2011/11/17 Steven Sroka <sroka.steven@gmail.com>:
On 17 November 2011 09:01, Richard Brown <rdb@ccb.ac.uk> wrote: Stuff I'd like to see us think about
1 - Sonar theme in there and possibly as default - as great as -shell looks normally I like the idea of openSUSE being different from the pack.
I don't hold much weight here but here is my 2 cents:
Same.
I don't like Sonar myself, but I can tell others do. There is a sizeable amount of people who like Sonar and who don't like Sonar. Because the default theme is one of the distinguishing features of a distro and I believe not enough thought is put into it (I could be wrong) we should have an official vote on whether we keep Sonar as the default theme or change it.
Most of us have different tastes, I would point to something that probably is more common to most of us... I would put it this way: "Would our users like more themes they could from on install/post-install ?" Most people would probably agree with this kind of approach. This doesn't solve the 'default theme' issue, but it does a lot of damage control towards those who might not like the default option, whatever it might be.
I'd like to propose two things 1. A 5 question (read "very short") questionnaire thats asks users what they want in a default theme
I can't say I agree.
2. A poll that gives the user approximately 3 to 5 themes to choose from.
Can you ensure that those 5 themes will be maintained in the future? Have you considered that: Earlier devel snapshot themes didn't worked with 2.91.x versions, 2.91.x were many times glitched with final version and 3.0 isn't really compatible theme wise with 3.2 ? You are picking the road of pain. Unless you can't assure those themes will be maintained, such option shouldn't even be considered.
My Plan: - Ask users (including developers and all stakeholders in openSUSE Gnome) what they would like in a theme. For example:
I'm doing comments on this, but experience will tell you the answer.
1. Do we need a theme change?
Strategy issue, not public pool.
2. If so, should the theme be the same as upstreams?
Strategy issue, not public pool.
3. If not, should it be similar or should it be completely different?
Strategy issue, not public pool.
4. Should the new theme be a light theme or dark theme?
Personal preference, irrelevant.
5. <insert useful question here>
No need, this should be a meritocracy and not a democracy. Political systems are like filesystems, they should be re-written from tiem to time (as Reiser the psycho advocated).
- Leave the short questionnaire open for a significant amount of time (2-3 weeks), so that _everyone_ has the ability to vote (even if they are on vacation) - Find some themes based on what our users want! For example if the majority of users answer like this: 1. No new theme. 2. N/A 3. N/A 4. N/A
You can't take really useful stuff from there. I would know this, I have a degree on Marketing Management. You will create a lot of expectation, if it doesn't work, it will backfire.
Our work is done - we keep Sonar as default :)
We can ensure it will be maintained, in fact it was tailor made for us.
OR
-> Yes, a new theme please. -> Not the same as upstreams. -> Completely different theme. -> Dark theme
Can you ensure it will be maintained ? If you can, go ahead... I would love to see a community-themes package with 4 or 5 options for different tastes. We would deploy more value with that than with the 'default theme' change.
Now we take the results and find the 5 best, completely new, and dark (green) themes that I can find based on those results and create a poll asking which should be the default.
Like Sirko used to say... don't tell us what to do, just do it and show us the results. If you will need others to do something for you, I doubt it will work. Most of us will probably tell you the same.
I believe that this is fair, open, and brings attention to our distro. If we ask, we will receive.
Well, change the default desktop from KDE to GNOME and we will have far more attention... Our umbrella branding sucks, but considering the brilliant strategy proposal we have, I would say that the goal isn't really to help the growth of openSUSE but keeping people around illuded with a dream that will never happen. Last elections people were commited to forming a foundation... 1 year later what did people do? Wasn't Alan Clark the one who was placed on the Board by Novell to make it happen ? Well you can see what he and the slayers of Sirko achieved... Nothing!. Things are pretty much the same. So please, I don't think people want to change... people want to hold on to their private hidden agendas and illude the others.
Note: this is a perfect time to look at the theme. We can't change it anytime we want because we need to be consistent. Therefore, a serious vote by the community is highly needed (which is why I stress the questionnaire should be short, so users enjoy voting).
If you can make it happen, go for it...But after one year read the log of this email and let me know if it was worth it :)
</end rant>
2 - Extensions - as happy as I am with alt-status-menu installed by default, it does feel like a dirty little cludge and extensions.gnome.org changes the field of play. Points I want us to consider for 12.2 - How should we package extensions in the future? how can we encourage people to use extensions.o.o? can we still install extensions globally and set them by default? If a packaged and default extension like alt-status-menu doesn't make sense in this new world, how do we educate about the Alt key - do we need a first run splash like KDE?
3. Options - the never ending GNOME push for simplification isn't totally bad but I find myself annoyed at some options I feel are 'missing' in 3.2 - for example no longer being able to change what my power button does without hacking into dconf-editor. As a distro that generally caters for a more technical user is this wholly bad, or can we find a way to re-expose a number of these settings? is adding them to advanced settings/Tweak tool the way to go? Can we get tweak tool integrated into System Settings?
4. Online integration - what's the point of having twitter there when nothing uses the setting? Is there a way we can expose epiphany's awesome Web application feature without needing the user to run epiphany? Could we use it to create pre-defined shortcuts that could bring users to the various web applications of openSUSE (Forums, Paste, Software search, etc?)
4.5 - If we can point people to http://software.o.o for epiphany, do we need something like the Software Center, couldn't we just sex-up software.o.o? (and in the process make something better for all openSUSE users, not just GNOMErs)
I think I've got a few other things bubbling away that I'd like us to think about but those are the top 4 that spring to mind..
Richard Brown Systems Engineering Team Leader City College Brighton and Hove
Vincent Untz 11/17/11 1:16 PM >>> Hi all,
Unless you're living in some alternative reality, you've seen that 12.1 went out yesterday. We're getting some positive feedbacks (and also new bugs).
I want to thank everyone who helped integrate GNOME for this release: I feel that it's the release where we got the most people helping out, and that's amazing! Let's keep that spirit! Btw, "helping out" is not just packaging / bug fixing, but it's really everything that contributes to making the GNOME team a well alive group of people.
And now, what's next? 12.2 is going to be out around next July, and that will include GNOME 3.4.x. But that's all we know for sure.
I'd love to hear what all of you would like us to achieve in the next 8 months. Of course we won't achieve everything, but setting a direction can't hurt :-)
So, do you see this "reply" button in your mail client? Yes? Ok, click on it and go wild!
Cheers,
Vincent
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