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Sparrk

Daniel Borgmann
Hi, I am sparrk and I create Metacity Themes and Icon Sub-Sets.

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Last time active : Aug 06 2006
Joined : Feb 25 2005
Clearlooks-More

Metacity Themes by anauman 37 comments

In this case, allowing the actual window background to be dragged just like the frame. - Jul 15 2006
Clearlooks-More

Metacity Themes by anauman 37 comments

What I mean with that is that the titlebar and "rest of the window" are handled in two different ways (by different programs), when they are in fact both part of the same object from a user's perspective. - Jul 15 2006
UbuntuLooks Olive and Brown

GTK2 Themes by lizardking 5 comments

Yikes, don't use JPEG. :) - Mar 18 2006
T-ish Pack

GTK2 Themes by tmilovan 138 comments

The animation option only exists for Clearlooks-Cairo. Clearlooks-Gdk doesn't understand it but will always enable the animation when compiled with --enable-animation. - Feb 18 2006
Clearlooks-More

Metacity Themes by anauman 37 comments

What doesn't make sense? The grayed-out look is only used for insensitive widgets in Gtk, but unfocused window titlebars are not insensitive. I agree that focused windows don't stand out a lot with this theme now, but this just shows how complicated things get when one aims for 100% consistency.

Often it can be positive to create some inconsistency, as long as it doesn't lead to potential confusion. In other words, elements that look the same should also behave the same, but elements that behave the same don't necessarily have to look the same. - Feb 09 2006
Clearlooks-More

Metacity Themes by anauman 37 comments

It's not easy to see, it's easy to guess. Different thing.

"dragging windows around is so embedded in most of us that this is a small sacrifice"

Yes, but that doesn't make it any more correct. An interface which assumes knowledge from the user is a flawed interface. If you make the titlebar and window background look like one thing, there is no reason why the user shouldn't expect it to behave like one thing.

The artificial separation between the application and the window frame is something we really need to get fixed. Just covering it up is not a good solution. - Feb 05 2006
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

On the first screenshot it is one by Jimmac for Novell Desktop 10, called "golden-harmonics". You should be able to find it if you google for "golden-harmonics jimmac".

The second was a contributed screenshot and the background on it AFAIK is from Windows Vista. - Jan 30 2006
Clearlooks-More

Metacity Themes by anauman 37 comments

Since you asked for it. ;-)

Not separating the titlebar from the window background is not a good idea yet, since you cannot move the window by clicking on any part of the background. The titlebar is functionally a completely distinct element.
That's the reason we don't do it in Clearlooks, although I agree that it would look nicer.

By not "bloating" the desktop with selection color, you made unfocused windows look alien, because no other part of the Gtk theme uses the insensitive look for merely unselected items. Since you specifically complained about buttons looking alien, this is not much better.

The lack of a window icon is a further inconsistency and I don't particulary like the look of the button icons, but those are just details.

Finally I also think that it looks a little too dull. I'm all for flushing the titlebar with the window background (once Gtk is fixed to remove the functional difference), but once we do this, I think we should also make windows slightly more attractive than just a plain gray color.

I'm not saying that this is a bad theme, but I don't agree with your implication that this is "Clearlooks done right". - Jan 30 2006
Gnome Tunes

Various Gnome Stuff by knipknap 2 comments

See XMMS... You can do everything if you just draw everything inside the application. If you want to keep it generic and themable, then you have to present a concept, not a mockup. What kind of generic ability or widget would you add? - Jan 19 2006
Tango-Green

Icon Sub-Sets by Sparrk 12 comments

Alright, I used the Nautilus to make a link. Was surprised that it worked at all. ;) It was really just a quick hack... - Jan 13 2006
Clearlooks-GreenMod

GTK2 Themes by slackdude 6 comments

Exactly my thoughts. Here is my very incomplete attempt at a green Tango folder version: http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=33731 - Jan 12 2006
PlatinUm

GTK2 Themes by roberTO21 33 comments

It looks really nice, but the small border can make it almost unusable with certain mouse settings (if just all windows had a resize grip...). Maybe a compromise would be to add a bottom strip like in Mist?

Also entry boxes with an icon in it look all wrong (like deskbar-applet or the new Epiphany location bar).

The buttons look unsymetrical to me, because the top outline shadow looks like it makes the border thicker at the top. A suggestion would be to make the entire normal broder darker (like the border line at the top) and reduce the shadow on the top sides a little. - Dec 31 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

Exactly, I'm still working on the X. I have to use fixed colors for the diagonal lines (since the tinting op can only do rects), so I hope I can make it look alright. - Dec 23 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

Yeah, I was thinking about this but it's not easy to do without pixmaps. Your mockup is very cool and I'll probably give it a try. Thanks. - Dec 22 2005
VistaRevised

GTK2 Themes by matthewmx86 12 comments

That's pretty cool, but I don't like the big menubar font very much. - Dec 21 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

Just for the record, comments like this are the best way to _not_ make me post a balloon variation. Maybe someone else will do it though.

Ideally I would round all corners just a little, but that's not possible yet. - Dec 21 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

I have thought about that, but there are too many problem with it. Especially it would make unfocused windows too similar to focused windows, so with some color combinations or for color-blind people this could become problematic. It would also make the theme feel much more heavy.

For now I have just lightened up the separator line a bit. - Dec 20 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

They are a theme option. - Dec 18 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

Yes, I'll probably change that. There are various reasons why I did it as it is in Clearlooks, but it doesn't really work well with the new style anymore. Mostly because the buttons are darker now.

Maybe I'll also experiment with putting a shadow or black outline behind the icons. - Dec 18 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

Yeah, the scalability is my favorite feature of metacity. I actually used a font size of 11 before, but with the wide buttons, 10 is just right for me. I can see how it can be too large for some especially on lower resolutions, but at least it's not as huge as XP titlebars. :) - Dec 18 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

That's because we don't have real window transparency yet. This problem can technically only be fixed with help of the composite extension, so we'll need a little more patience. :) It will get there. - Dec 18 2005
Clearlooks 2

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 36 comments

I noticed the similarity shortly after I had the initial concept done, so it probably influenced me subconsciously. Of course the chrome effect is very common these days and also the light inner outline on the buttons (see Tango, Vista, etc). - Dec 18 2005
Invert

GTK2 Themes by pizzach 9 comments

Just open gconf-editor and remove the string in /apps/metacity/general/button_layout. Then you can even add the buttons back to the theme. :) - Dec 16 2005
Tango-Original

Icon Sub-Sets by bmzf 56 comments

It's not all blue, the whole backside is striped black... I think adding a colored tab would be overkill now. At first I was skeptical since I liked the old folders very much, but now I love the new ones.

Also keep in mind that this is primarily meant to be a base icon set. Once it is complete, it should be trivial for example to do a custom theme which simply replaces the folder icons. - Nov 22 2005
Graphite Greeter

GDM Themes by mathieu147 13 comments

GDM greeters are installed system wide, so unfortunately they have to be installed using the Login Screen admin tool (in the "Graphical greeter" tab). - Aug 04 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

That's actually on purpose, because otherwise the outline doesn't fit well with the title bar color on all backgrounds. If it's too noticable and distracting (it really isn't on my screen), then I'll have to revert to a standard black outline. - Jul 30 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

Fine. - Jul 11 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

It's a theme option:
progressbarstyle = 0 # 0 = candy bar, 1 = flat
Change that to 1 in the particular gtkrc. - Jun 11 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

I was replying to bored, I don't know what's causing your problems. - Jun 10 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

Sorry, you have to restart GNOME once after installing the new engine, otherwise all the apps won't pick it up (and the new theme files are incompatible, so you get the default fallback). We should probably put that in the notes. - Jun 10 2005
ClearLooks-DarkBlue (DarkNice)

GTK2 Themes by bass 20 comments

No, that's not possible. Richard had this in the mockup for the next version, but I think he dropped it for now. Maybe it will be added at some point. - May 25 2005
Robotorch

GTK2 Themes by Six 18 comments

You can always ask on the mailinglist. :) I'm afraid that not much can be done about OO.o though, that's mostly a case of OO.o having to improve it's native theme support. - May 25 2005
ClearLooks-DarkBlue (DarkNice)

GTK2 Themes by bass 20 comments

In the next release of Clearlooks, checkboxes and radiobuttons will use theme colors. Right now you can only change the selection color.
This is how your theme looks with current Clearlooks CVS:
http://213.133.111.182/Temp/Screenshot-DarkBlue.png - May 25 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

This is optional, use menuitemstyle in the gtkrc to change it. In the next release there will be a new default style with a soft gradient (but no 3D border) which looks very nice. - Apr 24 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

It's now on sourceforge. - Apr 08 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

It goes away if you enable font hinting in the font preferences, as somebody else found out. It also happens with Gorilla, so it would be interesting what all other themes do differently. I haven't looked into it yet. - Apr 08 2005
A personal ubuntu wallpaper

Wallpapers Ubuntu by Ron0909 8 comments

Bad enough that one of them is running around our kitchen right now. I'll certainly NOT put that thing on my desktop. ;) - Apr 07 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

Download the latest version. ;)
Only utility windows are totally squared. If you want all windows to be square, you have to make some simple modifications to the theme XML file. - Apr 07 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

Yes,
Controls = GTK
Window Border = Metacity
If this would be an official GNOME site, they'd probably make it more obvious. ;) - Apr 05 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

Just change the icon theme from Clearlooks to GNOME... - Apr 01 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

Hmm, I've never seen that. What does "whenever I change font size" mean, does it go away after a reboot or does it only happen with certain font-sizes? - Mar 31 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

Looks fine. - Mar 31 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

The screenshot xyme linked to is still using 0.4. - Mar 31 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

This is a waste of time. I'm very convinced of the improvements and most of the feedback has been very positive. The rating mysteriously went up from 78% to 84% when I released the upgrade (which is high for a metacity theme). I guess some people have the same bad taste as me then.
I will _not_ revert to what I personally find far inferior. I already said above, that I'm not stopping anyone from re-releasing the old version under a different name. Please do that if you care so much, it would be far more constructive. - Mar 31 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

The theme is not meant to look clever or different, it's meant to make sense. You should really make a custom version of it if you want anything more fancy. Notice that the flat look was nothing specific to Clearlooks, it was simply taken from Industrial/Winter.
The next minor update will use a lighter shade for unfocused titlebars though, which looks noticably friendlier. - Mar 30 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

Please give more information... Which version of GNOME, maybe a screenshot... I haven't heard of this problem yet. - Mar 30 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

Dude, you can say that in a much nicer way...

BTW, while I think that the original wasn't good work and don't want to offer it for download anymore, I'm not stopping anyone from re-releasing it (just under a different name please). - Mar 23 2005
Clearlooks

GTK2 Themes by Remenic 251 comments

Just change your font size under Font Preferences -> Window title font. - Mar 23 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

Yeah, I noticed that this happened when my father installed the Metacity theme using the theme manager. He's still using GNOME 2.8 and I can't reproduce it with 2.10, so it was probably fixed.
A work-around might be to move the Clearlooks/metacity-1 folder manually into either /usr/share/themes (or .themes/ if that works). Or even rename it before installation. - Mar 22 2005
Clearlooks

Metacity Themes by Sparrk 62 comments

That's actually an optical illusion. The new gradient goes like this: light, medium, medium, dark. So there is a medium colored area in the middle, enclosed by light and dark gradients at the top and the bottom. Now our eyes pretend that the part of the middle area that is near the top gradient is darker, because of the contrast to the light gradient.

So yes, this is intentional. :) It might be unusual, but I really like this look, because it creates some kind of soft material impression. - Mar 20 2005