[Shift2] The team so far..

[pers3us]

All of a sudden everything has come to a stand still! Stocker360 where are you buddy?

We need a Lead Developer! any volunteers?

[threesixtyflip]

All of a sudden everything has come to a stand still! Stocker360 where are you buddy?

We need a Lead Developer! any volunteers?

Sorry guys, had a few bits of personal stuff to deal with. But I'm back!

And now I have a week off aswell so I can put a hellofalot more time in :)

Im in IRC for now if anyone wants to pop on and discuss the game plan.

But yes, we need a lead developer, does anyone out there fancy it?

[pers3us]

Sorry guys, had a few bits of personal stuff to deal with. But I'm back!

And now I have a week off aswell so I can put a hellofalot more time in :)

Im in IRC for now if anyone wants to pop on and discuss the game plan.

But yes, we need a lead developer, does anyone out there fancy it?

Hey, what was IRC channel?

You still there?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Hey, what was IRC channel?

You still there?

I believe it's just #shift on neowin's irc

[Carbon Fiber]

Count me in on hosting/seeding as well. :-)

[Farstrider]

I am really glad to see that ARCH is going to be used as the base for the project! As someone else said, anything to do with Ubuntu, I would not be interested! Also please do not misinterpret this as an anti Ubuntu statement. (I also use it on one of my PC's) My gut feel is that ARCH is the way to go for a project like this!

I would like to be of assistance with testing and perhaps also helping with keeping records of any applicable documentation and notes as regards the project. Collating and keeping track of any reference documentation etc. Not sure if anyone has already volunteered for this job and if the project leader needs help with this or not?

[pers3us]

I believe it's just #shift on neowin's irc

I can see only 5 users here. Where is everyone?

[what]

I'm on IRC whenever I'm at my computer, so I'm there quite regularly. The rest of us are just waiting for others to arrive I think :D More people are trickling their way into the channel but really, if this project is going to go anywhere, everyone needs to be on at some point.

[Matthew_Thepc]

I'm not going to have a regular computer-usage-time-schedule for a few weeks, but I'll try and be on IRC whenever I can (:

could someone (preferably Stocker, or someone else who's likely to be in most of the chats) keep a record (or just ctrl-a ctrl-c) of the discussions and post them like here or on Pastebin and then link them here? that would be great :p

[Andre S. Veteran]

What sort of programming would be involved in a project such as this?

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Well my knowledge so far is that any language could be useful. Mono will be available, so .NET skills would be useful. C++, and any other scripting languages (Shell in particular) would be useful too.

[threesixtyflip]

I'm not going to have a regular computer-usage-time-schedule for a few weeks, but I'll try and be on IRC whenever I can (:

could someone (preferably Stocker, or someone else who's likely to be in most of the chats) keep a record (or just ctrl-a ctrl-c) of the discussions and post them like here or on Pastebin and then link them here? that would be great :p

Will try and do so, expect profanities galore however :D

[pers3us]

What sort of programming would be involved in a project such as this?

Depends on what you are coding.

For ui apps u can get use C or Python. GTK apps.

For backend shell script. Or even python or perl would do.

Other option is tcl/tk... But it's really out dated. But mostly it would be in c or py

[sanctified Veteran]

Didn't know where to post this. This is a compilation of ideas I've been toying with so far.

First of all. A very crude GUI mockup presenting some of my proposed ideas for a consistent, functional yet elegant GUI:

• A color palette based on dark grays. Gray is a very flexible color, this idea was taken from OS X but avoided a carbon copy of it because we need our own GUI identity.
  
• Smoked glass chrome effects that blur any background.
  
• Consistent control shapes and colors.
  
• GUI must suit any wallpaper combination. The user should dictate the GUI without breaking the system visual consistency.
  
• Wallpaper picture not by me.
  

Ideas not present in the mockup:

• System icons could be gray based but with color accents. I'm thinking something matte (Shiny icons are so 2000-2007).
  
• GUI visual clutter down to the minimum. Not necessarily spartanic, but just show the needed options for the task in hand in a pleasant and cohesive way.
  
• Make a skin for every default app that we're not going to code ourselves (A firefox skin, VLC skin, etc). Obviously to maintain consistency.
  
• Invite all the Neowin community to send their pictures and designs so we can have a default wallpaper selection made by our own community.
  

Packaging and branding ideas (2.0)

I know we are not big enough to think about packaging. But it's fun to play with ideas and it helps me to understand an entire visual ecosystem for Shift.

CD Box

CD Box layout and color alternatives. I did these also because I thought we could use them to have a better idea of fonts, color and feeling for a future website.

[pers3us]

Wow, Fuc**** awesome! :)

[Haggis Veteran]

that looks great, i agree with the matte looking stuff, i dont like shiny

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Love it! The GUI wouldn't be too hard to do either I don't think (from my experience with XFCE, this'd be easy to do)

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

As for a theme, have you seen lassekongo83's latest GNOME Shell/GTK3 theme?

http://lassekongo83.deviantart.com/art/July-2012-313762514

It's close to what sanctified suggests. IMHO the project manager should contact lassekongo83 and ask for permission to use/modify his theme for Shift².

Once an actual preview release with a working desktop exists, that is.

[Kreuger]

Wow. Totally impressed to see Shift has been resurrected. Sadly, I don't have the time to invest in it anymore. However once you guys get a beta or something up and running, I'll give it a shot.

Edit: I could probably do some seeding!

[sanctified Veteran]

As for a theme, have you seen lassekongo83's latest GNOME Shell/GTK3 theme?

http://lassekongo83....-2012-313762514

It's close to what sanctified suggests. IMHO the project manager should contact lassekongo83 and ask for permission to use/modify his theme for Shift².

Once an actual preview release with a working desktop exists, that is.

It would be a good idea to have an already existing theme for a base.

I've never themed for Linux so I would need some help to get it started.

[~Johnny]

Now, Zain Adeel originally proposed these as alternative Windows designs, but I always thought they looked more in place in a Linux build. I've no idea how easy they'd be to implement (I'd image they'd take quite a bit of time), but I think it would certainly give the distro something unique.

It might be worth someone seeing if he's interested in joining the project, he seems like a good fit :p

[sanctified Veteran]

These look fantastic. However I'm not a big fan of vertical text and arrangements.

[Matthew_Thepc]

Now, Zain Adeel originally proposed these as alternative Windows designs, but I always thought they looked more in place in a Linux build. I've no idea how easy they'd be to implement (I'd image they'd take quite a bit of time), but I think it would certainly give the distro something unique.

It might be worth someone seeing if he's interested in joining the project, he seems like a good fit :p

O: I'd pay for that :D

but yeah, the verticle text doesn't work out that well

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

That's actually a pretty good idea. A lot of user concepts for Windows tend to look pretty cool.. But I'm betting with differences in hardware and displays it would be fairly difficult to implement.

[threesixtyflip]

Wow that is some pretty incredible stuff right there!