I've been thinking about ways to modernize the RedHat/Fedora Bluecurve theme lately and have started trying my ideas out in practice.
My first goal is to improve on the Windows95-esque battleship-grey that colors all of the UI chrome. See this screenshot of Windows 98/2000/XP evolved: http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/Display-95-through-XP.png Note the subtle color difference between 98 and 2000 - but it makes a huge improvement.
I was looking at this screenshot of an XFCE beta (http://xfce.org/images/screenshots/xfce42.png) and was wondering why that main start menu looked so good (even though it was just using the bluecurve icons). It turns out it's a soft-beige rather than the battleship grey.
So, I've tried this out with Bluecurve. The only change so far is that th primary chrome is now slightly softer and more beige than grey. Some elements that are still pure-grey (alternative list backgrounds, depressed buttons, etc) will look a bit odd next to the new beige, but I'd do them to.
Here are before and after screenshots - open them in tabs and switch back and forth to compare: http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/bluecurve-before.png http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/bluecurve-after.png
The updated theme is here: http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/Bluecurve-2.tar.gz (once installed, you have to have to go to "Theme Details" and choose Bluecurve-2 in the "Controls" tab).
Thoughts and feedback are welcome - particularly from those who maintain the current Bluecurve theme in Fedora. I'm much more interested in trying to help improve the defaults than I am in maintaining an optional theme.
Thanks, Steven Garrity
On Mon, 2004-10-04 at 21:58 -0300, Steven Garrity wrote:
I've been thinking about ways to modernize the RedHat/Fedora Bluecurve theme lately and have started trying my ideas out in practice.
My first goal is to improve on the Windows95-esque battleship-grey that colors all of the UI chrome. See this screenshot of Windows 98/2000/XP evolved: http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/Display-95-through-XP.png Note the subtle color difference between 98 and 2000 - but it makes a huge improvement.
I was looking at this screenshot of an XFCE beta (http://xfce.org/images/screenshots/xfce42.png) and was wondering why that main start menu looked so good (even though it was just using the bluecurve icons). It turns out it's a soft-beige rather than the battleship grey.
So, I've tried this out with Bluecurve. The only change so far is that th primary chrome is now slightly softer and more beige than grey. Some elements that are still pure-grey (alternative list backgrounds, depressed buttons, etc) will look a bit odd next to the new beige, but I'd do them to.
Here are before and after screenshots - open them in tabs and switch back and forth to compare: http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/bluecurve-before.png http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/bluecurve-after.png
The updated theme is here: http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/Bluecurve-2.tar.gz (once installed, you have to have to go to "Theme Details" and choose Bluecurve-2 in the "Controls" tab).
Thoughts and feedback are welcome - particularly from those who maintain the current Bluecurve theme in Fedora. I'm much more interested in trying to help improve the defaults than I am in maintaining an optional theme.
Thanks, Steven Garrity
Don't know if you've ever noticed but the Bluecurve theme already has some color variations (Go to Preferences->Theme->Theme Details). I use Bluecurve-BerriesAndCream; it's very close to the colors you've chosen.
tjb
desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org