Re: REMINDER: GEP-2 discussion end date

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

On Sat, 2002-09-28 at 07:53, Bastien Nocera wrote:
> On Fri, 2002-09-27 at 19:37, Seth Nickell wrote:
> > On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 14:38, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > > 
> > > <bordoley msu edu> writes:
> > > > 
> > > > I'm not sure if this has been discussed in this thread or not, but I think
> > > > this issue may be a rare case where accessibility requirements contradict with
> > > > general usability. I for one do not want to see a melding of all "appearance"
> > > > related capplets (ie. font, theme, background etc.). However for users with
> > > > accessibility concerns having all the "look and feel" options in one
> > > > convenient place is probably a requirement. So I'm wondering if a compromise
> > > > can be met. What I'm thinking is that we keep the current capplets but add an
> > > > additional appearance capplet to the accessibility preferences menus which
> > > > provides all of these options in a way that meets the requirements of users
> > > > for whom accessibility is an issue. Thoughts?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Well, I still have some hope we could have a nice simple metatheme
> > > feature like Windows XP does...
> > 
> > WinXPs metatheme feature is way more complicated than it would need to
> > be if it were just a THEME feature rather than a "capplet that changes
> > preferences that live elsewhere" (aka "metatheme") feature. I still see
> > no reason other than accesibility to make the theme capplet control any
> > settings except appearance of buttons, icons, borders, etc. To provide
> > more expression to theme authors we can even add buttons that allow
> > users to explicitly select non-theme elements that the theme author
> > suggests are complimentary (such as backgrounds).
> > 
> > See:
> > 
> > http://www.gnome.org/~seth/theme-set-editor.png
> > http://www.gnome.org/~seth/theme-set-selector.png
> 
> Getting there, but in the editor, I would have made a table with
> tickboxes for the theme parts, and shown the drop-downs depending on the
> line selected. And in the Selector, have a list of tickboxes for the
> parts of the theme that should be applied.
> 
> That could also solve the problem below:
> Apply suggested parts:
> [ ] Font size and colour
> [X] Background
> [X] Font
> [X] Window borders

No! This is getting back to the metatheme idea. Which is why that whole
interface is much simpler and (IMO of course) better. I want to AVOID
showing that themes are anything but a simple little appearance setting.
That whole interface was designed to avoid having a "parts" to themes or
a "apply these parts" selection. The buttons are *actions* not settings,
which puts a different spin on the conceptual model.

-Seth