We got a bunch of good nature pictures (though only a few can be accepted because of the guidelines in terms of usability), and only a few (but good) abstract ones… so if you are great with inkscape, patterns etc etc please submit!

Not because the pictures were not good, but because a nice photo is generally not suitable as a wallpaper!

As said: please follow the quality guidelines. Expecially “Soft focus” and “No strong focal points”.

Also, we are thinking about the ending date, maybe in May or the first days of June, since Thomas (thos) needs more time for the translations! (so go and submit your walls!)

Today starts the Wallpaper Contest for GNOME 2.24, which should give a fresh breath of new wallpapers.

Our idea is to find out good wallpapers to match current GNOME style (Clearlooks and Tangoish style), and with them find out talented artists that may join (if they likes) our artwork team.

There’s not yet an ending date, maybe it will be around the GUADEC, so there can be a discussion in the Meeting.

Please follow the submission guidelines, in both general and quality sections. They summarize the aspects we will take in mind when choosing the winners.

Thanks to KDE people for the permission to take some guidelines from their 4.0 contest

From the NEWS file:

2.22.0
Welcome 2.22.0 release!

New themes since 2.20:
* Unity Gtk Theme
* Unity Metacity Theme
* GNOME-Alternative Icon Theme

Themes updated since 2.20:
* Foxtrot Icon Theme

So Unity and GNOME-Alternative are in!

The ugly code is in the gedit window… yeah you might want to kill me!

Commit will follow soon. Cheers.

I will do the 2.22.0 release when andreasn will answer me if he needs some more days to complete Foxtrot Icon Theme

Anyway I will wait since Unity is in testing, so I can do some fixes if someone notices some bugs.

P.S.: We chose the name Unity over Suave since it follows the design and it means something more (Suave got problems with translations/meanings between languages)

P.P.S.: I’ve changed a little bit the text of the inactive titlebar so should be more usable. No screenshots for the moment

Please, if you have an Idea, add a comment here.

Description

Basically it is composed of a Clearlooks-based Gtk theme with a darker background (compared to the default Clearlooks), more roundess, brighter shadings on most widgets (toolbars included), a Metacity theme merged with the Menubar (I’m a fan of the default blue borders, but since FOSS is about choice this is for the guys who like it ), and the Gnome Folders by Ulisse Perusin.

Shot

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

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):

1. Adding a GtkSetting, something like a boolean rgba-colormap = TRUE | FALSE.
2. Mapping that GtkSetting to an Xsetting.
3. 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.