The Best Art Concepts for Hardy Heron
In each beta of a new distribution, there are new features, new bugs, and fixed bugs, but one thing that is often not seen until the end is the artwork. Although it might not be the most important part of the system, it creates a first impression that can be quite lasting if the theme is well done. I have gone through the concepts in the Ubuntu Wiki and picked out some of the coolest ones.
Themes
This contains many of the basic (and very attractive) characteristics of the more complete themes below. Although I don’t think this would be used as a theme, it is a very good base from which to work.
This concept may have potential as the final theme, due to its consistency and polish. I particularly like the rounded edges and the shading in the window, though I do not like the background (it seems too busy.)
Another excellent looking theme. Again the shading and rounding in the top window looks excellent. I am not a fan of the mac-ish icons in the dock, though.
There are two parts of this that I like. First, the bar along the top of the windows looks very nice. Second, I really like the idea of having some sort of texture or image in the background of some of the windows, just not as bold as they are here (or as Vistaish.)
Desktop/Login Screen Backgrounds
I don’t really have anything to say except that this is a really nice looking background that fits the Ubuntu color scheme closely.
(The heron is a reference to the upcoming release being called Ubuntu Hardy Heron.) Again, this is a very eye-catching, but not distracting background/login screen graphic. There is not really much to say about it.
Wiki Page for Login/Wiki Page for BG
I prefer the other themes, but I think the background in this is quite nice. If people decide the artwork has to be kept simpler than the other ideas above, this would be a good option.
Conclusion
We are still months from the final release and the artwork is already looking great! It looks like Hardy Heron will be a very attractive release.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Great read. How is Kubuntu looking ? Could you please consider covering it ? Unfortunately, even though it’s a great distro (and the one I use), it is usually lacking a bit of polish in all areas, as compared to (GNOME)Ubuntu …
February 5th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Leo - I am certainly willing to do more coverage of Kubuntu and I will keep that in mind as I look for topics. Do you have any specific ideas?
At this point in the art process, I don’t think any of this is specific to Ubuntu, as opposed to Kubuntu, even though many people used the gnome desktop for their mockups. Correct me if I am wrong, though.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Unfortunately the Ubuntu team decided not to include a new theme in Hardy Heron.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:03 am
I think not including a new theme in the latest Ubuntu is a big mistake. Both Windows and Mac OS X have received big visual boosts in Vista and Leopard (regardless of what you may feel about the functionality of these releases) whilst Ubuntu is still (to my mind) behind XP Luna visually (especially the fonts, which look frankly amateurish).
Admittedly, Ubuntu has a library of stunning third-party themes and hacks to improve its visuals, but the default look is the first thing people see, and at the minute, Ubuntu’s default theme looks like a case of “pay peanuts, get monkeys”. If the concern is that a new theme would damage Ubuntu’s ability to run on older systems, it shouldn’t be too hard to include an option at install to load the “classic” or “enhanced” theme as default.
I would also like to see the Ubuntu and GNOME teams attempt to match Vista/Leopard’s features (at least in potentia for third party themes), as at the minute the commercial OSes seem to have pulled ahead:
- True translucency (as opposed to a transparency + blur hack) with an animated gloss/shifting sheen as per Aero Glass.
- Smooth rollover button effects as per the Vista start menu and title bar buttons.
- Reflective surfaces as per the Leopard dock.
- Support for a Stacks/smart folders equivalent (a good place for Ubuntu to pull ahead - stacks which represent files from more than one folder, stacks created from Safari downloads, a “tray” in which the icons sit, identifying the stack without having to scrub over them with the mouse).
- Support (for those with sufficiently powerful graphics cards) for themes utilising full vector graphics as per both commercial OSes (at present Ubuntu I believe is stuck with raster).
- Different desktop backgrounds/icons/shortcuts on different workspaces, with the ability to rename workspaces, as has been available on KDE for ages and has now been hacked into Vista and even XP.
- Live previews of other desktops and minimised windows, as per KDE and Vista. Looking Glass has a very nice feature where minimised window appear on the dock equivalent turned slightly sideways. Scrubbing over them makes them turn towards you, rise, and expand, so you can make sure it’s what you want in much better resolution than OS X/Vista.
Another priority should be PROGRAMS. With Office 2007/8 available for both Windows and OS X (and virtually impossible to get working under Wine), Ubuntu has been left firmly in the dust. With no OpenOffice (sorry, “Openoffice.org” or “Ooo” - seriously, they need to rebrand their product) update any time, might it be worth setting up a team to produce a suite of Linux-ONLY programs (office equivalent, video editor, graphics program, backup, etc.) with interfaces and functionality that showcase the superiority (we still believe that, right?) of open source. The hope would be to score a “hit” like iMovie or Microsoft Office that becomes the industry standard in some field, which would massively raise Ubuntu’s market share.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 am
Woops, I didn’t make myself very clear:
Leopard’s “Stacks” does NOT presently support custom stacks made from files all over the computer, nor does it support “smart folders” made of, say, all the downloads made by the web browser, no matter where they ended up. Also, at present, stacks look extremely messy, being just a “pile” of icons. There’s a third party hack that puts a transparent glass “tray” over the top, providing a symbol that tells you you’re looking at the Applications folder and not the Address Book (which will ordinarily be the icon on top):
http://t.ecksdee.org/post/19001860
However, this fix is unofficial, and 10.5.2 only lets you view the folder icon instead, which is a bit backward.
By including a feature with these enhancements, Ubuntu could legitimately claim to have innovated on the Stacks concept.