This bug has been sitting in bugzilla for a while (read: nearly four years). Does anyone have any ideas on a better preview for the theme manager? I’m really looking for any artists to have a go at something that is simple but effective. Ideally it would display font sizes, several controls, the window border, some icons and the background image. It’s obviously not easy to fit all this information into a small preview without it looking cluttered or ugly!
7 thoughts on “Theme Previews”
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So don’t try to cram everything into a small space. Put the preview in a resizeable window with scroll bars. Those of us with huge displays can view the controls at full size, those with tiny displays can scroll around.
Just an idea.
Quick mockup:
http://bomahy.nl/hylke/theme-preferences-mockup.png
Maybe it would go better with a ListView instead of a ComboBox.
Another quick mockup:
http://rq.lt/~rq/themes-mockup.png
Not sure about the final layout of the buttons though…
The problem with switching to larger previews is that you move towards the explicit apply model, where as the GNOME HIG suggests we should always use instant apply.
Instant apply can still be used with large previews. The apply button on the second mockup isn’t even needed.
Well, if GNOME HIG suggests instant apply, let it be.
But instant apply makes large previews in both mockups unnecessary, for previews are there to help the user explore the theme before actually applying, right? Maybe in this case the larger preview should appear without choosing the actual theme somehow, for example, in a tooltip that appears upon hovering a theme name/small preview?
OTOH: how strict is GNOME HIG when suggesting instant apply? Maybe the explicit apply model would make more sense here?
Oh, I see nice mockups already attached to the bug report. The second one looks really good.