[openbeos] Re: Themes
- From: Simon Taylor <simontaylor1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 10:37:31 +0000
Hi All,
There have been lots of threads recently that I would usually have been
involved in - I'm slowly catching up a backlog of a few weeks on the list!
When I eventually get up to date, I'll do a quick summary of my thoughts on
various stuff.
I actually had to bite here though.
>
> From: "Chris Peel" <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2006/09/07 Thu PM 03:29:13 GMT
> To: <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [openbeos] Re: Themes
>
>
> Hi Michael
>
> Your final comment was really all I was expecting! :) It just caught me out
> (and p---d me off to be honest) when I got those two initial responses.
I have been reading all these emails at once, clicking next every few seconds.
When your one about how annoyed and insulted you were by the responses came up,
I was pretty shocked.
Your email asked 5 questions, all of which have been done to death in threads
you have obviously not read. Fine, but when you get a brief response
summarising the views of the core developers on the issues, many of which have
been informed by said threads, you really shouldn't feel ignored.
You may not have read the messages, but the sheer number that were about the
icon contest should have told you that the "isn't the whole contest a waste of
time, lets just use the old icons" would probably have been dealt with already.
I'm constantly suprised by the seemingly infinite patience of Axel and other
core developers in answering those sort of emails.
I also happen to agree with the party line here - there are big advantages to
having a standard look and feel for the OS. Windows XP certainly doesn't have
that many theming options obviously placed in a standard install, and it
doesn't ship with entire icon sets in different styles.
I sincerely hope that Haiku will never have the level of customisability of
Linux, but I'm confident with the current team that will never happen.
I'd much prefer if someone didn't like the way Haiku did something that they
went and used a different OS, rather than Haiku added an option for it to
behave how they want. Obviously there's a balance here - but aiming to be "all
things to all people" is not the way I would like Haiku to go.
Sorry about the rant.
Chris, if you want to respond I'd request that it was off-list.
> No
> matter though, I appreciate people are working hard and get frustrated when
> someone comes along with a request/demand/order, etc. Surprising as it may
> seem, I'm not a 16-20 year old who chucks his toys out of the pram when he
> doesn't get his own way; I was simply trying to express a view I've
> developed over the last five years of app development under Windows - all of
> my apps have been very eye-candy/ui related (dotWidget, Snarl, Cloud:9ine)
> so although I'm no expert in the area I do have a certain vested interest in
> this area. I don't develop for them but I've also got a Mac Mini running
> OSX, a small PC running R5 and Haiku, and an Amiga 4000 - and I still
> appreciate the benefits of all the different operating systems.
>
> And to clarify - the only 'themeing' part of the o/s I was asking about was
> the icons. I'm perfectly happy with the yellow tabs and grey borders -
> hard-coded or not! :)
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: openbeos-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:openbeos-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Michael Phipps
> Sent: 07 September 2006 13:56
> To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [openbeos] Themes
>
>
> Chris Peel wrote:
> > I didn't intend to cause a fight and I don't appreciate the fairly
> > rude "it's our way or no way" responses received as I don't think
> > that's the Be (or hopefully) Haiku way.
>
> I didn't see them as rude, but I am sorry that you feel that way.
>
> > Lars is right - Windows does allow theming and you could change your
> > icons (via TweakUI - a Microsoft product) since Windows 98.
>
> There are a lot of things included in the term "themes". I am not sure
> which exactly you mean.
> - Changing the icon set
> - Changing the colors of windows, buttons, etc
> - Changing the shapes and designs of windows
> - Changing the default graphics (close button, resize, sliders)
>
> BeOS R5 included some of these fully (icons), some partly (sliders) and
> some not at all (colors and shapes of windows).
>
> > Windows XP includes theming because Micrsoft - finally - caught up
> > with the fact that users want theming support in their operating
> > system. For goodness sake, even Dano shipped with a moderate form of
> > theming support, although it was in its infancy.
>
> If you are talking about "Windows and buttons", Windows includes two - XP
> and classic (Fisher price and boring business). :-D I couldn't quickly find
> anywhere or any way to add more. Nor does Vista add any. I am not saying
> that we should limit ourselves to what the Redmondians do, but to say that
> MS caught the idea that people want to theme the OS is, I think,
> overstating it a little. MS introduced a new look that everyone either
> loves or hates. They figured this out and made it switchable.
>
> > I'm really surprised at the response this post has got. I wasn't
> > demanding theming support (I apologise if it was interpreted in such a
> > way) and I don't expect the devs to stop what they're doing and
> > include it. I just hope Axel's and Stefano's responses are not
> > indicative of the Haiku project overall.
>
> We have had this conversation many times. It should be in the FAQs (Jorge,
> if you would?). Personally, I don't think that theming has a lot of value
> or is of importance. I think that there is a lot of value in one look. App
> developers can create icons and colors of their own and know that
> everything will look good on every system. If you look at some of the
> systems that do allow changes, if you make those changes, apps look really
> bad - unprofessional and ugly. If we want to add the ability to change
> things like the default grey and yellow colors, I think that we need to
> find a way to make that work well. It isn't trivial. Not to mention the
> number of apps out there that have the yellow and/or grey RGB colors hard
> coded. I *KNOW* that, in those cases, it is the apps fault. But, as an
> alternative OS platform, there aren't 50 of any app to choose from. :-)
>
> > I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm up my own a**e or conceited or
> > anything but if you want Haiku to be an o/s of the future you need to
> > forget about 1999 and get with the times. I want (sorry, would like)
> > to be able to sync. my mobile phone via bluetooth with Haiku, run it
> > on a laptop and connect via wireless, etc. I appreciate this may not
> > be the goal of R1 but to simply dismiss it with a "well I don't do it
> > so I can't imagine anyone else would want to" repsonse is very
> > disappointing.
>
> I want to sync my phone, too. :-) I don't see themes as a make or break
> issue. Very, very far from it. In fact, I would bet that less than 1 in a
> 1000 people would turn from Haiku if it didn't have that. Drivers and apps
> are far more critical. :D I guess the official party line is "We will look
> into it when it gets to the top of the priority list."
>
> Michael
>
>
>
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