WISHLIST: Create consistent themes

[ardentr]

As I like Ubuntu MATE very much, I would like it to have really good, professionally looking official themes (maybe 2-3 of them - a green, orange and maybe silver/grey one). Each of the themes should be 100% consistent, i.e. all of its components shoud feature the same color scheme and there should not be any mixtures (eg orange buttons and, at the same time, green icons).

Would it be possible to setup a subproject for design-cautious developers to create such official themes?

Personally, I would be willing to contribute to the creation of the orange theme as I’m used to it after I’ve left Ubuntu Unity for MATE and I really like it.

[lah7]

Go for it! Ubuntu MATE, its icons and themes are open source, you can modify them and share them to your heart's content. Always check the license to be sure.

If your designs (and any others who get involved) produce really polished unofficial themes, who knows... they might make it into the final cut. The maintainer, @Wimpy will call the shots.

I like the idea of green, orange and silver/gray/(dark?) themes around Ubuntu MATE.

You wouldn't be the first to look into constructing the orange "Ubuntu" theme:

Re-creating the classical ubuntu orange theme

As I really like the classical Ubuntu orange theme, I am trying to recreate it. I want orange icons, selections, everything. I am nearly there, except for one thing - the progres bar in e.g. the Transmission torrent client, or the progres bar that appears when checking language availability in the Controlor Center, looks like this currently: [as new new user, I cannot upload an image] Put shortly, there is still a tiny green bar in the middle of the orange progress bar. I have tried to go thr…

(I too like the orange theme, my desktop has Ubuntu-Mono-Dark (Humanity) icons with some symbolic links to fix inconsistencies - I don't think ever got fixed...)

As an example, I also amended two purple icons to green in the Ambiant-MATE icon package, since like you pointed out, was inconsistent:

Green icons for desktop and computer

Ubuntu MATE has a green themed icon set based on Humanity called Ambiant-MATE and Radiant-MATE, used by default. Aren't we missing a MATE-ified desktop and computer? The desktop looks more green then purple, which springs the Unity "Ubuntu" desktop to mind. What if these: [image] Became: [image] (Based on Ubuntu MATE's primary colour) Can't forget this little button on the bottom-left panel: [image] It's a pretty subtle change, but I feel it properly represents Ubuntu MATE's desktop…

(They're going to be included for 16.04 -- note that it's taken 1 ½ months to get to this stage, so be prepared to wait)

[Wimpy]

@ardentr I am really supportive of anyone wanting to work on themes, that can be included in Ubuntu MATE by default Let me know what you need to get started?

[maro]

I really like the new Mint-Y themes. I am not very familiar with theme design (so cannot help out with developing new ones) but I am hoping for something similar to be made available as new default themes.

[linuxhandbok]

I edited my Ambiant-Mate theme to orange highlighting in /usr/share/themes/Ambiant-MATE/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1xml

That was easy just by replacing green color code with orange.
I really like this combination between green and orange.

[linuxhandbok]

One more thing, I removed left and right “arch” code (rounded corners) in metacity-theme-1.xml and put rounded top geometry to false, that way it looks much slicker. It is better from usability point of view for those that are not very computer savvy because it looks like a corner and one could tell them that they can drag the corners to resize otherwise not everyone realizes that you can drag in top rounded corners, might sound silly but things that are intuitive for regular user really are not for older folks who aren’t used to computers.

Anyone interested in my metacity-theme-1.xml file can look at github:
https://github.com/linuxhandbok/ambiant_mate

[maximuscore]

Let me throw in some ideas from an earlier thread:

Make window resizing easier out of the box

Resizing the windows at the edges/corners is really difficult in Ubuntu MATE, as the trigger area is only one pixel wide. As a workaround I edited /usr/share/themes/Ambiant-MATE/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml and increased bottom_width, left_width and right_width from 1 to 4, but this also visually enlarges the window borders, so that might not be everyone’s cup of tea. It would be really useful to have either some invisible trigger area just outside the window borders (maybe over the shadows…