----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Catanzaro" <mcatanzaro(a)gnome.org>
To: "Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop"
<desktop(a)lists.fedoraproject.org>
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 3:09:27 PM
Subject: Re: Developer focus for Fedora workstation
On Thu, 2014-08-14 at 23:37 -0400, Adam Batkin wrote:
> * The default theme uses a lot of extra empty space around UI
> controls
> and also as part of window titlebars. Sure, it's pretty, but you lose
> a
> TON of useful space. Open something like Eclipse on a Mac and compare
> with Gnome and see how much extra "stuff" you can see on the Mac
> (hint:
> Apple has found a way to make the UI both pretty AND functional even
> on
> screens with limited vertical pixels).
This is a valid point. Adwaita only works well on high-resolution
monitors. KDE is able to fit way more functionality into the same amount
of space, while still looking good.
I don't think this is true. My laptop doesn't have a high-resolution monitor and
Adwaita works well. That said with the move to Headerbars there amount
of wasted space should become tiny:
http://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2014/01/13/client-side-decorations-continued/
> Oh, and when I tried another
> theme that had less blank space around Window titlebars, it turned
out
> that some windows use some new Gnome API which draws the titlebars
> differently, so those windows still look like they are using Adwaita
Sounds like a theme that was never updated for GTK+ 3.10, or not updated
properly. Header bars can be themed. The only challenge is that your WM
theme must match your GTK+ theme, otherwise they will look out of place
next to the WM's decorations used by other apps.