Re: why are there no themes for galeon? and is galeon 1.3 cooler than 1.2, let's vote

> Themes for any application are regarded by almost everyone as a bad
> thing.  This whole skin fad that winamp started really is getting old.
> In the end, having a good-looking design across the whole system is
> much, much better.  

Nonsense.  Well, maybe, but it's not going to happen (nor should it)
in Unix.  Here's why:

Please write me a theme manager for the applications I use the most
often:

Galeon
ical (Sanjay Ghemawat's one)
Emacs
Kicker
Matlab
Mutt
Xbuffy
xterm
xpdf (the KDNome pdf viewers just ain't there yet)
xmms
Gazebo
ls (well, sort of just kidding, but only sort of)

> data, for example, does not require a wizard or even a menu entry.
> There's a simple drop-down box.  These are the kinds of things that
> really make an impression in the visual appeal department.

Depends whether you are catering to the "Windows is way too hard for
me to use" set or the "I have a brain and I want a computer that works
the way I tell it to" set.  GnoDE developers seem to think that the
second group is not worth the time of day; I'm not convinced :)

> simple is often better.  Indeed it is the unix philosophy: lots of small
> simple apps that can work together.

YES!!!  An app should do one thing and do it well, but "do it well"
and "make it simple" aren't always the same thing.  There are some
programs that should not be broken into smaller bits, but that are
complicated.  Which options would you remove from sendmail to make it
simpler?  Or gcc?

> The look and feel should also be consistant and uniform across all
> applications.  Having individually themed apps breaks this.

As does letting a bunch of individuals develop apps with a wide range
of assumptions about what the target audience is and what toolkits
are available.  Thanks, but there's no way in hell I'll run the Gnome
mail program, the Gnome calendar, the Gnome panel, the Gnome ..., and
port every app I want to run to use the Gnome toolkit.  There are just
too many apps that I want to run that don't look like Gnome.

> Even Macintosh is moving to a much more unified look and feel.  Expect
> in Tiger that brushed metal will be used a lot less.

This is one advantage to a one-vendor solution.  It's a trade-off, but
I think it's inappropriate to fantasise about making Linux a one-
vendor solution.

> This is as it should be.  We've finally succeeded in getting some
> uniformity.

Any computer that is used for anything other than tweaking its look
and feel is going to run non-Gnome apps.  I haven't yet decided where
I fall on the "7 of the 44 apps you run should look the same"
vs. "each app for herself" spectrum.  A developer is welcome to say "I
developed the app this way because this is where I fall along that
line", but to say where all users should fall on that spectrum is a
little, um, arrogant?  With all respect...

-- 
Ben Pearre          http://hebb.mit.edu/~ben       PGP: CFDA6CDA
Don't let Bush read your email!             http://www.gnupg.org


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