I was reading Fedora Magazine today and there was a really interesting article up about setting the theme for plymouth[1].
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like "Spinfinity"? In particular, I think Spinfinity would be more pleasant for people to see while performing offline updates (rather than a monochrome thought bubble) for that extended period.
I realize that this is probably going to get into an argument about the relative merits of subjective interpretations of beauty, so let me try to frame the conversation a little better:
I suspect that the primary reason for Charge is that it transitions more seamlessly into the GDM login screen (having similar colors). So, is there a way we could get more visual flare (and product identity) there without losing the transition benefits? Is it worth considering a re-theming of BOTH plymouth and GDM for Fedora?
[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/howto-change-the-plymouth-theme/
On 2018-01-19 01:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like "Spinfinity"? In particular, I think Spinfinity would be more pleasant for people to see while performing offline updates (rather than a monochrome thought bubble) for that extended period.
How about adapting Spinfinity with similar background form Charge as an alternative? Speaking about offline update, will be possible to put the message at the centre (or lower centre) rather than the top left (I never understood why) ?
I suspect that the primary reason for Charge is that it transitions more seamlessly into the GDM login screen (having similar colors). So, is there a way we could get more visual flare (and product identity) there without losing the transition benefits? Is it worth considering a re-theming of BOTH plymouth and GDM for Fedora?
[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/howto-change-the-plymouth-theme/
I noticed the sudden change from blue to grey using Spinifity theme instead of a smoother transition. Same issue occurs when shutting down or rebooting as the session goes to text then background. Those part will need refinement. As mentioned above, replacing the bubble with Spinfinity symbol using the same background would be a better approach.
On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 09:00:17PM +0000, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
I was reading Fedora Magazine today and there was a really interesting article up about setting the theme for plymouth[1].
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like "Spinfinity"? In particular, I think Spinfinity would be more pleasant for people to see while performing offline updates (rather than a monochrome thought bubble) for that extended period.
I realize that this is probably going to get into an argument about the relative merits of subjective interpretations of beauty, so let me try to frame the conversation a little better:
I suspect that the primary reason for Charge is that it transitions more seamlessly into the GDM login screen (having similar colors). So, is there a way we could get more visual flare (and product identity) there without losing the transition benefits? Is it worth considering a re-theming of BOTH plymouth and GDM for Fedora?
Clearly, the default needs to be plymouth-theme-hot-dog.
-- John.
----- Original Message -----
I was reading Fedora Magazine today and there was a really interesting article up about setting the theme for plymouth[1].
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like "Spinfinity"? In particular, I think Spinfinity would be more pleasant for people to see while performing offline updates (rather than a monochrome thought bubble) for that extended period.
I realize that this is probably going to get into an argument about the relative merits of subjective interpretations of beauty, so let me try to frame the conversation a little better:
I suspect that the primary reason for Charge is that it transitions more seamlessly into the GDM login screen (having similar colors). So, is there a way we could get more visual flare (and product identity) there without losing the transition benefits? Is it worth considering a re-theming of BOTH plymouth and GDM for Fedora?
[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/howto-change-the-plymouth-theme/
About branded boot splashes in general: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.or...
Better options are unbranded boot splash, visible for the minimum amount of time.
On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 1:50 PM Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
I was reading Fedora Magazine today and there was a really interesting article up about setting the theme for plymouth[1].
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like
"Spinfinity"?
In particular, I think Spinfinity would be more pleasant for people to
see
while performing offline updates (rather than a monochrome thought
bubble)
for that extended period.
I realize that this is probably going to get into an argument about the relative merits of subjective interpretations of beauty, so let me try to frame the conversation a little better:
I suspect that the primary reason for Charge is that it transitions more seamlessly into the GDM login screen (having similar colors). So, is
there
a way we could get more visual flare (and product identity) there without losing the transition benefits? Is it worth considering a re-theming of BOTH plymouth and GDM for Fedora?
[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/howto-change-the-plymouth-theme/
About branded boot splashes in general:
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.or...
Better options are unbranded boot splash, visible for the minimum amount of time.
I think you completely missed the part where I pointed out that during offline updates, this splash screen is visible for *minutes*. I can buy your argument for initial boot-up. But not when a user is seeing something for what is guaranteed to be a longer period of time.
On Thu, 2018-01-25 at 16:04 +0000, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 1:50 PM Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Better options are unbranded boot splash, visible for the minimum amount of time.
I think you completely missed the part where I pointed out that during offline updates, this splash screen is visible for *minutes*.
Once we move to Atomic, won't updates be just as fast as a normal reboot?
I can buy your argument for initial boot-up. But not when a user is seeing something for what is guaranteed to be a longer period of time.
I doubt that's what you meant, but this sounds like an advertiser selling his ad space, telling their customers how they have a "captive audience".
On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 05:18:17PM +0100, Mathieu Bridon wrote:
I can buy your argument for initial boot-up. But not when a user is seeing something for what is guaranteed to be a longer period of time.
I doubt that's what you meant, but this sounds like an advertiser selling his ad space, telling their customers how they have a "captive audience".
I don't think that's what's meant at all, no.
Fedora is not a generic, white-box operating system. People see our logo and have positive, happy thoughts. Let's capitalize on that. I generally hate being advertised at, but when my Android phone boots, I don't think "oh %#$@%@, the capitalist overlords have me trapped". I think "hey, that's a pretty nifty logo representing the device I chose to purchase".
We've been talking about establishing some visual cues to help build Fedora Workstation identity for a long time. Maybe Stephen's suggestion isn't the best thing we can come up with, but c'mon, everybody. Please come up with *something*.
----- Original Message -----
On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 05:18:17PM +0100, Mathieu Bridon wrote:
I can buy your argument for initial boot-up. But not when a user is seeing something for what is guaranteed to be a longer period of time.
I doubt that's what you meant, but this sounds like an advertiser selling his ad space, telling their customers how they have a "captive audience".
I don't think that's what's meant at all, no.
Fedora is not a generic, white-box operating system. People see our logo and have positive, happy thoughts. Let's capitalize on that. I generally hate being advertised at, but when my Android phone boots, I don't think "oh %#$@%@, the capitalist overlords have me trapped". I think "hey, that's a pretty nifty logo representing the device I chose to purchase".
It's probably not the analogy you wanted to use. Do you see a Google logo during bootup? No, because it's the hardware vendor's logo. There have been attempts in the past at keeping the EFI logo on screen during boot, though they never really went anywhere because we still need to have GRUB pause and stop, because we can't be certain the keyboard will be working properly at that point, and we'd want to be able to stop the boot process.
Anyway, it's a hardware vendor logo, not the OS logo.
We've been talking about establishing some visual cues to help build Fedora Workstation identity for a long time. Maybe Stephen's suggestion isn't the best thing we can come up with, but c'mon, everybody. Please come up with *something*.
You say that, but what you wanted, you always got, despite people like me and others saying we didn't like the ideas.
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
If you know of branding uses that aren't in this list: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding please add them there.
Eventually, somebody will grade those changes, but it's kind of difficult telling integrators that their ideas of branding have been bad, or could be better served in other ways. We see that every time the discussion comes up here, and it's certainly not a discussion I enjoy having.
If somebody wants to pick up a low-hanging fruit, making the default command-line prompt be more colourful and detailed is a good way to have cheap branding. Those in the know will change it if they don't like it, Fedora will be more recognisable, and the form will follow function.
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 10:51:21AM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
It's probably not the analogy you wanted to use. Do you see a Google logo during bootup? No, because it's the hardware vendor's logo. There have been
Yes, I see a Google logo during bootup. It used to be an Android logo but apparently now it's just "Powered by Android" at the bottom.
We've been talking about establishing some visual cues to help build Fedora Workstation identity for a long time. Maybe Stephen's suggestion isn't the best thing we can come up with, but c'mon, everybody. Please come up with *something*.
You say that, but what you wanted, you always got, despite people like me and others saying we didn't like the ideas.
Wait, what? I have seen no changes at all, except the lighter top bar, and that doesn't really say "Fedora" to me in any way.
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
The details panel? Are you kidding?
If somebody wants to pick up a low-hanging fruit, making the default command-line prompt be more colourful and detailed is a good way to have cheap branding. Those in the know will change it if they don't like it, Fedora will be more recognisable, and the form will follow function.
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
The details panel? Are you kidding?
No, Bastien wasn't kidding, And I don't think your response will lead this discussion into a productive direction.
Not that it is very likely for this repeated rehashing of known disagreements to lead to anything other than gnashing of teeth and frustration on both sides anyway.
But if we need to go over it again, lets do it: Fedora needs to first and foremost differentiate with awesome functionality. People will only associate warm and positive feelings with the logo you force onto them if they are wowed by the experience.
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal ? Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
Ryan Lerch has been working on a comprehensive Fedora Workstation visual identity proposal for a while. I will ping him about it, as maybe that will let us have a more concrete discussion about how we differentiate on the visual side. Yes, we also need to find ways to differentiate on the functionality, but as we all know that is quite challenging in an open source setting, but I have gotten some suggestions for possible projects we could look at in that direction.
Christian
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:14 PM, Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
The details panel? Are you kidding?
No, Bastien wasn't kidding, And I don't think your response will lead this discussion into a productive direction.
Not that it is very likely for this repeated rehashing of known disagreements to lead to anything other than gnashing of teeth and frustration on both sides anyway.
But if we need to go over it again, lets do it: Fedora needs to first and foremost differentiate with awesome functionality. People will only associate warm and positive feelings with the logo you force onto them if they are wowed by the experience.
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal ? Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 05:14:45PM +0000, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
The details panel? Are you kidding?
No, Bastien wasn't kidding, And I don't think your response will lead this discussion into a productive direction.
Maybe not. I am frustrated. If you have a suggestion for a positive direction, I would like to hear it.
Since there has not been any progress, I have a basic suggestion that I think we should start with. For F28, let's do what Endless OS does:
1. A nifty, quick boot animation with their logo and name
2. The logo on a panel in the corner of the screen, always visible and always on
This may not be perfect, but let's start by following what they're doing, and we can refine from there as designers come up with even better ideas.
But if we need to go over it again, lets do it: Fedora needs to first and foremost differentiate with awesome functionality. People will only associate warm and positive feelings with the logo you force onto them if they are wowed by the experience.
Sure. But: I think we're doing well on that front. All of this stuff as Christian points out is *awesome*:
https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2017/10/19/looking-back-at-fedora-workstation...
We can do more, and we will, but I don't think we need to hold back for *perfect*.
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal ? Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
I know some who rarely use it.
----- Original Message -----
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 05:14:45PM +0000, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
The details panel? Are you kidding?
There were 2 things in this list.
No, Bastien wasn't kidding, And I don't think your response will lead this discussion into a productive direction.
Maybe not. I am frustrated. If you have a suggestion for a positive direction, I would like to hear it.
That's fine, we're frustrated as well.
Matthias, Rishi and myself are the only people who added any information to the "Downstream Branding" page on the GNOME wiki, and nobody asked us to add anything more.
The discussions usually go something with you proposing something, a lot of folks working upstream thinking it's not the best option, with more or less vehemence, and the functionality getting in anyway.
Since there has not been any progress, I have a basic suggestion that I think we should start with. For F28, let's do what Endless OS does:
A nifty, quick boot animation with their logo and name
The logo on a panel in the corner of the screen, always visible and always on
This may not be perfect,
It's not. It just makes things worse. It's like we never had those discussions in the past. Keep asking the same thing, and that one time when we're not looking, you'll slip this change past us.
I'm pretty sure that the omni-presence of a logo isn't something that got explicitly requested by designers at Endless. Or the Ubuntu designers requesting the UI to be mostly orange.
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal ? Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
I know some who rarely use it.
That's probably fine for not everyone using terminals all the time, that means we're doing something right. But I'd rather we took a considered and holistic approach to branding rather than slapping logos where there's some blank space.
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 01:31:46PM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
Matthias, Rishi and myself are the only people who added any information to the "Downstream Branding" page on the GNOME wiki, and nobody asked us to add anything more.
I'm not a designer. But in any case, the obvious things that I've suggested — and that Endless has done — are already on the list. Again, if someone has something better, let's do that. But let's _start there_.
It's not. It just makes things worse. It's like we never had those discussions in the past. Keep asking the same thing, and that one time when we're not looking, you'll slip this change past us.
I haven't slipped any change past anyone. I don't want to. What I want is for the people working on this to do things to help Fedora succeed. I don't want to have to keep arguing that we're not Ralph Lauren or whatever fashion brand people are covering up on their coats. That's not useful. Fedora has a strong, positive brand, and we have a great logo and visual language strongly tied to our community identity. Let's take that and put it into action.
I'm pretty sure that the omni-presence of a logo isn't something that got explicitly requested by designers at Endless. Or the Ubuntu designers requesting the UI to be mostly orange.
Perhaps not. Yet, it's there. That's because this is important.
----- Original Message -----
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 01:31:46PM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
Matthias, Rishi and myself are the only people who added any information to the "Downstream Branding" page on the GNOME wiki, and nobody asked us to add anything more.
I'm not a designer. But in any case, the obvious things that I've suggested — and that Endless has done — are already on the list. Again, if someone has something better, let's do that. But let's _start there_.
The list isn't a checklist of all the downstream branding we want to implement, it's a list of what different OSes use.
It's not. It just makes things worse. It's like we never had those discussions in the past. Keep asking the same thing, and that one time when we're not looking, you'll slip this change past us.
I haven't slipped any change past anyone. I don't want to. What I want is for the people working on this to do things to help Fedora succeed. I don't want to have to keep arguing that we're not Ralph Lauren or whatever fashion brand people are covering up on their coats.
Which is exactly why I don't think we want to implement poorly thought out branding, or not look into the existing branding to see how well it integrates in our goals of being recognisable as Fedora, with or without branding.
Then again, I think this is our goals, but they were never explicitly defined, and we would gain a lot in this discussion by defining them before making decisions to accomplish them.
That's not useful. Fedora has a strong, positive brand, and we have a great logo and visual language strongly tied to our community identity. Let's take that and put it into action.
I'm pretty sure that the omni-presence of a logo isn't something that got explicitly requested by designers at Endless. Or the Ubuntu designers requesting the UI to be mostly orange.
Perhaps not. Yet, it's there. That's because this is important.
Important doesn't mean necessary, or thought out.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 6:31 PM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 05:14:45PM +0000, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Since the last time, we got a default hostname of "fedora" visible on the network, for UPnP and mDNS services, the Details panel patch to show the OS version in the Settings will soon be getting upstream, so it's not nothing.
The details panel? Are you kidding?
There were 2 things in this list.
No, Bastien wasn't kidding, And I don't think your response will lead this discussion into a productive direction.
Maybe not. I am frustrated. If you have a suggestion for a positive direction, I would like to hear it.
That's fine, we're frustrated as well.
Matthias, Rishi and myself are the only people who added any information to the "Downstream Branding" page on the GNOME wiki, and nobody asked us to add anything more.
The discussions usually go something with you proposing something, a lot of folks working upstream thinking it's not the best option, with more or less vehemence, and the functionality getting in anyway.
Since there has not been any progress, I have a basic suggestion that I think we should start with. For F28, let's do what Endless OS does:
A nifty, quick boot animation with their logo and name
The logo on a panel in the corner of the screen, always visible and always on
This may not be perfect,
It's not. It just makes things worse. It's like we never had those discussions in the past. Keep asking the same thing, and that one time when we're not looking, you'll slip this change past us.
I'm pretty sure that the omni-presence of a logo isn't something that got explicitly requested by designers at Endless. Or the Ubuntu designers requesting the UI to be mostly orange.
Quite probably but then the Endless look and feel is quite different to the standard upstream gnome one. Similarly the Ubuntu one is quite a bit different to the upstream theme, even with the orange aside, yet Fedora some how gets questioned over the fact that we want some differentiation and get questioned over the fact that we even want to deviate over the wallpaper. So given those distributions change numerous other things more than a wallpaper or a watermark. I suspect they have less opinion about for a request for a watermark logo because they have other branding visible such as orange tints or permanent side bars.
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 09:29:54PM +0000, Peter Robinson wrote:
yet Fedora some how gets questioned over the fact that we want some differentiation and get questioned over the fact that we even want to deviate over the wallpaper.
I wouldn't say that anybody, or at least most people, flat out thinks that a distributor shouldn't be able to differentiate by having their own visual identity. However, there might be certain things that some people might like less, just as there might be things that might be liked more.
The boot splash, default wallpaper, network hostname, log in screen, the Settings panel, a logo on the desktop, and all those things listed on https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding - they are all different things that can evoke different responses from different people.
I mean, isn't Fedora shipping with the word "fedora" overlaid on the default wallpaper?
----- Original Message ----- <snip>
Quite probably but then the Endless look and feel is quite different to the standard upstream gnome one. Similarly the Ubuntu one is quite a bit different to the upstream theme, even with the orange aside, yet Fedora some how gets questioned over the fact that we want some differentiation and get questioned over the fact that we even want to deviate over the wallpaper.
But I don't work on Ubuntu or Endless, and I would make the same comments I made about their visual identity if I were to work on those.
So given those distributions change numerous other things more than a wallpaper or a watermark. I suspect they have less opinion about for a request for a watermark logo because they have other branding visible such as orange tints or permanent side bars. _______________________________________________ desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 12:43:40PM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
- The logo on a panel in the corner of the screen, always visible and always on
This may not be perfect, but let's start by following what they're doing, and we can refine from there as designers come up with even better ideas.
This sounds a lot like how we got the overlaid Fedora logo on the wallpaper. :)
Are we going to withdraw that one? I thought people stopped liking it. I just installed a fresh new Fedora 27 VM and it was there. Or am I just confused?
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 5:23 PM, Debarshi Ray rishi.is@lostca.se wrote:
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 12:43:40PM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
- The logo on a panel in the corner of the screen, always visible and always on
This may not be perfect, but let's start by following what they're doing, and we can refine from there as designers come up with even better ideas.
This sounds a lot like how we got the overlaid Fedora logo on the wallpaper. :)
I like this overlay/watermark feature. Some people have said in the past that it suggests the wallpaper is Fedora supplied artwork, which I really don't understand at all because the watermark is not mistakable for a proper copyright mark. It's plainly in a unique fedora typeface. Whatever this is a hill I don't want to die on. I'd support "badging" a Fedora installation with a g-i-s option *but* that is a GNOME domain product so I can see how that might be a non-starter... in which case I'd say it could be an anaconda install time option.
Are we going to withdraw that one? I thought people stopped liking it. I just installed a fresh new Fedora 27 VM and it was there. Or am I just confused?
I had to turn it on. I forget how... there is no GUI option for enabling/disabling that watermark.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 11:43 AM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Maybe not. I am frustrated. If you have a suggestion for a positive direction, I would like to hear it.
Let's start with plymouth.
The current charge theme just does not look very good, and putting our logo on a boot process that does not look very good is not in our best interest. I don't think the spinfinity theme is what we are looking for, either. So unless a new, better-looking Fedora plymouth theme materializes, we should definitely switch to the upstream spinner theme.
What would a Fedora plymouth theme look like? Let's take some inspiration from RHEL's boot theme. Watch the first 10 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsIqlwjNf4M
Note that the plymouth theme transitions seamlessly into the noise background of the login screen. It matches the upstream designs quite closely [1][2], which should keep GNOME people like me happy, but with a downstream flair (the artsy 7 in the background) that should be immeditately recognizable by anyone who has seen RHEL 7 boot up before. It's not recognizable to RHEL newcomers, since there's no logo, but it leaves you thinking "wow! that looks good" up until you reach the login screen with the RHEL logo. Then you think "wow! Red Hat looks good." The entire this is extremely well-executed. IMO this is exactly the effect we should be going for.
Can we get something like that for Fedora? An infinity etching on the noise background, perhaps? A few different mockups along this line?
Michael
[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/BootOptions [2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/LoginScreen
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:35 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
What would a Fedora plymouth theme look like? Let's take some inspiration from RHEL's boot theme. Watch the first 10 seconds:
Functional. Nice transition to GDM. But bland and unremarkable. Reminds me of my Mac from a couple years ago when they were using the (seemingly) identical spinner. These days they're using a short status bar that's I'd guess is maybe 15-20% of the width of the display, centered right under a dark gray Apple logo.
I vaguely recall a CentOS 6 or maybe 7 boot splash that was way more interesting than any of the ones under discussion.
Keep in mind on any sufficiently recent system with M.2 drive, this boot splash might not even have time to draw before GDM is ready. And no one with Atomic or Server will care about this.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 9:49 PM Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:35 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
Keep in mind on any sufficiently recent system with M.2 drive, this boot splash might not even have time to draw before GDM is ready. And no one with Atomic or Server will care about this.
Just to interject, as I mentioned in the original message, the boot splash is also visible for the entire time that offline updates are running (which may be for *minutes*), so that *is* an opportunity for an improved experience.
I'm not trying to dictate what experience that should be, but as near as I can tell, no one is arguing that the current one is perfect. So let's hear some ideas on how to fix it.
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal ? Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
I have, literally dozens of them. While the terminal is useful for a lot of users, a lot have no idea about what a terminal is.
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 08:53:13PM +0000, Peter Robinson wrote:
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going ??? I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal ? Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
I have, literally dozens of them. While the terminal is useful for a lot of users, a lot have no idea about what a terminal is.
It seemed to me that Matthew was hinting that Terminal should be more prominently placed, and the response to that was whether there are actual users who wanted to use Terminal but couldn't find it because it wasn't in the default dash.
But now everybody is saying that there are users who either rarely use Terminal or don't know what it is. However, that doesn't answer the question whether someone actually wanted to use it but couldn't get to it because it isn't prominently placed. :)
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 9:53 PM Peter Robinson pbrobinson@gmail.com wrote:
I think this is a good idea, but it's hardly sufficent. I'm not sure it really fits with the direction Workstation is going — I notice Terminal isn't even in the default Dash.
Have you ever met a fedora user who didn't know how to get to a terminal
?
Honest question, you probably meet more Fedora users than me.
I have, literally dozens of them. While the terminal is useful for a lot of users, a lot have no idea about what a terminal is.
For the ones that have no idea what a terminal is, a terminal icon on the dash is not going to improve things much - it is just another place not to click, because it opens a scary window that they have no idea what to do with...
My mobile email clients threading is awful so I dont actually know who said the below quoted phrase, nor can I reply below it....
but the below philosophy I think is absolutely the right approach. I think it is already working as you can see in the media with the past few releases Fedora's general perception is more and more positive.
where I want to know more, is how is this possible for an open source project?
is this the *first* fedora f, where we get the awesome functionality first? while this is good, i do worry that folks using fedora for casual use rather than hardcore linux fans dont update so frequently for fedora having a feature first being a big deal. eg flatpak has nade it easier than ever to get the newest inkscape or gimp or whatever (sorry this is just pertinent to my little subcommunity but can be extrapolated) without updating the entire OS.
are there other ways to differentiate as an open source project? is it the integration and default configs? is there a focus on that now? (i dont know.)
is it in the variety and quality of apps on top of the platform?
i dont know. what do you have in mind?
But if we need to go over it again, lets do it: Fedora needs to first and foremost differentiate
with awesome functionality.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 8:51 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
If you know of branding uses that aren't in this list: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding please add them there.
I see three possible recommend states, but none of the items in the list have such a flag set.
Anyway, I don't see how either "boot loader" or "boot splash" theming are related to GNOME. Plymouth is unrelated to the DE.
Since either such theme could give the strong perception that what's being booted is an official Fedora product/edition, maybe it needs a FESCo or Council policy for what Fedora deliverables do and do not get these theming? But I don't see how either theme method or it's look at feel, have any bearing on GNOME or KDE or whatever.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
Anyway, I don't see how either "boot loader" or "boot splash" theming are related to GNOME. Plymouth is unrelated to the DE.
It's simply not true. Upstream's designs call for a well-integrated user experience where the noise background begins on the bootloader theme, continues through plymouth, and arrives at the login screen. I assume there must be technical problems that have prevented the bootloader theme from panning out, but we already have the login screen in Fedora, and the spinner plymouth theme is available just waiting to be enabled should we fail to design a quality Fedora-branded replacement for charge.
https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/BootOptions https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/LoginScreen
Michael
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:38 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
Anyway, I don't see how either "boot loader" or "boot splash" theming are related to GNOME. Plymouth is unrelated to the DE.
It's simply not true. Upstream's designs call for a well-integrated user experience where the noise background begins on the bootloader theme, continues through plymouth, and arrives at the login screen.
Which part is not true? I'm about to laugh at the idea of upstream GNOME having an opinion over a metric butttonne of work they've not put any effort into building, and have no real claim over. My god there are a bunch of examples where this kind of overreach is summarily rejected. How fantastic it would be if this kind of claim were applied to dnf and PackageKit teams and inform them to cooperate better so we could, you know, solve a real problem rather than this cosmetic one. I would love that.
I assume there must be technical problems that have prevented the bootloader theme from panning out, but we already have the login screen in Fedora, and the spinner plymouth theme is available just waiting to be enabled should we fail to design a quality Fedora-branded replacement for charge.
There's no technical problem other than the usual obtuseness of GRUB. The issue is one of resources. The openSUSE and Ubuntu folks put in the effort to make and support their fancy pants bootloader screens and Fedora hasn't done that. I do remember an attempt and it caused a lot of problems varying from unreadable screens on some systems, to impossibly slow navigation when trying to manually edit bootloader entries (in text) on other systems. *shrug*
This was in the early GRUB2 days, I don't remember if it was as far back as version 1.98 or if it was a final release but it wouldn't surprise me if there are a bunch of fixed bugs. However, Fedora has always used a fairly up to date and more upstream GRUB than other distros who heavily patch theirs.
On Thu, Feb 01, 2018 at 07:56:28PM -0700, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:38 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
Anyway, I don't see how either "boot loader" or "boot splash" theming are related to GNOME. Plymouth is unrelated to the DE.
It's simply not true. Upstream's designs call for a well-integrated user experience where the noise background begins on the bootloader theme, continues through plymouth, and arrives at the login screen.
Which part is not true? I'm about to laugh at the idea of upstream GNOME having an opinion over a metric butttonne of work they've not put any effort into building, and have no real claim over.
The part where you assume that just because something doesn't originate from the *.gnome.org infrastructure or is not explicitly branded as GNOME, is somethng that GNOME didn't put any effort into building.
See: https://www.gnome.org/technologies/
There are a lot of things on that page that are deliberately not kept on the *.gnome.org infrastructure and not branded as GNOME to encourage broader adoption, but are/were very much conceived, promoted, developed and moved forward by GNOME contributors to solve problems faced by GNOME. All that amounts to some very serious effort.
Regardless of whether Plymouth falls into that category or not, the fact that GNOME contributors went out to work on solutions that go beyond benefitting the immediate GNOME community, does give GNOME the moral authority to have a say in how the whole user experience should be like.
Also, Fedora Workstation should "take responsibility for the user's experience". It is not a matter of theming the boot splash in a certain way, and the log in screen in another way, and so on. All the pieces are, and should be treated as, part of a single coherent entity.
----- Original Message -----
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:38 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
Anyway, I don't see how either "boot loader" or "boot splash" theming are related to GNOME. Plymouth is unrelated to the DE.
It's simply not true. Upstream's designs call for a well-integrated user experience where the noise background begins on the bootloader theme, continues through plymouth, and arrives at the login screen.
Which part is not true? I'm about to laugh at the idea of upstream GNOME having an opinion over a metric butttonne of work they've not put any effort into building, and have no real claim over.
See the part about owning the experience earlier in the thread. Also feel free to install KDE and remove all the parts that come from self-identified GNOME contributors to see if this is an overreach.
My god there are a bunch of examples where this kind of overreach is summarily rejected. How fantastic it would be if this kind of claim were applied to dnf and PackageKit teams and inform them to cooperate better so we could, you know, solve a real problem rather than this cosmetic one. I would love that.
I must be missing some context here, can you explain?
I assume there must be technical problems that have prevented the bootloader theme from panning out, but we already have the login screen in Fedora, and the spinner plymouth theme is available just waiting to be enabled should we fail to design a quality Fedora-branded replacement for charge.
There's no technical problem other than the usual obtuseness of GRUB. The issue is one of resources. The openSUSE and Ubuntu folks put in the effort to make and support their fancy pants bootloader screens and Fedora hasn't done that. I do remember an attempt and it caused a lot of problems varying from unreadable screens on some systems, to impossibly slow navigation when trying to manually edit bootloader entries (in text) on other systems. *shrug*
This was in the early GRUB2 days, I don't remember if it was as far back as version 1.98 or if it was a final release but it wouldn't surprise me if there are a bunch of fixed bugs. However, Fedora has always used a fairly up to date and more upstream GRUB than other distros who heavily patch theirs.
This seems to suggest that Fedora doesn't heavily patch grub, however: http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/grub2.git/tree/
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 9:57 PM Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:38 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 3:51 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote: I assume there must be technical problems that have prevented the bootloader theme from panning out, but we already have the login screen in Fedora, and the
spinner
plymouth theme is available just waiting to be enabled should we fail to design a quality Fedora-branded replacement for charge.
There's no technical problem other than the usual obtuseness of GRUB. The issue is one of resources. The openSUSE and Ubuntu folks put in the effort to make and support their fancy pants bootloader screens and Fedora hasn't done that. I do remember an attempt and it caused a lot of problems varying from unreadable screens on some systems, to impossibly slow navigation when trying to manually edit bootloader entries (in text) on other systems. *shrug*
This was in the early GRUB2 days, I don't remember if it was as far back as version 1.98 or if it was a final release but it wouldn't surprise me if there are a bunch of fixed bugs. However, Fedora has always used a fairly up to date and more upstream GRUB than other distros who heavily patch theirs.
My memory on the subject suggests that the issue was that when we first attempted this, we were still supporting a LOT of hardware that was incapable of running in modeset at early boot. As a result, the fancy-pants GRUB2 wouldn't display on those systems.
Given that we are no longer shipping install media for Workstation on anything but x86_64 systems, I think that constraint is lifted and we could reconsider doing it again.
On 2018-02-02 03:56, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:38 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
It's simply not true. Upstream's designs call for a well-integrated user experience where the noise background begins on the bootloader theme, continues through plymouth, and arrives at the login screen.
Which part is not true? I'm about to laugh at the idea of upstream GNOME having an opinion over a metric butttonne of work they've not put any effort into building, and have no real claim over. My god there are a bunch of examples where this kind of overreach is summarily rejected. How fantastic it would be if this kind of claim were applied to dnf and PackageKit teams and inform them to cooperate better so we could, you know, solve a real problem rather than this cosmetic one. I would love that.
It's probably good to think less about "who owns what part" and more think about what creates a better user experience. If you compare the current Fedora boot experience to the ones on Windows or MacOS, the Fedora experience is a lot more jarring and unpolished. This is the measure stick that people will hold up. They couldn't care less about how we as creators of the system end up organizing our work. The example posted elsewhere in the thread of how RHEL 7 solves it looks like a great step in the right direction. To me, as an end user of the system, it doesn't matter if that ends up changing the Plymouth to match GDM, or change GDM to match Plymouth, as long as it's less of a jarring experience compared to now. - Andreas
On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 5:29 AM, Andreas Nilsson lists@andreasn.se wrote:
On 2018-02-02 03:56, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 7:38 PM, mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
It's simply not true. Upstream's designs call for a well-integrated user experience where the noise background begins on the bootloader theme, continues through plymouth, and arrives at the login screen.
Which part is not true? I'm about to laugh at the idea of upstream GNOME having an opinion over a metric butttonne of work they've not put any effort into building, and have no real claim over. My god there are a bunch of examples where this kind of overreach is summarily rejected. How fantastic it would be if this kind of claim were applied to dnf and PackageKit teams and inform them to cooperate better so we could, you know, solve a real problem rather than this cosmetic one. I would love that.
It's probably good to think less about "who owns what part" and more think about what creates a better user experience. If you compare the current Fedora boot experience to the ones on Windows or MacOS, the Fedora experience is a lot more jarring and unpolished.
Other distros have done this work on their own and have a better boot experience. It has everything to do with committed distro level work, and nothing to do with GNOME having some imaginary moral authority over that experience. And near as I can tell none of those distros had to go through some upstream GNOME bureaucratic process to arrive at their customized boot experience, and plainly this moral authority as applied apparently to just Fedora hasn't resulted in Fedora magically getting a better boot experience.
So the moral authority argument I find unconvincing.
This is the measure stick that people will hold up. They couldn't care less about how we as creators of the system end up organizing our work. The example posted elsewhere in the thread of how RHEL 7 solves it looks like a great step in the right direction. To me, as an end user of the system, it doesn't matter if that ends up changing the Plymouth to match GDM, or change GDM to match Plymouth, as long as it's less of a jarring experience compared to now.
These are compelling arguments.
----- Original Message -----
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 8:51 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
If you know of branding uses that aren't in this list: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding please add them there.
I see three possible recommend states, but none of the items in the list have such a flag set.
None of them have been reviewed yet, because no designer wants to touch the subject. The content of this thread is why.
Anyway, I don't see how either "boot loader" or "boot splash" theming are related to GNOME. Plymouth is unrelated to the DE.
GNOME owns the experience though. Once you boot into Fedora Workstation, GNOME controls most of the hardware and software pieces on your machine, whether directly or indirectly.
This is mentioned in GNOME 3's design documents as well: "Take responsibility for the user's experience" https://www.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf
But the discussion isn't about whether to replace GNOME branding by Fedora branding, but how to use different kinds of branding to reach the goals we set out (which we didn't explicitly yet, and that might be part of the problem).
Since either such theme could give the strong perception that what's being booted is an official Fedora product/edition, maybe it needs a FESCo or Council policy for what Fedora deliverables do and do not get these theming? But I don't see how either theme method or it's look at feel, have any bearing on GNOME or KDE or whatever.
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 05:42:20AM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
If you know of branding uses that aren't in this list: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding please add them there.
I see three possible recommend states, but none of the items in the list have such a flag set.
None of them have been reviewed yet, because no designer wants to touch the subject. The content of this thread is why.
This says to me "no GNOME designer is invested in Fedora success". (Additionally, the sole entry under "Related Links" on that page loudly signals that engagement is unlikely to be productive.) That's fine. It's not their job. That's why I bring this up here, rather than focusing on the upstream page.
But the discussion isn't about whether to replace GNOME branding by Fedora branding, but how to use different kinds of branding to reach the goals we set out (which we didn't explicitly yet, and that might be part of the problem).
The high level goal is: It is important to increase Fedora brand reach and recognition. A strong visual identity is an important part of this. There are several things which follow from that, but that's all there is to the basic request.
----- Original Message -----
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 05:42:20AM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
If you know of branding uses that aren't in this list: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding please add them there.
I see three possible recommend states, but none of the items in the list have such a flag set.
None of them have been reviewed yet, because no designer wants to touch the subject. The content of this thread is why.
This says to me "no GNOME designer is invested in Fedora success".
A number of the "GNOME designers" are Red Hat employees, also working on Fedora. They read this mailing-list, they won't want to touch this subject, and I can understand why.
(Additionally, the sole entry under "Related Links" on that page loudly signals that engagement is unlikely to be productive.) That's fine. It's not their job. That's why I bring this up here, rather than focusing on the upstream page.
But the discussion isn't about whether to replace GNOME branding by Fedora branding, but how to use different kinds of branding to reach the goals we set out (which we didn't explicitly yet, and that might be part of the problem).
The high level goal is: It is important to increase Fedora brand reach and recognition.
This is good, can you expand more about the goals?
A strong visual identity is an important part of this.
This is already getting into finding solutions when the problem(s) and goal(s) hasn't been properly laid down.
A goal could be: - A Fedora user should be able to differentiate Fedora Workstation from a Debian GNOME installation looking at normal desktop use. - A Fedora user should be able to differentiate Fedora Workstation from an Arch GNOME installation looking at screenshots of terminal usage. - A Fedora developer (not a Fedora-using developer) should be able to differentiate Fedora Workstation from an OpenSUSE installation looking at a locked screen.
(With different combinations of who is looking at what, trying to differentiate it from what)
A non-goal could be: - I should be able to differentiate Fedora Workstation and an updated RHEL installation. - I should be able to differentiate different versions of Fedora from each other
There are several things which follow from that, but that's all there is to the basic request.
We're not going to be able to move forward without more details on those goals, so I hope you can find the time to articulate them further.
Cheers
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 08:22:44AM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
The high level goal is: It is important to increase Fedora brand reach and recognition.
This is good, can you expand more about the goals?
Sure. I'm actually working on a Fedora Marketing language document, and that's probably relevant here. Brand isn't the logo — it's the emotions and ideas associated with Fedora. The Four Foundations are part of this, and the Fedora Infinity mark nicely encapsulates the "freedom, infinity, voice" that was our earlier motto and still part of our project DNA. (See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/History)
The goals of distinguishing between Fedora and Debian and Arch in specific situations are a step or two zoomed-in, I think.
We want people's daily use of their Fedora systems to tie in with the positive associations of being a Fedora user, and more than that, being part of the Fedora community. Visual cues which are special to Fedora are a powerful way to build and emphasize this connection. We want people who are not yet Fedora users to see that and be part of it. And, again, recognizable visual cues are important here.
We're doing an excellent job with technology (and in putting that technology together in a way that users can consume easily with little frustration or difficulty). This is awesome. (And GNOME and the Workstation team are a large part of that. Again, awesome.) Each happy Fedora user, every time someone does something cool with Fedora, every problem someone has that we solve — these things together build up our brand. Logos and other recognizable cues help tie that all together into a package that reinforces people's sense of belonging, trust, connection, pride.
I'm sorry for being terse earlier, but this is why I balked at the comments about the Details panel. That's somewhere you go when you're looking to solve a problem. It doesn't address day-to-day interaction at all. The wallpaper overlay is more... omnipresent (when it's not behind windows), but I think it feels kind of tacked-on. I do like your terminal prompt idea, especially combined with other terminal enhancements we can provide — that's great, really. I think we need some GUI equivalents to that as well.
I think it's worth looking at the process Canonical just went through in adopting aspects of the Unity desktop to their new GNOME-based environment. I don't agree with all of the specific decisions and don't think we should copy them, but I think the *process* is important: as they transitioned the underlying technology, they also worked to keep the visual branding consistent. This helps them retain the trust and goodwill they've built. (And this is the same reason I've asked the design team for a consistent color scheme and overall sense for the wallpaper from release to release.)
I'd also like to address the 2016 "Why people are cutting brand logos off their clothing" article linked on https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding.
The thesis of this short piece is that people — millenials, specifically — are more interested in establishing _personal_ brands than in identifying with corporate brands. But, Fedora is not a corporate brand. I don't think we have that particular problem to a big extent, and to the extent that we might, it's something for the marketing team to work on.
It also says "what the label symbolises - perhaps tweens or older shoppers – doesn’t always fit the image a person is trying to construct". The things Fedora symbolizes are pretty different from the things that fashion brands are usually associated with. (In fact, almost diametrically opposed!)
The article also suggests that "Instead, high quality-clothing, with the neat finishes in beautiful fabrics, speaks for itself". I like that, and it fits with what Matthias has been saying here. But when we're sharing the same fabrics with the rest of the open source world — and for that matter, we're doing a lot of the sewing for the other labels, metaphorically speaking. So that's pretty difficult. I'm open to ideas for things we can do in this vein that are unique to Fedora.
All in all, it's a pretty short article, and doesn't have much by way of references. Even though I'm sympathetic to some of the impulse, it's hard to gauge how big of a trend this is, or maybe even "was". On my way back from Brno I went through the Paris airport and there were many people in the lines returning from shopping trips and there was a lot of flashy branding in evidence.
Most of what I have on this is in the form of paper books, but there's a *lot* of brand overview articles on the web which could be added. Some:
* "Why visual identity is important for your brand" https://medium.com/@marienieves/why-visual-identity-is-important-for-your-br...
* "7 reasons why brands matter to consumers" https://microarts.com/insights/7-reasons-why-brands-matter-to-your-consumers...
* Quora: "Why is [sic] branding and visual identity important for current startups?" https://www.quora.com/Why-is-branding-and-visual-identity-important-for-curr...
* Branding: The magic of visual identity https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/branding-the-magic-of-visual-identity/
There's probably better things out there (the whole space is kind of hard to search, since there's a lot of junk related to *anything* about marketing on the internet), but could we add some of the above, or similar? I'll try and come up with some that are more data-driven, when it's not the weekend, if people think that would be helpful.
----- Original Message -----
I'd also like to address the 2016 "Why people are cutting brand logos off their clothing" article linked on https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/DownstreamBranding.
<snip>
Most of what I have on this is in the form of paper books, but there's a *lot* of brand overview articles on the web which could be added. Some:
"Why visual identity is important for your brand" https://medium.com/@marienieves/why-visual-identity-is-important-for-your-br...
"7 reasons why brands matter to consumers" https://microarts.com/insights/7-reasons-why-brands-matter-to-your-consumers...
Quora: "Why is [sic] branding and visual identity important for current startups?" https://www.quora.com/Why-is-branding-and-visual-identity-important-for-curr...
Branding: The magic of visual identity https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/branding-the-magic-of-visual-identity/
There's probably better things out there (the whole space is kind of hard to search, since there's a lot of junk related to *anything* about marketing on the internet), but could we add some of the above, or similar? I'll try and come up with some that are more data-driven, when it's not the weekend, if people think that would be helpful.
Those are helpful, but just about as high level as the existing reference. And while they're interesting, they don't disprove the original article in the "we don't need logos on everything" sense, and further show the need for a good logo, but don't explain how to use it. I guess sparsely.
Anyway, I'll add that to the Wiki page. I'm tempted to just add links to Muji and Uniqlo, just to show that the products don't need branding to be recognisable, or for the brand to be loved by its users (disclosure, I'm a happy Muji customer ;)
----- Original Message -----
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 08:22:44AM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
The high level goal is: It is important to increase Fedora brand reach and recognition.
This is good, can you expand more about the goals?
Sure. I'm actually working on a Fedora Marketing language document, and that's probably relevant here. Brand isn't the logo — it's the emotions and ideas associated with Fedora. The Four Foundations are part of this, and the Fedora Infinity mark nicely encapsulates the "freedom, infinity, voice" that was our earlier motto and still part of our project DNA. (See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/History)
The goals of distinguishing between Fedora and Debian and Arch in specific situations are a step or two zoomed-in, I think.
We want people's daily use of their Fedora systems to tie in with the positive associations of being a Fedora user, and more than that, being part of the Fedora community. Visual cues which are special to Fedora are a powerful way to build and emphasize this connection. We want people who are not yet Fedora users to see that and be part of it. And, again, recognizable visual cues are important here.
But those are 2 different things. If you want to make the UI a better connection with the user, you'll quickly run into the need to make deeper changes than just adding logos, and there's no reason why those (researched and justified, designed in short) changes can't be driven upstream. But then you lose your specificity, the changes that would make it stand apart.
There are also changes to make Fedora "warmer" that go against the Fedora visual identity. Starting with the cold and at times quasi-dystopian backgrounds, using "cold" colours (blue, black) instead of warmer ones (bright green and yellow, reds) seen as the defaults in most OSes.
In short, "photo of Fedora-branded cupcake on a wooden surface" is good for the end goal, "creepy monster-filled island" isn't.
We're doing an excellent job with technology (and in putting that technology together in a way that users can consume easily with little frustration or difficulty). This is awesome. (And GNOME and the Workstation team are a large part of that. Again, awesome.) Each happy Fedora user, every time someone does something cool with Fedora, every problem someone has that we solve — these things together build up our brand. Logos and other recognizable cues help tie that all together into a package that reinforces people's sense of belonging, trust, connection, pride.
I'm sorry for being terse earlier, but this is why I balked at the comments about the Details panel. That's somewhere you go when you're looking to solve a problem. It doesn't address day-to-day interaction at all.
It's something that was requested as well. If it's not important, then I wonder why it was such a big deal at the time, and why we should spend any time on it. It's not a great feeling for those who put time into the feature, only to be told that it's not important.
The wallpaper overlay is more... omnipresent (when it's not behind windows), but I think it feels kind of tacked-on.
See above.
I do like your terminal prompt idea, especially combined with other terminal enhancements we can provide — that's great, really.
I think we need some GUI equivalents to that as well.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe not the ones you asked for. Maybe not a plymouth theme. But before getting there, there's a boatload of work to be done on the research, possibly user testing, before touching a single line of code or packaging.
I think it's worth looking at the process Canonical just went through in adopting aspects of the Unity desktop to their new GNOME-based environment. I don't agree with all of the specific decisions and don't think we should copy them, but I think the *process* is important: as they transitioned the underlying technology, they also worked to keep the visual branding consistent. This helps them retain the trust and goodwill they've built. (And this is the same reason I've asked the design team for a consistent color scheme and overall sense for the wallpaper from release to release.)
I really don't think that there's much to take away from that process. They tried to mimick an existing design as closely as possible given the timeframe and developer resources. The design decisions are now twice removed from the original design, whether it was good or not. And this is the problem we don't even know if it was for good reasons or not.
So, yes, it's consistent. Is it any good? Probably not as good as the "original". They'd need to start afresh to evaluate those. I'm fairly certain that wasn't the case.
On 02/06/2018 09:51 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
There are also changes to make Fedora "warmer" that go against the Fedora visual identity. Starting with the cold and at times quasi-dystopian backgrounds, using "cold" colours (blue, black) instead of warmer ones (bright green and yellow, reds) seen as the defaults in most OSes.
Green is considered a cool color. [1]
Some things to consider:
1) Cool colors have a more soothing and calming influence than warm colors, which tend to draw attention and arouse. Across many studies blue is cited as being the highest ranked color in terms of favor, and also as a soothing color in contrast to red which was perceived as "stimulating." [2]
2) Cool colors fade into the background; warm colors pop and are often use to signal warning or error states. Two of the main principles of the original GNOME Shell design document [3] are "Less is More" referring to a reduction of load on the user, and "The technology should act as a mediator", in part referring to the UI being the vehicle, not the destination. A desktop background shouldn't draw attention to it; it's meant to serve as a background and fade into the background and the user's work is meant to take center stage.
E.g., the red default background of RHEL 5 to my knowledge elicited complaints along these lines (e.g. distracting.) May be related to findings that usage of the color red impairs task performance [4]; in my grad-level HCI program one of our professors called it the "bear detector color", eg the color of blood signals danger, as research appears to support [5, 6].
3) Green as a color for digital display is somewhat problematic as it is the color with the poorest coverage in the sRGB color gamut, meaning across various displays it can appear very different, making it an inconsistent color for branding. (see [7], figure 4 for a diagram of the gamut)
[1] http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color12.html#warmcool [2] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4711/624c0f72d8c85ea6813b8ec5e8abeedfb616.p... [3] https://people.gnome.org/~mccann/shell/design/GNOME_Shell-20091114.pdf [4] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=9535436793991630289&hl=en&... [5] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140139.2014.889220 [6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109000821 [7] http://www.displaymate.com/Display_Color_Gamuts_1.htm
~m
On Tue, Feb 06, 2018 at 11:17:14AM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
On 02/06/2018 09:51 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
There are also changes to make Fedora "warmer" that go against the Fedora visual identity. Starting with the cold and at times quasi-dystopian backgrounds, using "cold" colours (blue, black) instead of warmer ones (bright green and yellow, reds) seen as the defaults in most OSes.
Green is considered a cool color. [1]
Some things to consider:
[...snip...]
Some excellent data here on backgrounds and why they are how they are. Those are perhaps the one area where we do have some thematic identity, and I don't see how upending them gives Matthew what he's looking for.
On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 9:17 AM, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
- Green as a color for digital display is somewhat problematic as it is the
color with the poorest coverage in the sRGB color gamut, meaning across various displays it can appear very different, making it an inconsistent color for branding. (see [7], figure 4 for a diagram of the gamut)
There are different reasons why each color can fail to render as expected, but the number one reason is the lack of display compensation, i.e. transform original content from sRGB into custom RGB values based on the currently selected display profile. Second guessing how a color will render wrong in a world without display compensation, is folly. We're more sensitive to hue error in blue than red, and more sensitive to hue error in red than green - and even CIELUV underestimates the problem in particular in blue.
And more sensitive to hue error in achromatic color than chromatic color. So there's really all kinds of ways for color matching to fail and just avoiding greens isn't going to improve the chance of a color match.
To improve color matching, UI elements need to be assumed to be sRGB, and those RGB values converted on the fly to RGB values for the display in use. *shrug* Everything else is a crap shoot. Apple's been doing this for a long time. Windows can do it as an opt in. And while a fair chunk of infrastructure work is present for this to be possible on Linux, right now GNOME would have to do this itself on its own just like any other application does, because there isn't a standard API or compositor that an application can use to opt into display compensation more automatically, or for free.
On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
humans are
And ^ more sensitive to hue error in achromatic color than chromatic color. So there's really all kinds of ways for color matching to fail and just avoiding greens isn't going to improve the chance of a color match.
Hi Chris,
On 02/06/2018 06:09 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 9:17 AM, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
- Green as a color for digital display is somewhat problematic as it is the
color with the poorest coverage in the sRGB color gamut, meaning across various displays it can appear very different, making it an inconsistent color for branding. (see [7], figure 4 for a diagram of the gamut)
And more sensitive to hue error in achromatic color than chromatic color. So there's really all kinds of ways for color matching to fail and just avoiding greens isn't going to improve the chance of a color match.
LOL I was actually hoping you might jump in with a more informed background on the issue :)
I'm not saying green should be avoided entirely, but if it was the main color of a background.... I'm just not sure it works out the best. One of the Fedora "Four Fs" is a bright green and we've had some issues with it. (Maybe more with printing than display tho)
Maybe incorporating the "four f's" colors into one of the backgrounds could help make the background more colorful though. We've tried to stay pretty blue because the few times we tried to veer off we got a lot of negative feedback, although the latest background (jellyfish) has a blue-purple gradient and I've honestly not seen a bad thing written about it.
~m
On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Hi Chris,
On 02/06/2018 06:09 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 9:17 AM, Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
- Green as a color for digital display is somewhat problematic as it is
the color with the poorest coverage in the sRGB color gamut, meaning across various displays it can appear very different, making it an inconsistent color for branding. (see [7], figure 4 for a diagram of the gamut)
And more sensitive to hue error in achromatic color than chromatic
color. So there's really all kinds of ways for color matching to fail and just avoiding greens isn't going to improve the chance of a color match.
LOL I was actually hoping you might jump in with a more informed background on the issue :)
I'm not saying green should be avoided entirely, but if it was the main color of a background.... I'm just not sure it works out the best. One of the Fedora "Four Fs" is a bright green and we've had some issues with it. (Maybe more with printing than display tho)
It depends on the scene, there is such a thing as memory colors, like green grass. So even if we're nut fussy about accurate rendering of green in general, we can become fussy via object recognition, and finding green grass being a bit too blue or too yellow and finding that objectionable. The same problem happens with skin tones.
Maybe incorporating the "four f's" colors into one of the backgrounds could help make the background more colorful though. We've tried to stay pretty blue because the few times we tried to veer off we got a lot of negative feedback, although the latest background (jellyfish) has a blue-purple gradient and I've honestly not seen a bad thing written about it.
The biggest problem we're likely to face are images with smooth gradients. Laptop panels are shit, and you'll see more complaints about banding/posterization due to images that expose defects resulting from the low bitdepth of most laptop panels. This is easy to deal with, just add noise. If the scene is blue sky, pick the image with even a few wispy clouds to break up the gradient. Or even in this case maybe avoid blue sky images because the sky isn't really blue, it's more cyan and displays don't do a great job of reproducing that color, and it's also a memory color. If it tracks a bit blue or a bit yellow on some displays, people will abruptly become aware of it.
Likewise, neutral images will be a bugaboo because the gray balance of most consumer displays meanders throughout the tone curve. A neutral image will just expose panel deficiency, unless the image can depend on being duo or tri toned, which actually might be kind fun to play around with... or totally insane.
There's a whole area of psychophysics research on what constitutes emotionally neutral imagery. It's important to have various test images that don't evoke an emotional response when doing human testing in image quality evaluations because you don't want the person injecting unrelated bias into the results.
I suspect what's going on with the latest background is two fold: it's such an artificial blue-purple color that it in no way makes people try to compare it to a memory color, it's so chromatic it's already divorced from reality. This is actually a rendering sought after by Fuji Velvia film affectionados. It would render forest, garden, and underwater scenes in totally unnatural fairy tale chromatic color. There was not even the pretense about accurately reproducing the actual scene. The other reason is the jellyfish image probably is succeeding at being emotionally neutral. And it has some low frequency noise throughout that breaks up the gradient so any panel deficiency isn't noticeable.
Anyway I would think less about specific hues involved, and more about whether the objects in the scene have certain specific hue expectations in rendering. Making the rendering more dreamy or ethereal, while also emotionally neutral, will help you get away with a lot of things you have no control over.
----- Original Message -----
On 02/06/2018 09:51 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
There are also changes to make Fedora "warmer" that go against the Fedora visual identity. Starting with the cold and at times quasi-dystopian backgrounds, using "cold" colours (blue, black) instead of warmer ones (bright green and yellow, reds) seen as the defaults in most OSes.
Green is considered a cool color. [1]
Right.
Some things to consider:
<snip>
This is all fine, but I wasn't really saying we should replace our majority white, blue and black background with one that's essentially red, or green. And I certainly wouldn't use a solid red or blue background.
The crux of the problem here is that the default background image looks like it was an illustration out of a dystopian sci-fi novel, not so much whether it's a colour that'll be easily printable ;)
Note that I think the current default background is really nice, it's just not appropriate I don't think.
On 02/07/2018 09:07 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
Note that I think the current default background is really nice, it's just not appropriate I don't think.
I don't think critiquing Fedora's art direction is the right conversation to be having here. It's not the core issue.
The conversation that I think would be more productive and is more at the root of the conflict here is understanding how we balance the very important principle of 'upstream first' with the also very important principle of differentiation. I think the disagreement being expressed in this thread is at what level should the differentiation be taking place. Should the differentiation be taking place upstream at the GNOME level, or should it be taking place downstream at the distro level?
I think (please correct if wrong) the conflict here is between differentiation takes place at the GNOME level vs at the Fedora level. If you believe differentiation should take place at the GNOME level, then the patches / changes made to accommodate Fedora's branding requests feel like a tough compromise that in part undermines the GNOME design decisions. For those who believe differentiation should take place at the Fedora level, it feels that enough allowance is given for Fedora to express a visual identity in order to compete against other desktops *including other open source desktops that share the same upstream,* so there's a big concern about ability to compete there, to have a narrative to put out in the market to help convince desktop users to give Fedora a try.
Regardless of the level that the differentiation is placed at, our desktop is so crucial and serves as the backbone of all core platform development, whether or not that is recognized as widely and as fully as it should be. All of the cloud / container / new shiny to me seems to get all of the attention, but our desktop helps enable all of it. So it's really important that we figure this out in a way that doesn't compromise the GNOME design but also helps enable Fedora to compete and bring more developers and users to our ecosystem as well.
Critiquing Fedora's visual direction doesn't really get at that core problem. Whether Fedora is cold and desolate or hot and aggressive (or cool and calming, or warm and exciting) doesn't really change the top-level strategy here. I think that particular tug of war needs to be sorted first. And I think upstream-downstream conflicts are something we have a long history of solving, so I wonder if there are case studies / examples of solutions that could be applied here to help alleviate this ongoing issue?
Bottom line: I that you disagree with Fedora's art direction, but if it was perfectly to your taste, this problem would still be unresolved.
~m
----- Original Message -----
On 02/07/2018 09:07 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
Note that I think the current default background is really nice, it's just not appropriate I don't think.
I don't think critiquing Fedora's art direction is the right conversation to be having here. It's not the core issue.
It might not be, but we're talking about making Fedora "warmer" and about how the background stamp/watermark isn't the best solution to adding branding to the background. I think it's a conversation to have, even as it's relevant to the bigger picture.
The conversation that I think would be more productive and is more at the root of the conflict here is understanding how we balance the very important principle of 'upstream first' with the also very important principle of differentiation. I think the disagreement being expressed in this thread is at what level should the differentiation be taking place. Should the differentiation be taking place upstream at the GNOME level, or should it be taking place downstream at the distro level?
The dichotomy isn't that one, it's about what Fedora, or other distros, wants or needs to be able to implement that differentiation, and whether it's something that upstream thinks is a good idea, and therefore makes it easier for downstreams to differentiate.
For example, we went back and forth over the years as to whether the Details panel in the Settings should reflect the GNOME version and logo, or the distribution one. The WIP changes make it straight forward to brand that part of the system, and will mean less work for downstream to adapt to their needs.
<snip>
Bottom line: I that you disagree with Fedora's art direction, but if it was perfectly to your taste, this problem would still be unresolved.
I thought I made that clear. It's to my taste, just not as a default background that gives me warm feelings of belonging. Which is what we were discussing in the thread.
sorry for top post on mobile....
where did the warm feelings thing come from? did i miss some backstory / context?
~m
On Feb 7, 2018 at 11:16 AM, <Bastien Nocera> wrote:
----- Original Message ----- > > On 02/07/2018 09:07 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote: > > Note that I think the current default background is really nice, it's just > > not appropriate I don't think. > > > I don't think critiquing Fedora's art direction is the right conversation to > be having here. It's not the core issue. It might not be, but we're talking about making Fedora "warmer" and about how the background stamp/watermark isn't the best solution to adding branding to the background. I think it's a conversation to have, even as it's relevant to the bigger picture. > The conversation that I think would be more productive and is more at the > root of the conflict here is understanding how we balance the very important > principle of 'upstream first' with the also very important principle of > differentiation. I think the disagreement being expressed in this thread is > at what level should the differentiation be taking place. Should the > dif
ferentia tion be taking place upstream at the GNOME level, or should it be > taking place downstream at the distro level? The dichotomy isn't that one, it's about what Fedora, or other distros, wants or needs to be able to implement that differentiation, and whether it's something that upstream thinks is a good idea, and therefore makes it easier for downstreams to differentiate. For example, we went back and forth over the years as to whether the Details panel in the Settings should reflect the GNOME version and logo, or the distribution one. The WIP changes make it straight forward to brand that part of the system, and will mean less work for downstream to adapt to their needs. > Bottom line: I that you disagree with Fedora's art direction, but if it was > perfectly to your taste, this problem would still be unresolved. I thought I made that clear. It's to my taste, just not as a default background that gives me warm feelings of belonging. Which is what we were discussing in t he threa d.
On 02/07/2018 11:35 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
----- Original Message -----
where did the warm feelings thing come from? did i miss some backstory / context?
It's earlier in the thread, in a post from Matt.
The closest I see is:
"People see our logo and have positive, happy thoughts."
(Message ID 20180201143958.GA22406@mattdm.org)
I don't see that as any kind of overarching visual direction?
~m
----- Original Message -----
On 02/07/2018 11:35 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
----- Original Message -----
where did the warm feelings thing come from? did i miss some backstory / context?
It's earlier in the thread, in a post from Matt.
The closest I see is:
"People see our logo and have positive, happy thoughts."
(Message ID 20180201143958.GA22406@mattdm.org)
I don't see that as any kind of overarching visual direction?
Matt talking about the logo said it "reinforces people's sense of belonging, trust, connection, pride."
Both the quote you took out and this one make me think that a "warmer" experience was called for, though I probably took a few shortcuts in my head to get to that conclusion. Should have "shown my work" there.
On 02/07/2018 11:16 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
It might not be, but we're talking about making Fedora "warmer" and about how the background stamp/watermark isn't the best solution to adding branding to the background. I think it's a conversation to have, even as it's relevant to the bigger picture.
The latter concern (watermark) is certainly relevant to the bigger picture.
The dichotomy isn't that one, it's about what Fedora, or other distros, wants or needs to be able to implement that differentiation, and whether it's something that upstream thinks is a good idea, and therefore makes it easier for downstreams to differentiate.
This is of course a valid and specific reference point to frame the issue with. I think my frame - from the Fedora branding perspective - is a bit different though:
As stated earlier in the thread, I would rather Fedora's visual identity not be delineated with logos and labels and specific branding colors, rather the look and the feel of the system be associated with Fedora and be part of that identity. Similar to how you described Muji goods, or recognize a Dodge from its front grill design across models. Relying overly on labeling for visual identity is problematic.
We cannot just rely on the upstream visuals to do that because the competition also uses that same upstream.
Filling in slots with logos doesn't seem like the right thing, though, does it? Because the visuals are the same, with a different insignia on the slot. It's like a (gonna date myself) Geo Prizm vs a Toyota Corolla where it literally was the same car off the same factory line with a different insignia plopped on the front and on the steering wheel.
The entire notion of the desktop having a visual identity is rough too, particularly with the (quite agreeable) principle that the user's work should be the focus and the desktop should fade into the background to support that work.
I think, probably, the most important differentiation should come in the integration the desktop has with the underlying system, the out of the box experience. Probably, a great way to start tackling that could be looking at the boot up experience - I think all sides agree it's a bit awkward / flickery / non-ideal for a good impression, right?
I am completely in favor of having an understated brand presence on the desktop itself if we can work together on something like this?
For example, we went back and forth over the years as to whether the Details panel in the Settings should reflect the GNOME version and logo, or the distribution one. The WIP changes make it straight forward to brand that part of the system, and will mean less work for downstream to adapt to their needs.
I thought I made that clear. It's to my taste, just not as a default background that gives me warm feelings of belonging. Which is what we were discussing in the thread.
For clarification: You did make it clear that you were ok with the most recent wallpaper artwork but felt it was inappropriate, which is why I referred to "art direction," not art.
"Warm feelings" and "belonging" isn't a goal that has been shared with the Fedora design team or mentioned previous to this thread TMK, so it doesn't make sense to expect those to be reflected in the current art direction. We traditionally have taken a 'sci-fi' approach, thinking about the boundary between machines and nature and have played with that in the designs as of late.
Perhaps, in terms of the four f's, that approach is too focused on 'features' and 'first' and we should look at incorporating the 'friends' piece of the four f's too. I will take this back to the team and maybe we can make some changes to the F28 work to reflect that.
In either case, again, doesn't solve the larger problem. :(
~m
----- Original Message -----
On 02/07/2018 11:16 AM, Bastien Nocera wrote:
It might not be, but we're talking about making Fedora "warmer" and about how the background stamp/watermark isn't the best solution to adding branding to the background. I think it's a conversation to have, even as it's relevant to the bigger picture.
The latter concern (watermark) is certainly relevant to the bigger picture.
The dichotomy isn't that one, it's about what Fedora, or other distros, wants or needs to be able to implement that differentiation, and whether it's something that upstream thinks is a good idea, and therefore makes it easier for downstreams to differentiate.
This is of course a valid and specific reference point to frame the issue with. I think my frame - from the Fedora branding perspective - is a bit different though:
As stated earlier in the thread, I would rather Fedora's visual identity not be delineated with logos and labels and specific branding colors, rather the look and the feel of the system be associated with Fedora and be part of that identity. Similar to how you described Muji goods, or recognize a Dodge from its front grill design across models. Relying overly on labeling for visual identity is problematic.
We cannot just rely on the upstream visuals to do that because the competition also uses that same upstream.
But if the front grill is the differentiator, upstream can provide a way to easily swap out this front grill, no?
Say you'd want to change the default grain texture in the lock screens, to something different (maybe better, maybe more recognisable), making that easy to do could be done upstream.
Filling in slots with logos doesn't seem like the right thing, though, does it? Because the visuals are the same, with a different insignia on the slot. It's like a (gonna date myself) Geo Prizm vs a Toyota Corolla where it literally was the same car off the same factory line with a different insignia plopped on the front and on the steering wheel.
Completely agreed.
The entire notion of the desktop having a visual identity is rough too, particularly with the (quite agreeable) principle that the user's work should be the focus and the desktop should fade into the background to support that work.
I think, probably, the most important differentiation should come in the integration the desktop has with the underlying system, the out of the box experience. Probably, a great way to start tackling that could be looking at the boot up experience - I think all sides agree it's a bit awkward / flickery / non-ideal for a good impression, right?
I am completely in favor of having an understated brand presence on the desktop itself if we can work together on something like this?
That's out of my scope (technically), but yes, a better and more polished out-of-the-box experience (boot-up or otherwise) is definitely something we need to work on. However Matt mentioned that this ("awesome functionality", which I equate to "technical excellence", or "attention to details") wasn't enough of a differentiator.
For example, we went back and forth over the years as to whether the Details panel in the Settings should reflect the GNOME version and logo, or the distribution one. The WIP changes make it straight forward to brand that part of the system, and will mean less work for downstream to adapt to their needs.
I thought I made that clear. It's to my taste, just not as a default background that gives me warm feelings of belonging. Which is what we were discussing in the thread.
For clarification: You did make it clear that you were ok with the most recent wallpaper artwork but felt it was inappropriate, which is why I referred to "art direction," not art.
"Warm feelings" and "belonging" isn't a goal that has been shared with the Fedora design team or mentioned previous to this thread TMK, so it doesn't make sense to expect those to be reflected in the current art direction. We traditionally have taken a 'sci-fi' approach, thinking about the boundary between machines and nature and have played with that in the designs as of late.
I totally understand. You can't have known about those goals before they were even set. I'm glad that you're going to be the first ones to be able to take action on something mentioned in this thread, because the actionable items are few and far between so far.
Perhaps, in terms of the four f's, that approach is too focused on 'features' and 'first' and we should look at incorporating the 'friends' piece of the four f's too. I will take this back to the team and maybe we can make some changes to the F28 work to reflect that.
In either case, again, doesn't solve the larger problem. :(
If we figure out _what_ we need to change to achieve our goals, then we can have a conversation about whether changes need to happen upstream or downstream. But we're still at the point when we set down goals. Hopefully the Fedora design team can translate some of those discussions into more concrete ideas which we can discuss upstream and downstream.
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 06:50:41AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
This says to me "no GNOME designer is invested in Fedora success". (Additionally, the sole entry under "Related Links" on that page loudly signals that engagement is unlikely to be productive.) That's fine. It's not their job. That's why I bring this up here, rather than focusing on the upstream page.
Matthew, this sort of statements are outright insulting and toxic. It says to me "I know best, and everybody else is either wrong or an enemy".
I am sure you didn't intend it to be this way, but statements worded like this do create an environment of hostility that makes people want to never have to work with you.
Is your objective here to outright insult and alienate people? Or is your objective to find a way to move Fedora forward?
Debarshi Ray wrote:
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 06:50:41AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
This says to me "no GNOME designer is invested in Fedora success". (Additionally, the sole entry under "Related Links" on that page loudly signals that engagement is unlikely to be productive.) That's fine. It's not their job. That's why I bring this up here, rather than focusing on the upstream page.
Matthew, this sort of statements are outright insulting and toxic. It says to me "I know best, and everybody else is either wrong or an enemy".
I am sure you didn't intend it to be this way, but statements worded like this do create an environment of hostility that makes people want to never have to work with you.
I think it's best to assume good intentions here.
-- Rex
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 06:40:46PM -0600, Rex Dieter wrote:
Debarshi Ray wrote:
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 06:50:41AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
This says to me "no GNOME designer is invested in Fedora success". (Additionally, the sole entry under "Related Links" on that page loudly signals that engagement is unlikely to be productive.) That's fine. It's not their job. That's why I bring this up here, rather than focusing on the upstream page.
Matthew, this sort of statements are outright insulting and toxic. It says to me "I know best, and everybody else is either wrong or an enemy".
I am sure you didn't intend it to be this way, but statements worded like this do create an environment of hostility that makes people want to never have to work with you.
I think it's best to assume good intentions here.
It's hard to assume good intentions because (all?) those "GNOME designers" are also Fedora contributors.
Hi everyone, apologies for not chiming in on this thread sooner.
I don't particularly see the need for a disagreement about high-level principles here - I think we can probably all agree that:
a. Promoting awareness of Fedora [1] is a good thing b. Branding isn’t about simply slapping a logo on something - the first job is to create a fantastic product. c. Brand visuals should be applied with sensitivity - they shouldn’t be used too much, in the wrong contexts, or in ways that undermines the product they’re applied to.
From my perspective, the challenge with regards to Fedora's product identity is not so much the goals and principles, but how to achieve them. There are technical and design constraints which limit what can be done, including the fact that large parts of the user experience are defined within the context of an upstream project [2].
With that said, some comments on the branding options that have been put forward in this thread:
- Adding a logo to the top bar - in my view this just doesn't fit within the GNOME 3 top bar design, and a redesign of significant parts of the shell would be required to include a logo in a meaningful and coherent manner.
- Boot loading and OS update installation screens - I would absolutely love to update the current theme to something more modern. While I’m fond of the existing designs for a simple spinner, I’m sure that we can work out a design that is consistent with the GNOME 3 look and feel and still promotes downstream brand awareness. My understanding is that there’s going to be some technical work happening in this area soon, so we have a good opportunity to take this forward.
- Theme colours - this isn't going to be enough to clearly differentiate Fedora or on its own, but it could perhaps help to reinforce a sense of Fedora-ness. I’m not sure how it would work in terms of a) maintenance b) coherence with other UI colours c) custom application theming - so from my perspective it would require some research and discussion.
Of course, there might be other options worth pursuing [3]. We're currently working on new designs for login/unlock and I can certainly commit to investigate branding opportunities as a part of that. If there are any other ideas out there, I’d be happy to look into those.
One thing that would help from my perspective would be some indication of what kind of logo treatments might be acceptable. I'm particularly interested in flat logos and stencil treatments, as these make it easier to subtly apply a brand mark.
Thanks,
Allan
----- Original Message ----- <snip>
- Theme colours - this isn't going to be enough to clearly
differentiate Fedora or on its own, but it could perhaps help to reinforce a sense of Fedora-ness. I’m not sure how it would work in terms of a) maintenance b) coherence with other UI colours c) custom application theming - so from my perspective it would require some research and discussion.
This was an oft-requested customisation: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=654864
The problem was that this was hard to implement in the GTK+ 2.x days and is probably still difficult to implement without a framework to do so.
This has been possible in macOS X since the first version: http://osxdaily.com/2015/01/07/change-highlight-color-mac-os-x/
Of course, there might be other options worth pursuing [3].
The "Default Hostname" section used to read: "Visible on the local network, shell prompts, remote logins"
This was meant as a fallback, for example when the user emptied the "Computer name" in the sharing panel, or no user accounts were created yet. This could also be applied as a default name to kiosks (with only guests accounts) or Live CD/USB. For reference, the old names were "localhost" for the last 2 items, and "linux" for Avahi advertised services.
I completely agree that this shouldn't be seen on most systems.
The "Online Accounts Settings panel" (which read "Identifying as GNOME or Distribution to the service provider") and the "Browser homepage" sections were removed.
The former is quite common for distributions that want to 1) be identified by the service provider and 2) avoid running against usage limits that are applied to all of GNOME. Here's a list of API keys maintained upstream which I believe should all be overridable by vendors: https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/OnlineServicesAPIKeys
The latter would be in the same category as browser bookmarks. A first run of Firefox on Fedora was quite intrusive (last I remember!), opening multiple pages, some of which would not make sense to end users.
Thanks for putting this into shape.
Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote: ...
- Theme colours - this isn't going to be enough to clearly
differentiate Fedora or on its own, but it could perhaps help to reinforce a sense of Fedora-ness. I’m not sure how it would work in terms of a) maintenance b) coherence with other UI colours c) custom application theming - so from my perspective it would require some research and discussion.
This was an oft-requested customisation: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=654864
We've also considered allowing applications to set the colour, or deriving it from their icon, in order to differentiate the windows of different applications.
...
Of course, there might be other options worth pursuing [3].
The "Default Hostname" section used to read: "Visible on the local network, shell prompts, remote logins"
...
The "Online Accounts Settings panel" (which read "Identifying as GNOME or Distribution to the service provider") and the "Browser homepage" sections were removed.
...
Apologies for losing those - I've added them to the list.
Allan
On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 01:44:20PM +0000, Allan Day wrote:
I don't particularly see the need for a disagreement about high-level principles here - I think we can probably all agree that: a. Promoting awareness of Fedora [1] is a good thing b. Branding isn’t about simply slapping a logo on something - the first job is to create a fantastic product. c. Brand visuals should be applied with sensitivity - they shouldn’t be used too much, in the wrong contexts, or in ways that undermines the product they’re applied to.
Thanks Allan. Yes, agreed on all counts.
One thing that would help from my perspective would be some indication of what kind of logo treatments might be acceptable. I'm particularly interested in flat logos and stencil treatments, as these make it easier to subtly apply a brand mark.
Here's the current guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines
They've had some updates but no significant refresh since 2011 or so. I'm sure we could work with Design to come up with what's needed.
Hi Allan,
On 02/19/2018 08:44 AM, Allan Day wrote:
[1] While this thread is about Fedora branding, the same arguments apply to RHEL and CentOS. You can assume that I’m talking about all three. [2] This apparent weakness could be turned into a strength, of course. If Fedora/RHEL/CentOS were to become the defacto GNOME distributions, when someone seeing GNOME 3 would assume that it's a Red Hat product. This seems like an excellent goal!
This last point, #2, is the thing I can't wrap my head around - all it takes is for one non-Red Hat distribution to ship vanilla GNOME 3 and this kind of falls apart, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?
~m
Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote: ...
[2] This apparent weakness could be turned into a strength, of course. If Fedora/RHEL/CentOS were to become the defacto GNOME distributions, when someone seeing GNOME 3 would assume that it's a Red Hat product. This seems like an excellent goal!
...
This last point, #2, is the thing I can't wrap my head around - all it takes is for one non-Red Hat distribution to ship vanilla GNOME 3 and this kind of falls apart, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?
I'm not sure how significant that point is, to be honest. It was more about perceptions than reality - the idea was that, if Red Hat distros are by far the best known GNOME 3 distributions, people will assume they are looking at a Red Hat distro when they see GNOME 3, even if that's not what it is.
Allan
On 02/20/2018 09:39 AM, Allan Day wrote:
Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote: ...
[2] This apparent weakness could be turned into a strength, of course. If Fedora/RHEL/CentOS were to become the defacto GNOME distributions, when someone seeing GNOME 3 would assume that it's a Red Hat product. This seems like an excellent goal!
...
This last point, #2, is the thing I can't wrap my head around - all it takes is for one non-Red Hat distribution to ship vanilla GNOME 3 and this kind of falls apart, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?
I'm not sure how significant that point is, to be honest. It was more about perceptions than reality - the idea was that, if Red Hat distros are by far the best known GNOME 3 distributions, people will assume they are looking at a Red Hat distro when they see GNOME 3, even if that's not what it is.
We don't have design patents on it, though, and I don't think we would want them. So even if that's the perception, it puts us in a vulnerable place. I think that's why trademarks are used to signify authenticity, no?
~m
On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 02:39:26PM +0000, Allan Day wrote:
Máirín Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote: ...
[2] This apparent weakness could be turned into a strength, of course. If Fedora/RHEL/CentOS were to become the defacto GNOME distributions, when someone seeing GNOME 3 would assume that it's a Red Hat product. This seems like an excellent goal!
...
This last point, #2, is the thing I can't wrap my head around - all it takes is for one non-Red Hat distribution to ship vanilla GNOME 3 and this kind of falls apart, doesn't it? Or am I missing something?
I'm not sure how significant that point is, to be honest. It was more about perceptions than reality - the idea was that, if Red Hat distros are by far the best known GNOME 3 distributions, people will assume they are looking at a Red Hat distro when they see GNOME 3, even if that's not what it is.
and if something glitches and doesn't work, people will also assume that the broken distro is a Red Hat one. This is dangerous ground here, because if you're working on the assumption that your distro is the best, leaning on others to do that brand recognition means that everyone else who looks like you will make you look *worse*. because by definition, you're the best.
Cheers, Peter
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 11:03:13PM +0000, Debarshi Ray wrote:
On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 06:50:41AM -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
This says to me "no GNOME designer is invested in Fedora success". (Additionally, the sole entry under "Related Links" on that page loudly signals that engagement is unlikely to be productive.) That's fine. It's not their job. That's why I bring this up here, rather than focusing on the upstream page.
Matthew, this sort of statements are outright insulting and toxic. It says to me "I know best, and everybody else is either wrong or an enemy".
I didn't say or even imply that anyone is an enemy. I don't mean it to be "toxic". I don't really know how to phrase it differently. This is important to Fedora. I have been saying so for years. In the part you have snipped that I was responding to, it's said that GNOME designers are not interested in helping us. I'm not sure of another way to read that. If upstream designers don't want to "touch" what Fedora needs, we will need to figure it out here instead.
That wasn't intended to be hostile. If you have a different way to get past this, please let me know.
On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 2:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
I was reading Fedora Magazine today and there was a really interesting article up about setting the theme for plymouth[1].
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like "Spinfinity"?
I changed to this on my laptop as a result of the same article. I like Spinfinity better, I think it better reflects that I'm running Fedora. In some sense it's not even comparable to Charge which doesn't even use the word Fedora, rather only very briefly at the tail end does the Fedora logo appear. Changing to Spinfinity seems like a really minimal effort and uncontroversial change to get a lot of bang in branding.
One odd "problem" though is that getting this theme seems rather non-deterministic. Sometimes it appears. Sometimes it doesn't. I have no idea why. I know it's baked into the initramfs, but I'm always picking the same boot entry in GRUB with the same boot params. I'm gonna guess it's some kind of race, due in part to boot times being so short on this laptop, plymouth starts at 1.4s into boot.
Do we have a single page anywhere that discusses the boot/restart/updates experience listing what Fedora wants and what any issues are?
While Grub/Plymouth and the Gnome login screen can be themed with similar designs to show seemless transitions, using a black/no background in grub and plymouth also does this.
The boot process needs to be fast, but as the same process is used for updates, it does not necessarily mean that it will be fast.
With the current plymouth theme, the issues I see are as follows:
1. For a majority of the sequence, the Fedora logo is not present. There is an outline that is filling in. Whichever side of the branding wars you stand on this is sub optimal 2. The changes in animation are jarring. It is not smooth. 3. When there is no change in the animation there is no feedback that something is happening. 4. A filling logo does not really give adequate feedback on the boot process as it may stop for a longer period at some point (not sure if this one still happens).
Without going into a branding war, the simple issues can probably be addressed by creating a new plymouth plugin - with a dark background and with an element that animates without breaks or suggestion of "how long" it is left for the boot process to complete.
On 1 February 2018 at 18:47, Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 2:00 PM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
I was reading Fedora Magazine today and there was a really interesting article up about setting the theme for plymouth[1].
It led me to wonder: why is "Charge" the default theme for Fedora Workstation instead of something with stronger branding like
"Spinfinity"?
I changed to this on my laptop as a result of the same article. I like Spinfinity better, I think it better reflects that I'm running Fedora. In some sense it's not even comparable to Charge which doesn't even use the word Fedora, rather only very briefly at the tail end does the Fedora logo appear. Changing to Spinfinity seems like a really minimal effort and uncontroversial change to get a lot of bang in branding.
One odd "problem" though is that getting this theme seems rather non-deterministic. Sometimes it appears. Sometimes it doesn't. I have no idea why. I know it's baked into the initramfs, but I'm always picking the same boot entry in GRUB with the same boot params. I'm gonna guess it's some kind of race, due in part to boot times being so short on this laptop, plymouth starts at 1.4s into boot.
-- Chris Murphy _______________________________________________ desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Allan Day -
Andreas Nilsson -
Bastien Nocera -
Chris Murphy -
Christian Fredrik Schaller -
Debarshi Ray -
John Dulaney -
Luya Tshimbalanga -
Mathieu Bridon -
Matthew Miller -
Matthias Clasen -
mcatanzaro＠gnome.org -
Máirín Duffy -
Naheem Zaffar -
Paul W. Frields -
Peter Hutterer -
Peter Robinson -
Rex Dieter -
Stephen Gallagher