I've been thinking about ways to modernize the RedHat/Fedora Bluecurve
theme lately and have started trying my ideas out in practice.
My first goal is to improve on the Windows95-esque battleship-grey that
colors all of the UI chrome. See this screenshot of Windows 98/2000/XP
evolved:
http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/Display-95-through-XP.png
Note the subtle color difference between 98 and 2000 - but it makes a
huge improvement.
I was looking at this screenshot of an XFCE beta
(
http://xfce.org/images/screenshots/xfce42.png) and was wondering why
that main start menu looked so good (even though it was just using the
bluecurve icons). It turns out it's a soft-beige rather than the
battleship grey.
So, I've tried this out with Bluecurve. The only change so far is that
th primary chrome is now slightly softer and more beige than grey. Some
elements that are still pure-grey (alternative list backgrounds,
depressed buttons, etc) will look a bit odd next to the new beige, but
I'd do them to.
Here are before and after screenshots - open them in tabs and switch
back and forth to compare:
http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/bluecurve-before.png
http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/bluecurve-after.png
The updated theme is here:
http://actsofvolition.com/images/screenshots/Bluecurve-2.tar.gz
(once installed, you have to have to go to "Theme Details" and choose
Bluecurve-2 in the "Controls" tab).
Thoughts and feedback are welcome - particularly from those who maintain
the current Bluecurve theme in Fedora. I'm much more interested in
trying to help improve the defaults than I am in maintaining an optional
theme.
Thanks,
Steven Garrity