Appearance of dialogs: re earlier remarks

I am using the Galaxy theme (which is what we used for OOo.org documentation)under Linux. If I should be using a different theme, please tell me.

If the dialogs really do look different in Windows, maybe a note should be included at the beginning of the book - possibly where the list of Mac keys is.

Hi :slight_smile:
I think the silvery theme was carefully chosen to almost match one of the standard Windows ones. We can't cover each and every theme. It's better to aim for being consistent within the documentation. Also the silvery one is clearer for accessibility purposes. I don't know the name, i think it is called "Galaxy" in Ubuntu.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I think the silvery theme was carefully chosen to almost match one of the standard Windows ones.  We can't cover each and every theme.  It's better to aim for being consistent within the documentation.  Also the silvery one is clearer for accessibility purposes.  I don't know the name, i think it is called "Galaxy" in Ubuntu.

The Ubuntu theme is called XP Silver. Galaxy is the icon set.

Some of the pix in the book are taken from Windows XP or Windows 7, or
from different themes in Ubuntu. Changing them all to be consistent is
low on the priority list (see lots of previous correspondence on this
topic). Besides, having them all consistent doesn't mean they will
look like what the user sees. We just have to live with the fact that
no matter what we do, LO won't look exactly the same on everyone's
systems.

See also comments interspersed in Hazel's note below.

I am using the Galaxy theme (which is
what we used for OOo.org documentation)under Linux. If I
should be using a different theme, please tell me.

You're fine. See above for my comments on Galaxy and themes.

If the dialogs really do look different in Windows, maybe a
note should be included at the beginning of the book -
possibly where the list of Mac keys is.

Yes, unfortunately it's probably necessary to keep reminding people
that things look different on different systems. We do already mention
in several places (including in Chapter 2) that some *fields* appear
only on Windows, or only on Mac, or only on Linux, and we mention the
LO Open/Save dialogs being different. But we haven't been reminding
people that the general appearance may differ from what they see.

We also mention in several places that the "expansion symbol" is a
triangle on some o/s and a + on others.

--Jean

Forgot to say: I haven't had a chance to look at the other issue Hazel
mentioned, about some list boxes being replaced by long buttons. At
this point I don't know if that varies with o/s or if it's an overall
change.

Anyway, Hazel, thanks for bringing this to our attention. It's
definitely worth checking on.

--Jean

Hazel, I don't understand what you mean by "long buttons". Can you
give me an example of where to find some? I don't see anything
different on my Mac or Ubuntu 11.04 from what's in Chapter 2, but I
haven't looked on Windows.

--Jean

Look in tools>options>view and you'll see quite a few of them. They look raised in relief, not recessed like the spin boxes.

When I change the Ubuntu theme to one of its defaults (Ambiance or
Radiance), they look as you describe. When I use the XP-Silver theme
they look as shown in the existing chapters of the user guides.

On Windows 7 and Windows XP, they look as shown in the user guides. On
the Mac they're subtly different (gray but flat).

--Jean

I don't have these names. On my system, the available themes are Galaxy (default), High Contrast, Crystal, Tango and Oxygen.I use Galaxy.

Where does XP-Silver come from? Is it an extension?

Hi Hazel

Michele Zarri put the following zip file together a few years ago:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3605254/ubuntu-xp-silver-theme.zip

The instructions he wrote are:

Win XP Silver-like theme for Ubuntu

Installing the theme is fairly straightfoward.

1) Go to System > Preferences > Appearance and stay in the Themes page.
2) Save your current theme in order to be able to revert to it.
3) Drag and drop the file GTK2-WinXp etc.. and select the option to
use it immediately. This is not a full theme, but only the "controls"
part. (If you press the Customize button you will notice that a theme
is formed by Controls, Colours, Window Borders, Icons and Pointers).
If you go to controls, the last entry should read WinXP-Silver.
4) Drag and drop the XP-SilverWindow etc.. file in the Appearance
dialog and again select use immediately. This is the windows borders
part of the theme. It is 99% based on a theme I found on
art.gnome.org, but I needed to modify the shade applied to the title
(just removing a couple of lines from the XML file).
5) to finish the transformation, you can select Verdana as the font
for the Window Titles.
6) save the new theme.

Both the components of the theme were found at art.gnome.org where you
experiment with many other combinations (probably you will even find
something better... as I said I did not spend more than an hour on
this.

Michele Zarri
3 May 2008

Martin

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:29:25 +0200 Martin Fox <info@mjfox.ch> wrote:

--
Hazel Russman <hazel_russman@yahoo.co.uk>

Maybe it is if you use Ubuntu! I don't have either Ubuntu or Gnome so I don't have access to these graphical tools. I use Crux with openbox as my window manager, which means I have to do most things by hand.

I've found the other LO themes in /usr/lib/libreoffice/basis3.4/share/config and I've put the new theme in there and chowned and chmoded it to match the others, but there seems to be something else that needs to be altered to make LO pick it up.

Hazel, what you have listed are *LO icon themes*. What Martin and I are talking about are *user interface themes*, which are not the same thing -- they are part of the window manager, not LO's configuration. But unless you are taking screen captures, it does not matter what user interface theme you are using. Please don't be concerned that the appearance of the drop down lists etc is a bit different on your machine. The icons will be the same because you have chosen Galaxy, so you can check whether screenshots in user guides are out of date.

--Jean

No, is a theme for desktop and windows, as Radiance, Clearlooks, Oxygen
and others. In Gnome I guess...

Hope this helps
Sylvia