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Re: [e4-dev] modernizing the workbench visual design and remaining a good platform citizen

Hi Susan,

this might not be related to your work but a modern / fresh looking
set of icons for the workbench would also be nice.

Best regards, Lars

2009/12/3 Susan Franklin McCourt <susan_franklin@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> Hi, everyone.
> We had a brief discussion on the e4 call about this topic and thought it
> would be good to make sure everyone is aware of it.
>
> We are currently working with a graphic designer to modernize the style of
> the Eclipse 4.0 workbench. That is, what is the default stylesheet for the
> Eclipse SDK running on e4?
>
> One of the more interesting constraints, which we've always had in Eclipse,
> is balancing the desire for a custom/modern UI with respect for platform
> look and feel, and the user's platform theme. In Eclipse 3.x, we've done
> this by using native widgets in most places, and looking up system colors as
> a reference point when choosing colors.
>
> For e4, we still walk this line. Sure, we will have the technology to
> completely reskin the workbench, and folks are free to do so. But for the
> default look, I believe we will still be balancing these concerns. We may
> take more leeway in applying gradients, changing tab shapes, using
> background images or shading, but all of this should be done while still
> blending with the platform theme choices.
>
> CSS support presents a new wrinkle. It's not good enough to simply make the
> right color choices for the workbench. Sure, we can do the math internally
> and pick the right colors. But it would be ideal if we could provide
> developers with the ability to style their own applications in this platform
> respecting way, and include web components that could blend nicely. Since
> CSS is RGB-based for color attributes, we're looking at ways to specify a
> more HSV-style color for elements, where the hue could optionally be ignored
> and instead be derived from platform theme colors. Note we aren't just
> talking about background colors for images and gradients. We'd like to be
> able to specify widget colors in this way. How should this be specified in a
> stylesheet?
>
> Surely someone has already given some thought to this problem. If you have
> ideas, please comment in this bug! [1]
> A more general discussion of the visual design work can be found here. [2]
> And watching this bug [3] will ensure you see mockups when there is
> something to show.
>
> thanks,
> susan
>
> [1] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=296175
> [2] http://wiki.eclipse.org/E4/CSS/Visual_Design
> [3] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=293481
>
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>



-- 
Lars
http://www.vogella.de - Tutorials about Java, Eclipse and Web programming
http://www.twitter.com/vogella - Lars on Twitter


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