Re: [Lxde-list] Status Report

[PCMan <pcm...@gm...>]

Thanks for the mail and patches.

On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 3:23 AM, Shae Smittle <sta...@gm...> wrote:
> I felt like it had been some time since I have checked in about what I am
> working on.
>
> One of the first things I worked on was a new theme which I hope you would
> consider using as default.  More information about that theme is on the
> Forum, but I would hope for people to try it out and I think the perfect
> time to make such a change would be with the changes to the common files
> when we adopt pcmanfm2 as the default file manager.  Both events will
> require some changes to settings files which could cause problems for people
> who are simply upgrading versions.  (Unfortunately, the forum seems down for
> me?)
The artwork thing is quite subjective so no single man can decide
which one is better for the whole community.
Before we replace the default theme with another one, I hope there can
be a popularity contest or something similar on the forum.

> The first patch that I started working on was something to fix the odd icon
> sizes in LXPanel.  I am not sure what the intended behavior on the part of
> the developers are, but to me as a user they seem like a mess.  First off,
> the icon size of 24px demands a panel size of 26px, but even then the
> buttons are cut off of the bottom, at least in Clearlooks and Murrine
> Themes.  The only redeeming trait of the current situation is that the icons
> look ok if set to 24px with a 26px panel with the buttons set to look flat.
That part is totally in a mess due to historical reasons. The
rationale behind this issue is:
1. In the past, those icon cannot be resized, and this makes things
ugly when the panel size is changed. That's not an issue before
because the panel size cannot be changed on the fly.
2. Later, when user preferences dialog gets improved, it's possible to
change the panel size on the fly, so apparently icon sizes should be
updated along with panel size. So I tried to resize the icons
according to the height of panels.
3. Then, Marty Jack joined us, and try to implement grid layout. So
now we can have multiple rows of icons. Then a fixed icon size is
preferred again. That's why there is a config value for icon size now.

So, for historical reasons, that part became a little bit scary.
Rather than patches, I think we need to rethink the design and do a
rewrite for that part after a consensus of how should it work is made.
That's why I haven't check in your patch. Another reason is, the
deadline for Lubuntu release is approaching and I need to finish this
one in time so I'm focusing on it recenlty. Otherwise Lubuntu users
will get a broken file manager. After the file manager is released,
I'll come back and work on other parts.

> To me, the icon size should equal the panel size and the icons in the
> buttons should be sized down to fit.  My current patch does this:
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2968307&group_id=180858&atid=894871.
> Unfortunately, this would also affect people who use flat buttons because
> even if the button's border is set not to appear, GTK still wants that space
> for the button so the icons on flat buttons cannot be full size.  Before I
> mess with changing the patch around to accommodate for the large number of
> configurations, I wanted to ask what should the icon behavior be?  I believe
> PCMan will need to weigh in because he seems to be the source of the current
> solution.
I think some discussion and redesign is needed. I even want a rewrite
for other parts of the panel.

> Finally, before I begin to tackle some of the other extra programs like
> lxappearance and lxtask, I would like to give splitting gnome-screenshot
> into its own separate program a try to allow us to develop our own simple
> screenshot tool.  Such a method might allow us to avoid much of the new
> translation that would be needed and should work fine while providing a
> basic tool most DEs have.  This is of course inspired by a recent post to
> the mailing list and my own use.
Yes you're right we need a screenshot tool! A simple and clean one
written in C or vala.
If you're willing to do this part that will be great!

> Shae Smittle
>
>
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