Re: Now that I have lavished some praise...

On Apr 21, 2004, at 7:30 AM, [email protected] wrote:
> Couple of things that I am just now noticing/would like to see in Fire.
>
> I admit to having just looked at Adium for the first time and some of 
> what I am suggesting is as a direct result of playing with that 
> application.
>
> I may be missing something but I have noticed that the triangle in the 
> buddies window which allows collapsing and expansion of groups does 
> not have a modifiable color. I have changed my window background to 
> 30% transparent and black with white text and the triangles have 
> stayed black so they cannot currently be seen. Perhaps they should 
> follow the "Available" text color which can be set in the preferences?

We should probably add a color setting specifically for this... but I'm 
not sure exactly what we need to do to override that graphic.

> When you've got the "Use Metal chat and buddies windows" checked it 
> does not apply to the preferences window. While I realize this 
> behavior is implied in the option, shouldn't it be a global setting? 
> Are theme-able windows (Aqua, Brushed Metal, etc) on the horizon?

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just flipping a bit to make the 
window metal. If you look closely at the metal vs. nonmetal versions of 
the chat and buddy windows, you'll notice that we adjusted the position 
so that each looks correct... the resize widget in particular can be a 
problem between the two.

I don't see much benefit to making other windows metal given the need 
to do separate nibs.

> Is there a way to save your own themes? Can one export them?

This is why we created Firebrand. It's a theme editor for Fire.

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/fire/Firebrand0.6.dmg?download

Themes are just bundles with images, sounds, and a plist inside. We 
have an area on our forums for theme postings:

http://fire.sourceforge.net/forums/index.php

> I am very much enamored with the option within Adium to have a 
> border-less window.
>
> I also very much like Adium's text backgrounding/outlining options for 
> the buddies window.
>
> Adium's event bezel -and all of the options you have when using it- is 
> pretty damn sexy. I'd like it better if it were resizable and the text 
> preferences were configureable...but that may be determined by the OS 
> and thus unconfigurable...thoughts?
>
> I think that Themes control should all be aggregated better. What I 
> mean by that is that maybe all of the themes choosing is done in one 
> place. Making the "Themes" section of preferences into "Appearance" 
> and then all of the subsections are still there but no theme choosing 
> can be done anywhere other than Appearance->themes and that pane has 
> sections for colors, icons, smiley, sounds. So I can choose a theme 
> under Appearance->Themes->Colors or I can modify Appearance->Colors to 
> suit my needs but there is no longer any such thing as 
> Appearance->Colors->Themes. Make sense? Worthwhile? Thoughts?
>
> Thanks again.

I appreciate the feedback... I suggest you file a feature request 
through sourceforge on the UI customizability stuff (please be as 
specific as you can with a screenshot or example of what you are 
talking about).

As to the Themes pref... the current pref layout was the result of 
quite a bit of rethinking about how our prefs work. One of the things I 
wanted to avoid was making the prefs too complicated. As it is, some of 
the theme related prefs have tabs with different options, so if we 
merged them all, we would have two levels of tabs... something I wanted 
to avoid if at all possible. I believe the current layout makes much 
more sense than before, and I'm less likely to think of the wrong pref 
pane when trying to remember where a particular option is.

I think having less complicated pref panes with more well defined 
content makes things easier in the long run.

-Jason



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