Constructive criticism: Winstripe

Discuss application theming and theme development.
Post Reply
oafyc
Posts: 16
Joined: June 9th, 2004, 1:14 am

Post by oafyc »

I really don't like the new theme. If all the icons were ditched for some new ones it may be ok. But that would be a whole new theme. Sorry I really can't be too contructive about this. There were some things broken that should have been fixed. I guess there must have been something positive about breaking something that was not only not broken, but awesome before (the default theme).
[Unknown]
Posts: 130
Joined: October 7th, 2003, 12:32 am
Location: Los Angeles
Contact:

Post by [Unknown] »

Oafyc,

You might try installing Arvid Axelsson's Qute Theme (standalone). While this won't change the default theme, it will let you get Qute back.

As well, you'd be surprised how much a few simple css tweaks - like decreasing the padding around buttons - really makes. Hopefully a compromise can be come to as far as issues like this.

-[Unknown]
jagged ben
Posts: 97
Joined: March 5th, 2004, 8:43 pm

Post by jagged ben »

Contstructive criticism for a theme I probably will never use anyway:

- Large toolbar icons need to actually be LARGE! DUH!!! Right now in XP the large images are a whole THREE pixels taller than the small ones. That's not a choice!!!
I have a 1400x1050 over 15" screen, I can't even SEE the large icons! They should be 30 pixels tall, people.

- Close tab button should be larger, and make use of toolbar widget. (like Qute does) Also, I don't think it should be a square; it should be more differentiated from the scroll button at the top of a scrollbar. Moreover, it looks like Luna and I'm not using Luna so I hate it.

- All the buttons need to visibly change in appearance on mouseover. That's a must for XP these days. Not having it is part of why people say it looks 10 years old.

-Bookmark properties button should somehow include the blue file image used for bookmarks. In the same vein, it shouldn't look so identical to Options>General

-The separator button? What's the window doing there? You can't even see the separator in the button. Back to the drawing board...I think.

-Home doesn't look like it has a shadow.

-I think a different throbber should be developed based on the Firefox icon.
infiniteedge
Posts: 73
Joined: October 19th, 2003, 10:52 am

Post by infiniteedge »

i just got finished reading the entire 36 page arvid discussion, there is no way in hell im reading the 13 pages preceding my comments to see if someone already mentioned what im going to say.

1. there seems to be too much padding around most of the nav buttons, large and small
2. neeeeddd a new throbber
3. all the icons are very flat which i think is what annoys me the most.
4. scrap the home icon entirely :x i don't know exactly what it is, but it freaks me out. the last time i looked at it, it sent shivers down my spine haha.

ill post more when i think of it and maybe tomorrow read this entire thread. ughh.
robotron3452
Posts: 75
Joined: April 28th, 2004, 1:36 am

Post by robotron3452 »

What a difference a small change to userchrome.css makes. Without the extra padding the theme looks much better, I also like the modified 'new tab' icon, though I don't really mind much either way.

I don't particulatly like the history, downloads or bookmarks icons, but the bookmarks in particular I think is very bad. They appear to have too much detail compared to the simple navigation buttons. The Luna/Qute star here is simple and makes sense. I like the folder and page icons, and these have to look nice for me as I have the bookmarks sidebar open the whole time (this is the only reason I don't use iCandy Jr, and why I would go against using red hearts).

The 'home' button also appears to lack something next to the very colourful back/foward/stop/refresh buttons. I like the detail added to the buttons here, but I don't know how much of a difference it will make because the icons aren't that bug.
daka0007
Posts: 40
Joined: August 21st, 2003, 7:52 am

Post by daka0007 »

After only short time of using Winstripe I've actually come to like some things about it. Opposite to Batiu-Darmi, it's the detailed and well worked out icons for bookmarks, downloads and history, as well as those in the options window that I find most attractive. With the above recommended adjustment to the padding those look really nice and has some common style that makes them fit together.

But my former complaints against the main navigation buttons remains. The back and forward arrows do look alright, when viewed separatly, but they don't fit well with the detail of those buttons previously mentioned. The refresh, stop and home buttons just don't attract me at all. In my earlier complaint I mentioned that I think it's a weakness that the navigation buttons doesn't share any style element in between them - actually the only thing they have in common is that their separate styles are totaly different from the rest of the theme ...

Maybe it's intentional - they stand out quite a lot in Pinstripe as well, but there they at least corresponds to each other.


I guess I should mention that I'm not using XP but old style windows. That might be a reason why I easier adopt the Mac-influenced non 3d icons than some other users.


---
Edit: Does someone know why the padding adjustment results in different behaviour of buttons on the main toolbar? The back and forward buttons got a nice quadratic shape while hovered, while the reload, stop, home and print button stretches to cover the toolbar vertically, giving them a rectangular shape. How do I make them appear as the back and forward buttons? (The Go button doesn't stretch to the full height of the toolbar either.)
robotron3452
Posts: 75
Joined: April 28th, 2004, 1:36 am

Post by robotron3452 »

daka0007 wrote:I guess I should mention that I'm not using XP but old style windows. That might be a reason why I easier adopt the Mac-influenced non 3d icons than some other users.


That's an interesting thing, because I use the 'Panther' theme with StyleXP, the 'Panther' wallpaper and Mac icons, because I like how clean Macs look. I don't actually like Window's 'Fisher-Price' Luna look, and I would love to have a bug-free pinstripe that I can use. I use the Qute theme because it's clean, simple and looks good with my theme.

Like you said, I don't like the look of the navigation buttons either, but if you get rid of the excess padding, I like the icons a lot more (see the screenshot on the previous page). I have [back, foward, refresh, stop, home, bookmarks, mail, downloads] buttons in that order, so that's where I get my anti-bookmarks thing, I guess. All the other buttons I have enabled are simple and colourful, while the bookmarks button is complex and not self-explanatory. If it doesn't get changed (and I'm sure it will), I'll just learn to use Ctrl-B and disable that button :)
yurk
Posts: 165
Joined: November 5th, 2002, 1:25 pm
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Contact:

Re: "small" icons

Post by yurk »

lordmedikit wrote:
yurk wrote:...

To get rid of the excess padding on buttons you can use my 'skin' from here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=55084

If you just want the padding to be less (and not the other changes I have made) I might be able to come up with a little something, but I am busy at the moment.

That's fine but I really would want it to be fixed in the current theme, it was intended as constructive criticism like the topic said :)
tmeader
Posts: 434
Joined: May 3rd, 2004, 10:30 pm

Post by tmeader »

I'm sure it's been noted (I've heard from both of the authors that they are actively watching this thread)... but in the mean time, copying the few style lines into userChrome.css and placing that in your Profile's chrome directory will solve the problem.

Really does help so much :)
lordmedikit
Posts: 447
Joined: August 1st, 2003, 9:18 am

Re: "small" icons

Post by lordmedikit »

yurk wrote:That's fine but I really would want it to be fixed in the current theme, it was intended as constructive criticism like the topic said :)

I don't think that it will be fixed in the current theme. They are setting the padding correct for WinXP with skins (apparently), but that means that everyone else loses out. The userChrome.css is likely to be only way around this for some time.
User avatar
logan
Posts: 3453
Joined: May 22nd, 2003, 3:51 pm
Location: NGC 2403
Contact:

Post by logan »

a million posts about icons and spacing, but nothing about colors...

The urlbar's history, with the grey background looks bad, white would be much better. Also, the selected menu items text is the same color as the selection itself, so you can't read it, that looks pretty bad.

I dunno if these are just showing up in linux builds or what, I don't use Windows or MacOS, but I've seen no mention of these elsewhere.

Someone earlier mentioned about Firefox having to look professional or some such, that to me says cold and boring. If they want that, use Mozilla. I don't see a reason why the default theme in Firefox cannot be fun and flashy. The first thing that comes to mind is something like <a href="http://home.student.uu.se/dana3949/doodle/">Doodle</a>, or maybe Atlas and Playground from <a href="http://www.mozthemes.tk/">mozthemes.tk</a>.

Also, anyone know if there's a blog or changelog we can read about any changes to the theme? I see alot of feedback, but not sure if any of it's being used. I'd like to know what, if anything's going on with it? I have to imagine there's a number of major changes going on right now, to try and make it a bit better for 0.9's release.

---

Ya, so just ignore me, dufey today. gtk2 theme problems :I
Last edited by logan on June 11th, 2004, 10:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
tmeader
Posts: 434
Joined: May 3rd, 2004, 10:30 pm

Post by tmeader »

logan... Doodle? Are you serious? I would wager that the vast majority, if confronted with Doodle as their default theme, would think that the browser was designed by an 8 year old, and be almost scared to run it. You and I understand that Doodle is purposely made to look like it was drawn by a kid, but the average user would not. I would venture that the average user has no concept of what "to theme" something even means. I agree that it need not be "cold" and antiseptic, but Winstripe doesn't fall into those categories. It's very clean and simple. Simple was something that Qute was not, which I've only really started realizing after several days using Winstripe. ;)

As for the grey URL history... for me anyway, on XP, it's white as it's always been.
User avatar
logan
Posts: 3453
Joined: May 22nd, 2003, 3:51 pm
Location: NGC 2403
Contact:

Post by logan »

tmeader wrote:logan... Doodle? Are you serious?


I wouldn't have written it otherwise; my point being is there's no reason something fun cannot be used.
User avatar
esavior
Posts: 1211
Joined: July 29th, 2003, 1:57 pm
Contact:

Post by esavior »

I think there should probably be a balence between fun and professional. About your added comment, its going to be interesting to see if in future versions some of the recomendations were implemented.
Mindjunk
I didn't hear no bell...
User avatar
logan
Posts: 3453
Joined: May 22nd, 2003, 3:51 pm
Location: NGC 2403
Contact:

Post by logan »

figured the authors would have a blog somewhere, but maybe not
Post Reply