I must take a break in the next month, I coded too much since December and now it’s time for a breath 
This doesn’t mean I will be offline, but don’t expect commits for Clearlooks or Murrine 
Anyway, if you’ve some questions about Murrine or you just want to take part ot the Community, simply come into the channel #murrine in Freenode and add it to your autojoin!
I’m sure that, if you will have patience, someone will help you.
Cheers,
Andrea Cimitan
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 4 Comments »
Hi Gtk+ hackers
I’m writing this post to see if someone is interested in writing a small patch to make all apps use the RGBA colormap, when available.
The Approach
I’ve discussed few days about *which could be the saner approach* in IRC with thos, ebassi, benzea etc etc.
Of course, same discussion could follow in mailing lists, if you don’t agree with that.
The approach we have in mind can be explained in that way (fell free to correct me if could be better):
- Adding a GtkSetting, something like a boolean rgba-colormap = TRUE | FALSE.
- Mapping that GtkSetting to an Xsetting.
- Reading this GtkSetting before initializing a Window, and here set a RGBA colormap if available.
Using RGBA colormaps will give the Window an alpha value, useful to draw fancy things, from transparent widgets till rounded menus/tooltips.
Patches are Welcome
Unfortunately I’m not the right man, now, to write that patch. First of all I’m really busy with exams, then I lack of basic GTK knowledge, and this could cost me days/weeks instead an hour of coding
I’ve shown you this feature request, here there’s a bugzilla bug too.
If you’re interested in a fancy eye-candy evolution for the gnome world (optional eheheh, clearlooks *is* and *will be* our rockin’ default theme), this patch is essential, since my Murrine (RGBA capable) engine is absolutely stable and ready for the masses
A Murrine’s release could follow the Gtk+ release that will have this patch in.
Comments are Welcome
If you have to contribute in a constructive way to the discussion please follow the bugzilla, otherwise feel free to comment here on my blog.
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 47 Comments »
Just a quick note following the previous update to Clearlooks with optional Flat Toolbars.
I’ve added the same thing in the Murrine engine, should work quite good except the menubar in RGBA mode… For the moment I just ignore shadow-type when drawing menubars in RGBA mode.
So In the next release you’ll be free to use it in this powerful Gtk Engine…
Thanks goes again to lucazade for the main concept, even if it was a simple patch
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 9 Comments »
I’m actually in love with an optional feature I’ve recently added in Clearlooks:
the ability to draw flat toolbars/menubars. (thanks to lucazade for the idea!)
How to Use this Feature
In order to get this you have to:
1) update to gtk-engines revision 1062 and newer
2) open the gtkrc of Clearlooks (or copy and create a new theme) and add those two lines (see the screenshot above):
GtkMenuBar ::shadow-type = GTK_SHADOW_NONE
GtkToolbar ::shadow-type = GTK_SHADOW_NONE
A little Notice
Please notice that file-roller and inkscape seems to use something different than a GtkToolbar (they use a mix of GtkHBox Vbox and so on… don’t tell me why), and this feature will not work. (Of course I don’t want to write hacks or special cases in the engine to be compatible with their different behaviour).
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK | 24 Comments »
Hi guys, I’ve just noticed I’ve been added to the planet, so “Hello” to everybody! 
If you don’t know who is “Andrea Cimitan” (myself ehehe) I’m working on gtk-engines and gnome-themes since february 2007, I’m the author of the new Clearlooks shipped in 2.20 and of the new themes you’ve seen. Which a lot of you, guys, appreciated so much… (thanks!!!)
I’m also the author of the Murrine Engine, and I’m still working on its transparent version.
So, following my future entries on the planet (or directly from my blog), you’ll be informed on Gtk+ theming, and sometimes, on bleeding edge software (I always love to try new free software)
Cheers to everybody!
Andrea Cimitan
PS: yes I need an Hackergotchi…
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 7 Comments »
As in the title, I’m searching someone to create a murrine configurator to fit the new version changes.
A “call for coders”
This is the first part of the work needed before the release (I won’t release the new version until a configurator will be ready), as it is very importanto too.
Please help me I think pygtk could be enough.
Some Specs
1) what should it look like?
A window, with a treeview to select the theme to edit, and another part of the gui to edit the options.
My idea is to automatically build the gui from a schema file, that should follow this standard http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/EngineSchema
This will permit to do some fast port to other engines too
2) would it only have to edit a gtkrc?
After selecting the options, yes.
The older configurator (in python) is here: http://murrine.netsons.org/index.php?q=node/8 the author stopped the development. It’s GPL, so could be useful to re-use some of the code.
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine | 16 Comments »
Call for coders: I’m search few developers, check out the new post on this blog. I will release the new version when we’ll have a new murrine configurator (pygtk could be a simple solution)
Update 2: Complete alpha support, see GtkEntry for example and have fun
Update 1: Screenshot showing quodlibet with alpha-capable window.
Since there’s a lot of confusion on the web, in the last week I’ve seen a lot of people claiming about “lacks” of Gtk+ capabilities.
Some of them still think that Gtk+ doesn’t have RGBA support. And if it has, it’s related to Cairo rendering just for special (custom) widgets. Or it will require nasty hacks.
This is absolutely false.
And I will show you
Murrine with RGBA support
Yes, buttons have few problems with the contrast… but this is an alpha quality software!
Ehm… how we can get it?
First of all there’s the application support:
The application must set an rgba colormap (for example for the main window).
This will take 2 lines of code per widget (depending on the programming language).
Then you need the support of the Gtk+ engine:
The engine must be RGBA capable, like my development version of Murrine (not released and not available to the public, don’t ask for a release date now).
10 to 20 lines of code, and no hacks are required, just pure Gtk+ API!
And the good thing is that if you stop your composite window manager, the application will automatically looks like any other non-transparent app!
And of course a composite capable window-manager, like Compiz, future Metacity etc etc…
Conclusions
This could open a world of alpha-capable gtk+ applications with no-need of draw custom widgets, as the Gtk engine already draws them
And yes, it is FAST!
Posted in Compiz, English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 109 Comments »
I’m sorry for the italian community but I’m writing this post in english as I’m trying to get the widest possible feedback.
What?
In the last few days I’ve added the ability to theme the focus ring in the Clearlooks GTK Engine: normally the “focus ring” is the *dotted ring* you can see pressing the TAB key and moving between controls/widgets. That’s what we want to theme now
Mockups!
I don’t want to post my screenshot here, but I’d like to receive YOUR mockups.
Please link below in the comments, in an ordered way, your Gimp-shots. I will take them into account, certainly.
The highest priority is for buttons and tabs/notebook.
Please use the Clearlooks theme as a base for your mockup.
Spread the Voice, Pingback Me!
If you have a blog and you’re interested in helping me finding an idea (I’m really in trouble this time as I haven’t got so many ideas…) please add a link/pingback/traceback so other people can read this post and *I hope* to send their mockups.
Keep Comments Ordered and Clean!
this post IS NOT A CHAT, and thanks to everybody who will contribute
User Mockups
clarkkent:
http://tinyurl.com/2d5u7w
http://tinyurl.com/29dux3
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Themes | 14 Comments »
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