[518] in Athena User Interface
Re: minutes of 14dec2000 micromeeting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Tibbetts)
Fri Dec 15 14:13:19 2000
Message-Id: <200012151913.OAA00916@multics.mit.edu>
To: "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU>
cc: "Susan B. Jones" <sbjones@MIT.EDU>, "andrew m. boardman" <amb@MIT.EDU>,
aui@MIT.EDU, tibbetts@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 15 Dec 2000 12:36:41 EST."
<Pine.GSO.4.30L.0012151229240.26904-100000@iphigenia.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:13:14 -0500
From: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>
On 12/15 "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> A "theme" is just a change of appearance, that's all. Actually there are
> two different ways the system uses the word "theme"; GNOME has one, which
> affects the way it draws buttons and other controls, and sawfish has one
> of its own which affects the way the window frame, title bar, and window
> controls are drawn. That's the one I want the user to try to change.
Delurking to correct a possible misconception:
A theme is not just a change of appearance, it is often a dramatic
change in functionality. For instance by only changing the theme one
can make sawfish look *and feel* like MacOS or Windows. Themes not
only change what the frames, titlebars and titlebar buttons look like,
they also change what they do, often introducing or removing
significant functionality.
Its possible everyone was clear on that, but I thought I would make
sure. When choosing a default theme aestetics should really be a
secondary consideration, after easy to understand functionality. Many
(most) sawfish themes have so many different ways to do things that
the user can easily be confused (e.g. "The window is gone. Did I unmap
it, window shade it, iconify it, move it to another desktop, or
something else?").
tibbetts
-*- http://www.mit.edu/~tibbetts -*- finger tibbetts@monk.mit.edu -*-
