I had an idea, I don’t remember exactly who asked me for it (maybe Gyb), but it is really simple: rename all menubarstyle, toolbarstyle, menuitemstyle (etc etc…) into style[menubar], style[toolbar], style[menuitem]… same thing for other options (color[scrollbar], color[focus], shade[lightborder] etc etc…).
We actually need to write a little parser for them in murrine_rc_style.c and/or clearlooks_rc_style.c.
The thing is: I don’t have time for it in these months.
So, if someone wants to write a small patch for it… it will be merged! 
Have a good weekend…
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 4 Comments »
Just a small post about linux on the Samsung NC10.
Ubuntu Jaunty is out (it has some issues) and for a better linux experience with this netbook there’s a PPA and a Forum (I signed up today, it has both an English and an Italian section)!
So, if you are a NC10 owner, bookmark these links and spread the voice to your friends! 
OT: I forgot to say I have released murrine 0.90.3 few weeks ago with a bounce of fixes to the focus drawing function…
Posted in English, Murrine | 1 Comment »
Today should be released GNOME 2.26.0? Yes, so congrats to us!
Talking about Murrine, I’ve released 0.90.1 and 0.90.2 which contains mainly bugfixes.
0.90.1 was relased with a typo (sorry!!!) which caused a crash, thanks bitzer for pointing that out.
Changelog for 0.90.1
Changes in this release:
- High roundness values are now correctly limited.
- Use focus_color in draw_entry if the theme uses it.
- Removed shadows from GtkCombo and GtkComboBoxEntry.
- Code polishing and bugfixing.
Changelog for 0.90.2
Requires Gtk+ 2.12.0
Changes in this release:
- Fixed a crash when using focus_color.
- Now focus_color and scrollbar_color accept symbolic colors.
Download
Download link, as always:
http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine/0.90
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 30 Comments »
Murrine is a Gtk+ engine, written in C language, using cairo vectorial graphics library. By default it comes with a modern glassy look, elegant and clean on the eyes. But it is also extremely customizable, and allows the user to achieve an incredible variety of styles.
Wow, new rockin’ release!
Enjoy.
Download the source code!
Changelog
Too many changes to be listed, let’s take a summary.
This new version is extremely customizable with a huge number of new
options. Those new options allow the user to achieve an incredible
variety of styles.
In order to add those features the engine was rewritten in many parts,
sometimes even 2 or 3 times! This results in a simpler code, more
readable and more maintainable, with a lot of custom code moved from
each widget drawing function (before) to a general murrine drawing
support file (now). For example adding a new glaze style will now cost
about 20 lines and it will be applied immediately to every single
widget.
Murrine can finally use the alpha channel to draw a real transparent
theme, all it needs is an application using the RGBA colormap and a
theme with the rgba option enabled.
During the whole development, murrine was kept in sync with
every bugfix that hit gtk-engines, so this new version can also be
considered much more stable than the previous one.
Links
Website: http://www.cimitan.com/murrine
Source Code: http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine
SVN: http://svn.gnome.org/svn/murrine
Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 22 Comments »
UPDATE: should be out soon http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine/0.90/
I’m still not sure but maybe I will publish a Murrine development release in this weekend (with development I mean it won’t be called 1.0, maybe 0.90 or similar).
I’d like to have it included in Jaunty, because ubuntu is actually shipping an old bugged svn snapshot and I’m a bit tired of closing bugreports about that obsolete version.
If you have some last requests, please take a look at that post.
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 2 Comments »
I may have some time this weekend and the next weeks to continue working on both Clearlooks and Murrine GTK+ engines.
I need ideas
This post remembers you that I’ve opened a section where you can easily submit your mockups for Murrine. Use gnome bugzilla for Clearlooks.
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine | 16 Comments »
After reading Aruiz and Dylan I think I could ask your attention on that topic.
I like Dylan’s idea of a Do-ified GTK+ 3.0, it seems innovative, making user interaction more accessible and faster. At least, this is my personal opinion.
From Dylan:
@Cimi: it would be great to see Do-like functionality incorporated in Gnome 3, not just on the desktop, but also at the application level. Programs like the Gimp or Inkscape use a lot of keyboard shortcuts that may be hard to memorize all-at-once. Using the Do-metaphor *within* the application will let you invoke functions quickly, and discover keyboard shortcuts in the process.
I don’t have anything against Mono, but for Do to become an integral part of the Gnome Desktop, I think it would almost have to be part of GTK+, because it needs to communicate with other parts of the interface to know which functions are applicable given the situation (it makes no sense to list ‘Crop to selection’ as an option when nothing has been selected).
I must agree with him, sometimes keyboard shortcuts are complicated to use: how can I remember alt+g, alt+k, alt+y, alt+s, ctrl+alt+h, ctrl+alt+h+super+t+f12+enter+backspace? (omg I’m not playing the piano 
I just want to use my computer!!!)
Typing “fullscreen” is easier than remembering Totem is using “F11″, Banshee “F”, another application “Ctrl+Alt+F” and so on… And while “fullscreen” is something known and famous, what about exotic shortcuts that almost each application has? Those are just useless… and dangerous! Imagine if I press “Ctrl+W” on an important document because I forgot the right command…
Now, your thoughts please
Posted in Compiz, English, GNOME, GTK, Icons, Murrine | 69 Comments »
This is the first of a set of quizzes touching the things I don’t know how to code in cairo
I need to draw some “glow” as the one you see here:
and here: (it’s just an example, I don’t want to copy vista!!!)
Something like a radial gradient, but streched!
The first Idea I’ve got was this but it is ugly because of the fixed radius and the idea of drawing it with a big circle…
Ideas?
Posted in English, Murrine | 2 Comments »
I bought a Samsung NC10, because portability is really important if I want to take it with me at the university. I’ve saved few money from the donations which will be dedicated to future hardware issues and opensource-related stuff!
I must say woooooohooooooo and thanks to you all! Now I’m trying to get Fedora up and running…
If you’re ok, I would like to open a page in the Murrine website where I will mention everyone who donated.
I will post something in the future, starting from some guides for other NC10’s owners.
Posted in Donations, English, Murrine | 6 Comments »
I’ve sad news for you all.
This year I will be at the university during the weeks and, since I don’t have a laptop, I’m actually forced to stop the development of Murrine, Clearlooks and all other projects in which I put my effort. I hope you can help me to not have to stop working on Gtk+ software.
Please Help Me
At the same time, being a student, I don’t have the means on my own to buy a laptop, even a cheaper one. So I am asking for your help by means of a donation. Only with a laptop I can continue to organize the work needed for a fully functional system-wide transparent RGBA mode in upcoming GNOME release as well as following your requests and adding features.
So, if you enjoyed my work these past years and you want to keep these things alive, or if you just want to give me your personal *thank you for creating Murrine* or *thanks for the Clearlooks restyling* please consider a donation. All funds received will be used only for supporting the development of my free software projects.
I don’t know how much I can achieve from this, netbooks start at 400$ and if I get more I can hack on more advanced effects
I’ve opened a new section in the Murrine’s website, Feature Requests, where the most popular features could become a reality when I can code again. It is like my thank you for your donations. In that way you’re sure you’re donation will be used to the development. And after donating you can see some of your dreams implemented
By the time I’m writing the post there are seven pending features:
But these are just a few, with your donations I can implement them and what you like!
I would like to thank everyone will help me.
Status of the Gtk+ RGBA support
For the guys who missed my
first RGBA revolutionary post, they could see
how a Gtk+ engine could be transparent
Enabling RGBA
inside applications was a test, but the real goal is to set RGBA system-wide, so
every Gtk+ interface will have this channel and all of its benefits (
not only transparency, but also rounded menus, fancy tooltips, notifications and visual effects…).
- To achieve this there was a bug in the system tray which was fixed in trunk few days ago, and another patch pending in gnome-panel that needs approval.
- Got it, the next step is to write a small patch for Gtk+ in order to give the user a xsetting or an environment variable to enable/disable the RGBA visual/colormap. There was a discussion months ago, I ask Gtk+ devs for their opinion on this topic.
- Reached this point, we need to start testing applications, and submit patches to the applications that behaves in a wrong way (for example Gnumeric or Abiword), or poke Xorg guys if we will find new Xorg bugs.
If everything is ok, GNOME will be fully capable of using RGBA colormaps for its themes (wow a rounded gnome-panel!)
Summary of Murrine Projects
One of my dreams is to involve more and more people, and coordinate a group of talented themers/artists with the common goal of creating visually-satisfying and high-quality themes using and improving Murrine engine to its best.
- Murrine: Since the latest stable release (0.53.1) I’ve rewritten the code two times, I’ve fixed bugs, I’ve simplified the code improving the rendering speed, I’ve added a huge number of new options and now, thanks to the Clearlooks style code it is really modular and supports different styles like Glossy, Classic, Gummy, Inverted for Clearlooks. For example: writing a new style for next Ubuntu releases is possible without a rewrite, I just need to add the new drawing code, choose a name for the gtkrc option, and map it If we ever had released a 1.0, this would definitely qualify for a 2.0.
- Website: First of all don’t forget to register to the Murrine Website, a place where you can easily submit your themes, send your mockups, request your features, download per-application RGBA patches, ask questions to themers, vote your favourite contents! More sections could be added, email me if you have an idea.
- Murrine-Themes: From September I’ve asked lucazade to start developing a high quality set of themes for the next-gen Murrine release, using options to achieve original looks while providing an usable everyday visual experience. This project, called murrine-themes and hosted on launchpad, it is still far from being high-quality, but I’m sure that in his hands and in your hands (if you want to participate) it will be a must-have complement to the engine.
- Contest: The best themes published in the Murrine Website could be part of Murrine-Themes!
- Murrine Configurator: Two Australian guys started developing a new kind of configurator, hosted on launchpad, compatible with every engine, that will make Murrine theming fun as a video game If you are interested in joining the development or starting a configurator optimized for Murrine (it will be better of course, seen the high number of options), ask and you’ll be part of this great theming crew.
- Bazaar Playground: Murrine is first of all free software, why don’t play with the source code? There’s also a launchpad mirror, where you could play with your own branches! And why not, good modifications could be merged!
If you want to talk directly with the few guys that populates the chat, if you want to keep track of the development, don’t forget to join! We are (well, there are just few guys actually) on Freenode, channel #murrine. Add it to your autojoin!
Status of the Official GNOME Theming Projects
The “Clearlooks restyling” you’ve seen from 2.19 was done to achieve an enjoyable professional look, while being original (Clearlooks is not a copy of OS-X or Vista). A theme that could be used for years without getting annoyed
I don’t have in mind another restyle for Clearlooks, but there are a lot of minor things that require always a bit of work: starting with bugfixing to some gnome-panel theming (which will require more work). Two things that were planned for 2.24 are a compact theme (for small screens) and a dark theme for Clearlooks. I would really like to help more Benzea on this side, he is totally praiseworthy.
I would like to provide another good set of free wallpapers, at least in the gnome-themes-extras package.
Another thing in mind, but I won’t personally code for this, is colorscheme support for Gtk+ themes! You choose a theme, click on the color section of the appearance capplet, and select through a combobox or a listview the colorscheme you like. As well as storing a new one.
Donations are important to keep me inside the GNOME Art Team.
Spread the Voice
This post is really important because it’s a summary of the future Gtk+ theming, where I consider Murrine as a great tool for artists and themers. Please spread the voice on Digg and other social websites so everyone could learn from this.
Posted in Donations, English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 15 Comments »
