyway, it is easily replaced with a new theme, as long
>> as someone wants to make a new theme in the first place. So if there
>> is a theme that is produced in the future, that SeaMonkey Council, and
>> the community as a whole like, _and_ the developer is willing to
>> release it to the tri-licence and commit to working on it in future
>> releases, _nothing_ is stopping the Council from using that as a
>> future default theme. But for now, failing all the above, we go with
>> a decision to rely on a respected person (amoungst the council) to
>> create and maintain a theme, this person is Manuel.
>
> Judging by the antagonistic response to "outsiders" like myself, I
> highly doubt that would ever happen unless the developer you're
> referring to is an existing SeaMonkey developer.
>
This is e-mail, antagonistic is not my intent, it is merely me trying to
get my point across. its a "do it and see", not a "talk about it, wait
for us to accept based on words alone". its that way with nearly all
open source, you must actually do the work before any committment to
accept will be done, of course, like with anything, you don't have to
complete the work before you start getting input from those who may
accept it; its that way with patches, that way with UI review in FF, etc.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
PK
> It's been his - and only his - choice to do it that way. As always in
> Open Source, he has taken the only way that brings new stuff into such
> siftware, and that is to not only talk about what may be done, but to
> actually work on getting his ideas realized and reviewed until it can
> reach the point to be finshed far enough to be included in the product.
It looks like I misunderstood the situation, then. My mistake.
Manuel Reimer
> My suggestion was not a recreation of Classic in SVG form, but an
> entirely new theme that is still somewhat reminiscent of Classic. It
> would have new, professional-looking icons that use similar colors and
> shapes while still being different enough to provide a refreshing
> change. For a good example of this, compare Classic to Classique
> (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=150535)
I don't see much difference between Classic and Classique.
Which of these two is the new one:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=94853
The upper or the lower one??? To find out I would have to switch to
classic now and I'm too lazy to restart SeaMonkey now ;-)
> or Eurynome to
> Nereid (http://www.incognu.com/).
Round icons... We decided that we don't want round icons in the new
default theme.
CU
Manuel
Manuel Reimer
I modified several things and an new screenshot is available:
http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot2.png
These are the changes:
- Delete icon -> Shredder
- Stop-icon --> stop sign
- Modified some colors to be less "aggressive"
CU
Manuel
PK
> I don't see much difference between Classic and Classique.
>
> Which of these two is the new one:
>
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=94853
>
> The upper or the lower one??? To find out I would have to switch to
> classic now and I'm too lazy to restart SeaMonkey now ;-)
The upper one is new, and the lower one is from Classic. Here's another
good example (particularly the print, reload, and security icons):
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=88264
> Round icons... We decided that we don't want round icons in the new
> default theme.
That was given as an example of how he improved on Eurynome to create
Nereid.
Giacomo Magnini
> I modified several things and an new screenshot is available:
The new screenshot is much improved, IMHO. I think the stop button is a
bit too big compared to the rest (in mailnews), but in the browser
window it looks good. 2 minor gripes:
1) search, link and anchor look (style wise) too different from the rest
2) the check spelling icon has a different "perspective" compared to,
say, the insert table icon.
Ciao, Giacomo.
Serge GAUTHERIE
> I want to show my current progress in making new icons for the SeaMonkey
> default theme with this screenshot:
>
> http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot1.png
>
> I took many ideas from "Really Modern" made by thumper (I think his
> homepage is http://thumper.kicks-ass.org/ but currently it seems to be
> unavailable).
<http://thumper.kicks-ass.org/wordpress/really-modern/> works fine for
me/now :-)
Serge GAUTHERIE
> But if the
> only new feature in 1.1 will be the theme, maybe it would be better to
> either brand it as a 1.0.x release or not release it at all and maintain
> the 1.0.x branch until 1.5 is ready.
[Freely quoting KaiRo, and/or others]
For the SeaMonkey layer part, what you say could make sense;
But for the "Gecko platform" part:
v1.0.x is dedicated to the Gecko v1.8.0 ("security/perf.") branch;
and SeaMonkey v1.1 (would) still make sense, to get the application
"little fixes" and be based on the updated Gecko v1.8.1 (branch).
Robert Kaiser
I really like the color and the stop button, but the shredder looks
wrong to me, esp. compared to print. could you perhaps add a out arrow
on the paper in print? and I think still the message with the "x" fits
better for delete...
Robert Kaiser
Chris Thomas
> Manuel Reimer wrote:
>> I don't see much difference between Classic and Classique.
>>
>> Which of these two is the new one:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=94853
>>
>> The upper or the lower one??? To find out I would have to switch to
>> classic now and I'm too lazy to restart SeaMonkey now ;-)
>
> The upper one is new, and the lower one is from Classic. Here's another
> good example (particularly the print, reload, and security icons):
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=88264
Just to reiterate again: shipping a default theme that's visibly
dithered makes software look old and outdated.
Chris
Chris Thomas
There are lots of examples of consistent looks (heck, consider Modern),
but it's still very hard to take a completely different "theme" for a
theme and figure out how to make it consistent as well. My only issue
with the current proposal is the back/fwd/stop/reload don't fit well
with the rest of the icons, but even after looking at other skins, I
don't know how to fix that.
Chris
PK
That's why I suggested something *based* on Classic/Classique rather
than just finishing up Classique and porting it to SeaMonkey. :-)
-Paul
bunn...@gmail.com
> > homepage is http://thumper.kicks-ass.org/ but currently it seems to be
> > unavailable).
>
> <http://thumper.kicks-ass.org/wordpress/really-modern/> works fine for
> me/now :-)
Yeah, I finally got round to cannibalising enough spare parts to make
the machine serving it run again.
There are three major problems with using Really Modern as a new base
theme at the moment;
1. It isn't actually finished yet. I still have to make the component
bar behave properly, amongst other things.
2. The CSS is a hacked-up version of Classic. Neither Classic nor
Modern are using best practices for theme code layout, to put it
mildly, and ideally the whole lot would be thrown out and replaced with
some clean, reference-class code. With the move to toolkit now
somewhere on the horizon, this is practical.
3. It's all still pixmaps. Unlike either existing theme, the icons are
all cleaned-up PNGs with real alpha, but that's still not as good as
having SVGs as a base. However, if I'm to understand what Manuel has
done, his SVGs are just embedding pixmaps as opposed to being vector
traces.
I'll try to do some work on Really Modern in the next few days to at
least make it workable as a solution. It sucks less than Classic,
anyway.
- Chris
Manuel Reimer
> However, if I'm to understand what Manuel has
> done, his SVGs are just embedding pixmaps as opposed to being vector
> traces.
WRONG!
Anything has been recreated from scratch. The SVGs are really vector
graphics. I didn't embed any pixmaps.
Asrail
> Miles aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>> Just wish you could come up with a better background color
>
> The point of Classic, especially on Windows and Mac, is its "native
> theming", i.e. background or font colours etc. are taken from the
> _system_ (where possible), not the theme!
>
>
I love the integration of the Classic theme with my GTK theme.
I know the icons should look better, but I wouldn't like changing the
theme to default colors and fonts.
Sander
First of, I'm a modern user, so this theme change doesn't really affect me.
That said, I think these changes - especially the less "aggressive" colors
(most noticeably the blue) - make the theme look far better than the
previous version. I'm still not completely fond of it, but I think it's at
least "good enough".
Specific remarks:
- The highlight around the checkmark in the spellcheck button makes the
checkmark barely recognizable as such. The same goes to a lesser degree for
the other arrows on yellow. Consider darkening the yellow (similar to
current modern), or at the very least making the highlight less pronounced.
- The borders for all of these icons seem a lot "thicker" (probably helping
in creating this "childish feel" that people have been commenting on) then
they do in modern. I think this is because of the default lighter background
color, compared with modern's blue-gray, which gets quite dark.
Thinner borders/lines would look much nicer, imo. (For example, compare the
mailnews reply button with thumper's really modern, which has those thinner
borders. Or see Composer's "publish" button, where it also goes for the
lines on the paper.)
- There seem to be artifacts of the SVG resizing causing weird one pixel
differences. For example, the top of the reload button has gained a weird
extra row of grey pixels above the outline. (The thicker borders might also
be related to this?)
- The glass of the loop in the search button seems slightly small compared
to its handle.
- I personally think all the subtle shadows in modern look nicer than the
complete lack of them.
Sander
Robert Kaiser
> - The borders for all of these icons seem a lot "thicker"
Looking on the icons in detail, the border thickness seems to vary
between different icons, esp. in the Composer part. I think it would be
a good idea to settle on the thinner variants we have, I'm with you on
that. We should at least be consistent throughout the icon set though.
> - I personally think all the subtle shadows in modern look nicer than the
> complete lack of them.
I notice some icons have some kind of "drop shadows" in the newest shot
(sheets of paper, mainly) and some don't. I think either of those is
good, but that shouldn't be mixed. Actually, I think I even prefer those
without the shadows for the default theme.
You're bringing up good points in general, thanks. I hope Manual can
incorporate those :)
Robert Kaiser
Rich Gray
I have the artistic sense of a grue, but I think the icons
look nice. Thoughts:
- I wonder if the shredder could be mis-interpreted as some
sort of security feature.
- Diskette? What's that?? :) I still us 'em from time
to time, but I wonder if the Save icon should represent
a more modern storage media. Something resembling a hard
drive disk?
- Will there be new component bar icons as well? (And a
new browser component bar icon for Modern as well, instead
of the "M"?)
- Perhaps this is off topic for this thread, but will there
be new desktop icons? When I set my wife's PC with Mozilla
Suite, I set up a shortcut to launch the browser and one to
launch into MailNews. When I upgraded her to SeaMonkey, I
had to keep the old Suite MailNews icon. Looks funny.
--
Rich
SeaMonkey - Surfing the net has never been so suite!
Rich Gray
> Miles aber hob zu reden an und schrieb:
>> Just wish you could come up with a better background color
>
> The point of Classic, especially on Windows and Mac, is its "native
> theming", i.e. background or font colours etc. are taken from the
> _system_ (where possible), not the theme!
>
>
That's interesting. One of the reasons I chose to use
Modern is that there was not enough contrast in the
background shades in Classic. Text seems to float
against a bleached out background unless viewed
exactly on axis on my G3-800 iBook. Modern has more
contrast in the background shades.
I run with pictures off though, in order to minimize
screen space taken up by menu bars, etc.
Rich Gray
>
> Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
Actually, Modern IS broken, at least in MailNews on Mac.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328679
Manuel Reimer
> Looking on the icons in detail, the border thickness seems to vary
> between different icons, esp. in the Composer part. I think it would be
> a good idea to settle on the thinner variants we have, I'm with you on
> that. We should at least be consistent throughout the icon set though.
ACK. I'll have a look at this to find out why the borders have a
different thickness, but I think the borders are much less eye-catching
in the next screenshot I'll publish.
>> - I personally think all the subtle shadows in modern look nicer than the
>> complete lack of them.
> I notice some icons have some kind of "drop shadows" in the newest shot
> (sheets of paper, mainly) and some don't. I think either of those is
> good, but that shouldn't be mixed. Actually, I think I even prefer those
> without the shadows for the default theme.
I'm currently doing some fine-tuning on the theme. This also
incorporates "equalizing" of the icons. The "drop shadows" have been
removed. All icons now get a decent shadow. Whereever possible I'm also
removing the "black border" around the icons.
Neil
> Ricardo Palomares Martinez wrote:
>
>> Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
>
> Actually, Modern IS broken, at least in MailNews on Mac.
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328679
That's a nasty-looking bug. Does it only show up in the account manager,
not in Preferences (which uses a similar sort of layout)? Does DOM
Inspector say that the images are where they should be or where they paint?
--
Warning: May contain traces of nuts.
Rich Gray
> Rich Gray wrote:
>
>> Ricardo Palomares Martinez wrote:
>>
>>> Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
>>
>> Actually, Modern IS broken, at least in MailNews on Mac.
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328679
>
> That's a nasty-looking bug. Does it only show up in the account manager,
> not in Preferences (which uses a similar sort of layout)?
I've only seen this in the account manager pane. Everything else is
solid, although https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56913
(cursors left behind on the display) also seems theme sensitive. It
is hard to make happen in Classic, always happens in Modern. :-/
>Does DOM
> Inspector say that the images are where they should be or where they paint?
Alas, I don't even know what a DOM is (but will momentarily.) Never played
with DOM Inspector. I think it's time for a learning experience.
I'll check it out.
Rich Gray
pane is displayed. Web Development is gray'd out. Is one supposed
to be able to invoke DI and bring up the Account Mgr. within it?
Manuel Reimer
I have a new screenshot.
The current part ("fine-tuning") takes much more time and so the next
screenshot only has Mail and Browser on it. The other applications will
follow later:
http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot3.png
All borders have been reworked. The printer has a small arrow on the
paper. And much more smaller changes.
CU
Manuel
Giacomo Magnini
> All borders have been reworked. The printer has a small arrow on the
> paper. And much more smaller changes.
This is vastly better than previous screenshots! Congrats!
The only comment is about the printer icon: looks a bit too gray, while
the rest of the buttons are much more white. Probably only my taste, tho.
Ciao, Giacomo.
Sander
> http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot3.png
>
> All borders have been reworked. The printer has a small arrow on the
> paper. And much more smaller changes.
Starting to look really good - I'm impressed! (Particularly like the new
look of the back/forward/reload arrows.)
Personally I'd expected the arrow on the printer paper to point the other
way (thinking that this was an inkjet printer that you're looking at from
the front), although thinking about it, I guess if that was the case, the
paper wouldn't have text on it yet. I guess it's too abstract a printer for
me to relate to anything real world. Might be worth redoing that one
completely, although I'm not bothered about it either way.
Sander
Robert Kaiser
> Personally I'd expected the arrow on the printer paper to point the other
> way (thinking that this was an inkjet printer that you're looking at from
> the front), although thinking about it, I guess if that was the case, the
> paper wouldn't have text on it yet. I guess it's too abstract a printer for
> me to relate to anything real world. Might be worth redoing that one
> completely, although I'm not bothered about it either way.
The usual design of print icons is along those lines though:
http://tango.freedesktop.org/static/cvs/tango-icon-theme/scalable/actions/document-print.svg
Robert Kaiser
Stefan Hermes
> Neil wrote:
>> Rich Gray wrote:
>>
>>> Ricardo Palomares Martinez wrote:
>>>
>>>> Actually, there is no need to drop Modern as long as it keeps working.
>>>
>>> Actually, Modern IS broken, at least in MailNews on Mac.
>>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328679
>>
>> That's a nasty-looking bug. Does it only show up in the account
>> manager, not in Preferences (which uses a similar sort of layout)?
>
> solid, although https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56913
> (cursors left behind on the display) also seems theme sensitive. It
> is hard to make happen in Classic, always happens in Modern. :-/
>
>> where they paint?
>
> played
> with DOM Inspector. I think it's time for a learning experience.
> I'll check it out.
>
for instance https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339576. I have
no clue on what's going on here - the cause is most likely not in the
theme code but rather in layout/widget somewhere.
/Stefan
Neil
> Don't seem to be able to invoke DOM Inspector when the Account Mgr.
> pane is displayed. Web Development is gray'd out. Is one supposed
> to be able to invoke DI and bring up the Account Mgr. within it?
Well, I know things are different on a Mac, but what I do on other
platforms is to invoke DOMI, switch back to MailNews, open Account
Manager, switch to DOMI, View/Chrome (if unset), File/Inspect Document.
Adrian (Adrianer) Kalla
> The current part ("fine-tuning") takes much more time and so the next
> screenshot only has Mail and Browser on it. The other applications will
> follow later:
>
> http://prefbar.mozdev.org/seamonkey_screenshot3.png
>
> All borders have been reworked. The printer has a small arrow on the
> paper. And much more smaller changes.
Wow - it looks very good!
As previously said by Giacomo, the printer icon is a little bit too gray
and the search button looks like on the wrong place - would it be better
to do only a search-icon without the text "Search"?
An another idea from the usability: i'm working at the PC-Helpdesk of
the University of Würzburg and 3 of 5 people thinks, that the
"Junk-Mail-Button" is the delete button. Would it be not better to do a
icon such the delete-icon but not with a "x" but with a "!"?
Greets,
Adrian Kalla
Chris Thomas
I like it. I don't think the brownish/orange works well against your
gray background, but it works better against my XP Classic :)
Chris
Rich Gray
I went to SeaMonkey help and looked under DOM Inspector (now I have
another bug or two to file...) Unfortunately when I did get it going
it proved to be like the law of physics that says you can't observe
something without disturbing it. Attempts to select other than the
top node resulted in the account window refreshing itself and things
popping back into proper place. :(
Maybe we should get out of Manuel's thread with this.
Neil
> I went to SeaMonkey help and looked under DOM Inspector (now I have
> another bug or two to file...) Unfortunately when I did get it going
> it proved to be like the law of physics that says you can't observe
> something without disturbing it. Attempts to select other than the
> top node resulted in the account window refreshing itself and things
> popping back into proper place. :(
>
> Maybe we should get out of Manuel's thread with this.
Probably into a third bug at this point, as your problem looks as if it
could be a core layout issue.