Integrate a “betheme like” function directly on the opentracker for standardizing themes.
oueshcousin wrote:
Integrate a "betheme like" function directly on the opentracker for standardizing themes.
By all indications so far, R1 is not going to be themable beyond window decorators which will be set in the Appearance preferences panel. Anyway, why would any theming by handled by the file manager?
is theming being considered just to pander to certain people, or is there an actual need for theming in a valuable, productive sense? My only encounters with theming have been “let’s make this UI unuseable! But, it looks cool”
Can anyone add any benefits to theming other than the vanity with which it peddles to? I’m not trying to flame, or troll, but I’d really like to know if there are any serious pluses to it, and if there are any, will these considerations be part of the “theme_kit” design?
expensivelesbian wrote:
is theming being considered just to pander to certain people, or is there an actual need for theming in a valuable, productive sense? My only encounters with theming have been "let's make this UI unuseable! But, it looks cool"Can anyone add any benefits to theming other than the vanity with which it peddles to? I’m not trying to flame, or troll, but I’d really like to know if there are any serious pluses to it, and if there are any, will these considerations be part of the “theme_kit” design?
There are SOME aspects of theming that can be used to help visually-impaired persons such as high contrast, or larger fonts… but these obviously can be handled with a much simpler mechanism.
On the other hand, a good/flexible theming engine can allow the creation of themes that mimic other GUI shells - this can be used to help a user to transition from a different operating system/shell.
While some may believe that this shouldn’t be necessary, there are situations where a person is so habitually used to a shell and behavior that they have a difficult time switching to something new.
Just because something is done better doesn’t mean others can get used to it 
In the end, I agree with you - that most people “abuse” themable shells to make their machine more unusable. On the other hand, themable support can also allow UI designers experiment with new concepts to help make future shell environments MORE usable!
There’s some aspects of theming which I agree, could be used to good advantage. Helping the visually impaired might be one, the ability to completely theme the OS for a particular workplace - a bank, a library - might be another. Although, I take your point that this could probably be achieved by other, more sensible means. Making BeOS look like Windows, and or vice versa, while it may help others make the transition, I think it’s the apps that help make the transition.
I was toying with Ubuntu on a spare laptop recently and my girlfriend had no issue with its GUI, most GUIs follow a similar paradigm (ish), what really threw her was Ubuntu’s use of a different icon for Firefox. I could have put the ‘orange fox circling the globe’ icon on any OS and she’d fire up Firefox and carry on regardless. Similarly if I changed the icon of any browser, on any OS to a giant blue E, she’d carry on regardless. I’m not entirely sure that if I’d themed Gnome to look like Windows XP, but the Firefox icon was the Ubuntu standard plain globe, the transistion would be any the more intuitive.
Good point made about testing new UI ideas however. I’d have thought that developer/preview releases whould be the place to test out new ideas, but making such a thing available as part of a theming engine would be an idea worth investigating further. Thanks.
MYOB wrote:
. Anyway, why would any theming by handled by the file manager?
If the opentracker cannot handle windows theming then new a “theme_server” will be welcome.
That’s for avoid to have to install high-weight third-party applications…
oueshcousin wrote:
MYOB wrote:. Anyway, why would any theming by handled by the file manager?If the opentracker cannot handle windows theming then new a “theme_server” will be welcome.
That’s for avoid to have to install high-weight third-party applications…
Eh?
You really, really, really don’t seem to understand what Tracker does.