Ubuntu 8.04 Theme Mockup

[duccodude]

*experience

[Windam]

Beats the sh*t out of apple's transparent menu bar..

keep it up.. You'll be world famous in no time ;)

[SRegan]

Really nice mockup - it manages to look like a graphical overhaul of the current default theme without looking too ambitious (quite a lot of the mockups I've seen try to do things the Ubuntu team could never implement because they would involve a redesign of the underlying desktop system). I'm really digging the stripped-down, elegant look here. There are a few points I should probably raise:

- Is the taskbar intended to be transparent/translucent? IIRC GNOME has difficulties with that at the minute, so it might have to wait for a new edition of GNOME as well. The white border might also get lost on some backgrounds.

- The Ubuntu logo looks like a distinct menu from "Application" because of its tab-like appearance - was that the intent? There isn't a "shut down" logo on the GNOME bar, so was the Ubuntu logo intended to become the equivalent of the Apple menu on the OS X program bar?

- There's also the consideration that at present it doesn't look like the Ubuntu logo tab or menu reaches to the corner of the screen - as far as GUI goes, screen corners are prime screen real-estate, being both infinitely tall and infinitely wide (that is, you can't miss screen corners when mousing to them, because you can never overshoot). Here there's not a lot that takes advantage of screen corners or edges - e.g., normally the Trash is at the bottom right, so you don't have to minimise windows to get to it and can drag instantly without having to check it's there.

- Whilst I like the dark GNOME bar, I must also concede that the Ubuntu logo looks better on a light background - maybe the white tab could be a diagonal line stretching across the full height of the GNOME bar, making it obvious that it's a separate button that can be pressed right to the edge of the screen (see my crappy edit). If it's intended to be the same as the Applications, I feel it needs to be linked via the outline (perhaps the Ubuntu logo in a circle, with a rectangle with rounded edges coming out of the circle? see my second rubbish edit). I did see another mockup quite recently that could be incorporated quite comfortably into your idea, which is to skin the drop-down menus so they look like tabs; I've still got the image hanging around, so I've attached that too, but bear in mind it's not my idea.

- There doesn't seem to be a system clock, room for quickstart icons (unless that would go after "System" on the GNOME bar), or the workspace switcher. Obviously the aesthetic appeal of this mockup is the very streamlined taskbar, but at the minute it seems to be lacking some of the integral GNOME desktop elements. I did have the idea (probably too difficult to integrate into GNOME) that the desktop switcher could be a single icon in the system tray - click on it and a thumbnail view of the desktops expands like a Leopard stack in grid view. Clicking on any of the desktop thumbnails would maximise it and take you there.

- How would windows look in the taskbar? I'm intrigued how they would fit into the stripped-down look.

[airbornemist6]

I've only tried Ubuntu a couple of times, but kind of liked it, even though it was on the live cd. Maybe it's just me, but it just feels a little weird having the system tray and icons on the right side instead of the left. Seems too "mac-ish" for me. It does look nice though :)

The icons are on the left by default in Ubuntu. If they are on the right it's entirely the user's choice. Either way, mac is Unix based, Linux is Unix based. As far as looks, Linux is in a different category of it's own because it's left both mac and windows in the dust.

Edit:

Btw! The mockup looks awesome!

[sanctified Veteran]

As far as looks, Linux is in a different category of it's own because it's left ... mac a... in the dust.

To each its own I guess.

[omganinja]

Damn, that sexy. Do you mind if I use that taskbar design for my Human visual style for vista? I'd give you credit on my neowin/deviantart post of course.

http://omganinja.deviantart.com/art/Human-...ta-1-6-80242558

Actually, dont worry. I just did a mockup in photoshop and it doesnt suit my theme at all. Looks nice on ubuntu though.

Edited March 30, 2008 by omganinja

[curme]

*experience

That's the first thing I saw too! :laugh:

Great look, though. I just installed Ubuntu today. Now I'm waiting for the 200mb of updates on dial-up, so it will be a couple of days before I can play with it again. :(

I'm still not sure how to even change my theme from the default ones!

[Aaron Veteran]

That's the first thing I saw too! :laugh:

Great look, though. I just installed Ubuntu today. Now I'm waiting for the 200mb of updates on dial-up, so it will be a couple of days before I can play with it again. :(

I'm still not sure how to even change my theme from the default ones!

System > Preferences > Appearance

Assuming you downloaded a theme/style/icon set from www/gnome-looks.org, just drag and drop the package on the Appearance Preferences application - it should install automagically.

[Buu]

Updated the first post on this thread with a new stlye.

[Buu]

anyone want to help me with it then?

[Buu]

Another update :)

[Fabian-]

It looks great :) When are you planning on packaging it into a theme?

[Buu]

Fabian, i would do but i've not a clue how to! :p