(I *love* customization, so I can't help but chime in here...)
As far as I know, Debian mostly uses default upstream desktop defaults,
so these concerns apply there too. Evidently some DEs (Plasma, Cinnamon)
focus on looks out of the box more than others.
On 2019-06-07 8:24 a.m., Adam Borowski wrote:
> This is about GUI appearance and ergonomy.
>
> I'll concentrate at XFCE, as I consider GNOME3's UI a lost cause, thus I'd
> find it hard to bring constructive arguments there.
>
> I also hate with a passion so-called "UX designers". Those are folks who
> created Windows 8's Metro tiles, lightgray-on-white "Material Design" flat
> unmarked controls, and so on. They work from a Mac while not having to
> actually use what they produce.
I respectfully disagree in the case of actual Android devices, but
everyone has different preferences.
>
> For example:
> * our XFCE's layout has a thinnish bar with actually useful controls (menu
> button, window list, desktop list, clock, systray, logout) at the top...
> plus a tall redundant "OSX dock" that takes a lot of screen real estate.
> It's too much even on 4:3 aspect ratio, and on currently prevailing 16:9
> any loss to vertical space is bad. Most code, web pages, human images,
> etc, benefit from a portrait rather than landscape layout...
I've pushed defaults on my systems for quite a while that change the
Xfce panel setup to look more like Windows (or the default Plasma 5 /
Cinnamon look). Whisker-menu also provides speedy search and app
pinning, a feature I can't live without migrating fresh from Windows 7.
(It also takes up less space than the default menus!)
> => Can't we move two useful pieces from the dock to the top bar?
>
>
> * the default theme has a thin disappearing poorly marked scroller. This is
> nasty with a bad touchpad (laptops), high-resolution small screen (PDAs).
>
>
> * people tend to use computers with only limited lighting. The hacklab I'm
> in right now has mostly covered windows (and even some artificial light
> from the above!); at work opening window blinds too much can result in you
> getting murdered; I for one prefer to hack after midnight rather than at
> insane times like morning, etc. And this is not just hackers like us --
> even Windows and Mac brag about "night mode", random websites have this as
> well, etc. On the other hand, if we install some themes by default they
> have at most lightish grey background. I packaged
> dark{cold,mint}-gtk-theme with real black, perhaps there are better ones?
>
> => Let's install by default a black theme, perhaps even enable it by default?
+1 for Materia (materia-gtk-theme), especially the dark variant. It's a
simple, flat dark theme that preserves contrast without being having a
pitch black background, more so than Arc-Dark and even Adwaita-Dark. The
widget effects might be a bit much for some but I don't mind them.
Like most well-maintained themes it supports GTK2/3 and a plethora of
desktops, as well as Qt5 natively via a 3rd party Kvantum theme
(materia-kde).
My only gripe with this setup is that some apps like Firefox don't
behave nicely using dark themed GTK themes only; things like buttons and
input fields end up having black on black text, so I end up overriding
it to start with GTK_THEME=Materia (the standard/mixed light and dark
version)
>
> * the default icon theme is fugly
>
> => Default to eg. faenza?
I like Numix-Circle but I'm a bit biased there ☺. Faenza, Moka, and
Papirus are all beautiful icon themes that the desktop's unify look and
feel. But this unification makes some people upset[1], though I very
much disagree with their opinion personally.
[1]:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/05/open-letter-stop-gtk-theming-distros
>
> * default font is ugly and poorly hinted -- the latter is especially jarring
> on a low-resolution screen I'm at right now, the former still applies to
> one's proper battlestation at home/work. Tarzeau recently had some
> interesting rants, but even Quicksand that recently got added (during hard
> freeze...) to desktop-base is pretty nice. Or, if you want something more
> conventional, Clear Sans (Intel Clear). Or, Inter. Or...
>
> => Actually configure a good font by default. Quicksand looks fine.
>
I use Noto Sans, which supports a lot of languages out of the box and is
the default in at least Cinnamon AFAIK.
Also, anti-aliasing + Slight hinting + RGB Sub-pixel order on my Xfce
setup. This is what I've gotten used to, though font hinting changes
seem so subtle I don't know how much I'd notice a change.
> * likewise, default monospace font. My personal preference (Mononoki)
> hasn't been made to build from source yet (b-deps are available now, but
> it's still in contrib), my other preference is not packageable; there's a
> bunch of good monospace fonts available for choice but _programming_ font
> is an especially contentious issue.
>
> => Default to anything reasonable -- ie, not Dejavu. Even Comic Shanns is
> better...
I've gotten so used to DejaVu Sans Mono enough that I find switching
fonts makes my terminal look odd :(
>
> * CSD is still a thing. No, your special program shouldn't get to ignore
> system theme, put controls in wrong order, miss some controls, not respond
> to minimize/etc if it's currently busy, etc. Consistency not one-off
> designs.
>
> => Install gtk3-nocsd by default in all desktop tasks but Gnome. It's not
> perfect but it helps.
Alternatively, many GNOME apps have CSD-free alternatives. MATE's apps
for example are forks with relatively good feature parity:
evince -> atril
file-roller -> engrampa
eog -> eom
task-xfce-desktop has used MATE apps over GNOME ones for a while now.
>
> * Likewise, GTK vs QT themes.
>
> => If default desktop at install time was not KDE, make QT obey GTK theme?
Installing qt5ct lets you override the theme platform to use GTK+2
themes, or configure something else e.g. if your preferred theme also
has a Qt version.
One of the issues with hardcoding QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk across
sessions is that it conflicts with user settings if they prefer
something else.[2]
Another complaint I've heard is how many toolkits we should be
installing in a base system, since adding qt5ct will obviously pull in
Qt 5. We don't want it to be a hard dependency of any GTK-based desktop
either, since that's not really the right place.
[2]: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5440
>
> In general: could we please do something to appearance beyond choosing a
> wallpaper once a release? I'm a code hacker not a theme maker, so I see
> this only once it gets in my way -- but text readability does matter.
>
> (Discussing before filing bugs.)
>
>
> Meow!
>
Best,
James
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