GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 537997
replace appearance/theme/customize/colors with gnome-color-chooser
Last modified: 2009-01-08 17:49:17 UTC
I got very surprised with the features of gnome-color-chooser, allowing us to have real colour schemes on Gnome - it replaces completelly the theme/customize/colors from gnome-appearance-properties - would be great if we can access gnome-color-chooser from theme/customize instead from this way, since gnome-color-chooser is hugelly more complete I were even personally contributed at gnomecc.sf.net forum some colour schemes (.gnomecc files), and directly by mail to its author (Werner Pantke) with more than 50 original GPL other colour schemes! :-) On next versions of gnome-color-chooser (from a code contribution from me) surelly will have support on importing/exporting colour scheme formats like kde (.kcsrc), Irix 4dwm (.basecolorpalette), Fluxbox and WindowMaker (.style) and maybe some others more! :-) Other information:
Can you be more specific? What functionality do you want to see replaced and why? The color-chooser homepage isn't very helpful. Neither does it have screenshots, nor does it explain what it actually does.
Well, be welcome on trying! :-) if having Ubuntu, please do 'sudo apt-get install gnome-color-chooser' There you will see lots of more colours available to apply on the Gnome GUI elements (in the way you can get from Irix 4dwm or KDE), and availability of loading and saving them. Be welcome on trying it! (specially with the colour schemes you can get from http://gnomecc.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php?board=7.0) And even be welcome on making your own colour schemes and contributing at this forum! :-D
Sorry, I really don't have enough time to try random programs on the internet. I don't run Ubuntu, and there aren't any binary packages for my system. You should be able to describe a) what is inadequate or missing in the current g-a-p colour dialog b) in what way gnome-color-chooser handles things better Otherwise I'll have to close this request due to lack of specifics.
Well, i took some screenshots for showing how useful are all these missing features, which i think illustrates clear enough what you're asking in the a) and b) items: The actual Appearence Preferences: http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2305/02appearancepreferencesvp4.png (this screenshot shows how impossible is to set different colours on buttons from the actual appearance preferences, for example, very useful on the calculator) What gnome-color-chooser has: possibility to open and save colour schemes into .gnomecc files: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/8266/gcc01openff5.png http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6609/gcc02openvz9.png the .gnomecc file looks like: (it's the file i'm using on the screenshots) http://pastebin.com/f27d8c1 gnome-color-chooser http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/9081/gccz1globaloz0.png 'Normal' is 'Windows', 'Entry Fields' is 'Input Boxes', and 'selected' are 'Selected Items' - besides those hover-like options, there are no big differences here http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1474/gccz2buttonsaw3.png buttons - the big and missing difference - nothing similar available in the Appearence Preferences from people uses Unix from long time, may know Irix has different colours for buttons since earlier 90's, or even before - and it's great seeing it as possible on Gnome as well! =) http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8466/gccz3panelnf0.png the colour of the gnome-panel can be different as well, but i kept the default window colour http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5743/gccz4desktopiq0.png this one i use only for the icon labels - keeping the same of window colour as well - it for me improves significantly the usability (more readable colour contrasts, specially on those more noisy wallpapers), and you can't set it defaultly from the Appearence Preferences http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/628/gccz5specifichp1.png another colours supported on early 90's on Irix - colours for progressbars and scrollbars you can also set there inactive window decoration colour different of Appearence Preferences windows colours, and active window decoration colour different of Selected Items from Appearence Preferences of course Appearence Preferences can be much more simplified than the gnome-color-chooser, but the possibility of opening colour scheme files, and having different colours for buttons, scrollbars, progressbars, and decorations, are really useful, and i use it all the time, and will not signify a huge lack of Gnome performance. ---- any further doubt, please ask! =)
got confused about the 'air-collision' message from gnome bugzilla, and i'm not sure if my post were deleted... (very confusing post-posting messages on gnome bugzilla) ----- The actual Appearence Preferences: http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/2305/02appearancepreferencesvp4.png (this screenshot shows how impossible is to set different colours on buttons from the actual appearance preferences, for example, very useful on the calculator) What gnome-color-chooser has: possibility to open and save colour schemes into .gnomecc files: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/8266/gcc01openff5.png http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6609/gcc02openvz9.png the .gnomecc file looks like: (it's the file i'm using on the screenshots) http://pastebin.com/f27d8c1 gnome-color-chooser http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/9081/gccz1globaloz0.png 'Normal' is 'Windows', 'Entry Fields' is 'Input Boxes', and 'selected' are 'Selected Items' - besides those hover-like options, there are no big differences here http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1474/gccz2buttonsaw3.png buttons - the big and missing difference - nothing similar available in the Appearence Preferences from people uses Unix from long time, may know Irix has different colours for buttons since earlier 90's, or even before - and it's great seeing it as possible on Gnome as well! =) http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8466/gccz3panelnf0.png the colour of the gnome-panel can be different as well, but i kept the default window colour http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5743/gccz4desktopiq0.png this one i use only for the icon labels - keeping the same of window colour as well - it for me improves significantly the usability (more readable colour contrasts, specially on those more noisy wallpapers), and you can't set it defaultly from the Appearence Preferences http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/628/gccz5specifichp1.png another colours supported on early 90's on Irix - colours for progressbars and scrollbars you can also set there inactive window decoration colour different of Appearence Preferences windows colours, and active window decoration colour different of Selected Items from Appearence Preferences of course Appearence Preferences can be much more simplified than the gnome-color-chooser, but the possibility of opening colour scheme files, and having different colours for buttons, scrollbars, progressbars, and decorations, are really useful, and i use it all the time, and will not signify a huge lack of Gnome performance. ---- any further doubt, please ask! =)
Ok. So, these changes don't really make sense for the control center, sorry. For power users who want to individually set the colours of every widget, there's gnome-color-chooser. That's great. For the vast majority of people who just want a simple dialog where they can set the most important colours in a theme, what we have in the appearance settings is much better suited. In the end, gnome-color-chooser is rather closer to a gtk theme designer than a colour chooser. Also note that adding colour scheme support to the Gnome theme format is discussed in bug 499575.
Well, i made a mockup showing it's perfectly possible having a simple dialog you can see at http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/7162/customizemockupmc3.png - also because i still believe it can be featured like this, keeping the simplicity, usability and performance. I completelly agree 'Colorize Theme' from 'Appearance Preferences' must kept simple, but i also think there are other few elements i consider more important than Tooltips (for example) for colour setting, and i don't think an user must be a power user for defining a gui colour scheme in a more comfortable way.
i forgot to say - at http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/7162/customizemockupmc3.png mockup, there is room enough even for open and save buttons, for using the same .gnomecc files as used on gnome-color-chooser - 'Reset to Defaults' button can be renamed simply to 'Reset'
I think you're working based on false premises. The question isn't really whether we can add new options (we always can). The question is whether we *need* those new options, whether the amount of usefulness is big enough to justify them. Or, as a previous control-center maintainer once told me in a discussion: "For each option you want to add, show me one we can throw out instead."
I understand on the huge concern of Gnome developers on avoid having it as bloated as KDE, what i think is a very good development method. But otherwise, i can't see how much bloated can Gnome become, when 15 years ago or more, Irix/4DWM has all these colours (and even more) on a machine running at around 50mhz, and Irix were nothing bloated that time, and i think Gnome can't be as well. It's just my very humble oppinion, and i hope all of this can be a seed for interesting ideas i really wanted to be nicelly surprised with! =) And i also think if, when sometime ago that colours became from 6 to 8, how heavy would became Gnome having it with that 16 from the mockup i sent, and keeping as there. I'm imagining the point is about so many users still don't know how possible is we can having a so rich colourscheme as we had on Irix, and based on that, no much more people else asking about it as well. All this also makes me imagine about some option like a button for 'more colours', would open gnome-color-chooser or similar for this effect, without having the risk on having Appearance Preferences bloated. My very only concern is providing an exciting Gnome experience, beyond keeping it simple, usable and relativelly fast.