unity-design team mailing list archive

[Scott Kitterman <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Resending Martin's mail to the list since apparently his messages are still 
not getting through.

Scott K

On Monday, June 07, 2010 01:47:03 pm Martin Gräßlin wrote:
> Am Montag 07 Juni 2010, 19:03:18 schrieb Ted Gould:
> > I think that with increased popularity the speed of growth in the Linux
> > desktop is growing exponentially.  I think that applications that aren't
> > using one of the major toolkits will quickly find themselves out of sync
> > visually with the rest of the desktop no matter what.  Sure, you can
> > point to CSD as a realization of this, but in reality almost everything
> > Linux desktop-wide is creating the same effect.  Applications that want
> > to be promoted in distros really need to be in a major toolkit.
> 
> Please tell that the OpenOffice.org developers ;-)
> 
> > <snip>
> > I think that you're missing my point here, it isn't about tabs.  But
> > about applications being able to use the integration between these area
> > in new and interesting ways.  One example is how Chrome had some really
> > neat ideas about how tabs should work.  They won't be the last.  Saying
> > that KWin has solved the tabs problem does not mean that the generic
> > issue is solved.
> 
> I think you missed my point. It isn't about tabs, but it shows that we are
> not restricted to the window decorations, but that we can offer way more
> with decorations. E.g. take the "Windicators". Implementing those inside
> the decoration would make much more sense than inside the window. If it's
> in the window decoration it is available to all windows, no matter which
> toolkit and no matter how broken it is.
> 
> > > > On the integration front, there is currently no way to reasonably
> > > > make the window have a texture that integrates cleanly with the
> > > > title bar. Even something as simple as a hash pattern would likely
> > > > end up looking awful much less something sophisticated like the
> > > > brushed metal look in many OS X applications.  I'm not saying we
> > > > should do either of those, but the fact that we can't is a little
> > > > ridiculous.
> > > 
> > > And also this is not true. Just again look at KDE. We are able to blend
> > > the widget style with the decoration. In the same way we would be able
> > > to do a pattern or a Mac OS X like theme. E.g. look at Bespin [0].
> > 
> > Bespin is a great example.  Why can't the application generated circles
> > extend into the title bar?  I think it would be really cool if they
> > could.
> 
> They could. See for example:
> http://picasaweb.google.de/mgraesslin/KWin#5408316722032062114
> 
> The screenshot is a little bit bad as the background has circles, too. But
> it's the only screenshot I have around at the moment.