Should MX Linux 25 shift to a skeuomorphic default theme?

[asqwerth]

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As @asqwerth mentioned if color palettes are adopted this will close some of the gap without having to go beyond skin deep. KDE does this well and I've found palettes useful on Enlightenment as well... While I'm mentioning it nobody does skeumorphic better (or worse depending on your viewpoint) than the classic E-16 and E-17 'Dark' theme combined with E-17 GTK revolved...lol

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Now if only XFCE could also add the ability to simply apply a colour scheme onto -- or at the very least, change the accent colour of -- a base light and dark theme!

[Arnox]

Okay, I’ll be the unpopular one.

I seriously dislike window themes that try to look glassy, glossy, frosty, semi-opaque, shiny, metallic or any other “realistic” effect. The same goes for icons with 3d or realistic optics.

If a user wants those kind of things they can go to xfce-look.org and its ilk and try to find something that works for them. It only takes a few clicks in mx-tweak to change the theming.

As AVLinux, asqwerth and dreamer have pointed out, it is a lot of work to get a theme looking halfway consistent just across gtk2 and gtk3. Gtk4 keeps moving the goalposts and actively making it harder. Qt6 may or may not throw another spanner in the works. I don’t know if any of the devs have the time or interest to invest in getting a “skeuomorph” theme working consistently. Personally, I know I don’t.

I would have a problem if such a theme was to be the default in MX. Why would you purposely make the distro look like some kind of Windows 7 retro thing? To appeal to nostalgic users who grew up with computers in AK-47’s 90’s-00’s and 00-10’s eras? Is the current look of MX really the thing holding back hordes of new users from using it?

So, now a personal polemic: A window theme and an icon theme should be simple, consistent and yes flat(ish). The MX-comfort theme is an excellent example. Papirus icons are an excellent example. “Realistic” effects are an unnecessary distraction. Windows 8 only gets a bad rap as the precursor of all evil through of a combination of the stupid way they implemented the windows menu as a full screen and conservative backlash against the shock of the new. Theming-wise Windows 10-11 does a lot right.

As a final note: I’ve been spending my hobby time fiddling with a variation of the comfort theme. Sorry “skeuomorph” fans, if it ever sees the light of day you’re probably not going to be enamoured with it

Disclaimer: These are my personal thoughts and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of MX-Linux in general.

Hm... It looks like the devs aren't as united on this as I would have hoped...

If a user wants those kind of things they can go to xfce-look.org and its ilk and try to find something that works for them. It only takes a few clicks in mx-tweak to change the theming.

Yes, but the issue isn't that these themes aren't available for other users. The issue is how we present the distro to new users. And yes, I have heard a few complaints about MX looking boring and samey in the past. I remember just a bit in the past as well where people got really excited about both Garuda and especially Deepin partly because of their bold, colorful, and sometimes, yes, glassy choices for theming. There's also Q4OS with their XP-esque Trinity desktop which turned a few heads. For us to have the option of all of that but choose instead to just go back to a full flat theme with absolutely nothing setting it apart is just... I'm sorry, man, but looking at grey flat color squares with maybe rounded corners doesn't exactly excite me visually, you know? Presentation is important when you want to sell something. (Yes, I know we're not actually "selling" something, but you know what I mean.)

As AVLinux, asqwerth and dreamer have pointed out, it is a lot of work to get a theme looking halfway consistent just across gtk2 and gtk3. Gtk4 keeps moving the goalposts and actively making it harder. Qt6 may or may not throw another spanner in the works.

It is work that I would be willing to do. Admittedly, I don't have any knowledge of how to make a custom theme for XFCE or KDE from scratch, but I will search and I will find out as much as I can in order to get the best look possible. And hey, if I fail, we can all go back to the usual flat design and not talk about it anymore for the next two years. Again though, I don't want to do all that work just to get shot down in the end. The dev team must all agree to this beforehand or we might as well just stick to what we've done before. I hope though that you guys will give this a chance.

Why would you purposely make the distro look like some kind of Windows 7 retro thing?

Who said Windows 7 had a monopoly on skeuomorphic glass? MacOS also did it and also old-school KDE. Hell, you could even argue that Windows XP did it as well, but it was more metal and ceramic looking as AK-47 pointed out. (I actually wouldn't mind that look at all either and have no problems going for that look too.) Windows Vista/7 very often gets pointed out in particular though because people agree that they seemed to have pulled a skeuomorphic design off the best. I mean, if we're really going to go down this route about what looks "old", I could easily argue that the entire Metro/flat design is incredibly old-school design, going back to Windows 3.11. Ultimately, I don't think whether a style is "old" or not should be a factor in deciding the theme for MX. A style is a style. What we should be asking is, what feeling and style do we want to convey? Do we want to go with the super boring and super common flat design? Or do we want to at least try to stand out a bit?

Is the current look of MX really the thing holding back hordes of new users from using it?

Everything contributes to how a new user will perceive the distro. Stability, ease of access, tools, performance, and yes, even UI and presentation. If we can make the distro look more visually appealing to new users, then why not?

Windows 8 only gets a bad rap as the precursor of all evil through of a combination of the stupid way they implemented the windows menu as a full screen and conservative backlash against the shock of the new.

As someone who to this day still uses 8.1 somewhat alongside MX, I can definitely tell you that it was more than just "Ew, bad theming!" (Although it certainly wasn't good at all.) You mentioned the Start menu, but it was definitely more than that.

There is something though that I can't argue against for sure, and that is your own opinion. If you don't personally like skeuomorphic design, that's totally fair and I have no counter to that except to say that, hey, as you already mentioned, you can always change it in about 5 seconds.

[AK-47]

@Melber I think you are spot on, and I think a lot of people are better off with themes and eye candy that doesnt push their graphics too.

But, there are those of us that enjoy shadows and 'glass' and shiny. One of the ***best*** things I have found with MX is that it is NOT hard at all to add the eye candy.. and the base that is delivered currently is pretty dang good for building on it.

One of my long term goals is to build the theme, icons and windows that I love.. and I am half way there on xfce.. my next round is all about the window shading and bringing more custom into it.

In my opinion ... people differ with all aspects of what they like and having SUCH a good base to start off with is the bomb! We have a jewel here, and if the dev's keep on the path they are on.. we have the ability to tweak it all up and take it where we ( individuals ) want it to go.

Perhaps I should add some clarification to my categories. A lot of themes during certain eras were built around the graphics that were available at those times.
The 80's-90's themes looked the way they were because monochrome and few-colored monitors were the only things you could get.
The 90's-00's saw some more colours but because of how comparatively large individual pixels were, the 3D effects worked OK as they required only 2-3 additional pixels of border to be implemented. They would still work on modern hardware but wouldn't look the way the developers originally intended.
The skeumorphic glass/plastic themes became all the rage because somebody wanted to show off the effects possible with the graphics cards of the 00's-10's.
Then in the 10's-20's some old chap invented the smartphone, and others followed. Perhaps they realised they need to take a step back and not have the theme consume loads of graphics, RAM and CPU resources, because the flat themes should (in theory) be better than your application looking like a Fisher Price toy. That said, the Tango icon set is a decent skeumorphic icon set. The flat themes in particular can scale to HiDPI monitors very well and with little effort. Windows and MacOS have high contrast versions of their flat themes which actually look good.

I think flat themes are not bad per se, but we lost the definition for elements, the contrast of icons and text, and some brainiacs decided it was a good idea to make the situation even worse by implementing disappearing scroll bars, super thin (1px) window borders and other elements. This is especially the case for Linux, for example KDE thinks progress bars for Breeze should not contain any text, so it looks like a slider with text next to it. Although this breaks many applications, they don't care about fixing the issue. Flat themes were actually the first themes (80's-90's) because they even scale well on monitors with limited resolution, 3D and skeumorphic themes require extra pixels for the borders that flat themes do not need. But back in the day the flat themes were excellent in contrast and didn't do stupid tricks like disappearing scrollbars and buttons, low contrast "soft" colours, etc.

[Arnox]

Perhaps they realised they need to take a step back and not have the theme consume loads of graphics, RAM and CPU resources, because the flat themes should (in theory) be better than your application looking like a Fisher Price toy.

They aren't. Windows 8.1 Metro I think actually consumed a little MORE resources than Aero. And Windows 10/11 are just... Yeah. And to really put this theory into the ground, Windows XP could run on a damn toaster.

I'm not sure why some people are now so scared of adding gradients to their icons, taskbar, and window elements. Also, I agree. Screw disappearing scrollbars and other modern design nonsense. A particular pet peeve of mine is massively rounding the corners of images. Just looks dumb though admittedly, I couldn't tell you exactly why.

[Melber]

@Arnox
The question posed in the thread title is "Should MX Linux 25 shift to a skeuomorphic default theme?"
My personal answer remains no.

Do I have anything against you and/or other users creating such a theme?
Equally no. In fact, go for it. If it works across xfwm/gtk2/gtk3/gtk4/plasma/fluxbox and you can find a complementary, maintained and comprehensive icon theme (don't forget you are going to need icons for all the mx tools) I would have no issue with including them in a default installation.

Just not as the default theme.

[dreamer]

Since Windows 7 theme resources are available for every toolkit and window manager I wanted to post a screenshot showing kvantum and gtk3 widgets. I like the style despite being a little plastic. No dark theme of course.

The history of dark theming is pretty short. Dark themes were pretty much unknown to the common user when Windows 7 was released in 2009. The first dark theme I saw was a gtk2 theme called Dust. Demand for dark themes slowly increased. There was no dark theme in Windows 10 at launch in 2015 (only a dark panel). It was during the Windows 10 cycle (2015 to 2020) that a dark theme appeared in Windows. So pretty recent. When I started my Android Pixel phone for the first time it had a dark theme out of the box. Not a great choice during the day.

To be honest I don’t think theming is that important. The MX forum and the presence of the devs are important. Most important is the product itself. For me it’s the MX tools. I recently discovered that there is a GUI for efibootmgr in MX Boot Options. I was kind of blown away. I thought to myself: MX devs have created a GUI for every application I can think of. I have all the tools I want. That’s a strange feeling of completion. “Luckily” I switched away from official desktops to keep me busy.

[BV206]

What exactly is "flat"?

[AVLinux]

What exactly is "flat"?

In the context of themes it basically means widgets, buttons etc. without artificially rendered depth, shadows, gradients, or gloss. Windows 8+, Android, Chrome OS, Ubuntu Gnome's defaults and things like Papirus Icon theme would basically fall under the general definition as examples.. Borders around widgets and windows are generally also very thin or absent completely.

[Melber]

What exactly is "flat"?

The opposite of ugly.
scnr

btw. papirus icons do actually use very small and subtle shadows

[Kester]

I like to keep my desktop simple and uncluttered although I do have plenty of icons. Spacing and alignment is key and flat icons without fiddly 3D effects are better for my needs especially arranged on a flat background of suitable colour and tonal level. I have been using an icon set of my own design for some time now - I can easily add additional icons when necessary. I also tend to set a single flat colour for the desktop to maintain the overall clean cut appearance. It is a mistake to dismiss simple themes as boring; a flat theme can be efficient in use, giving clarity of purpose, remember the first rule of good design relates to function - the key role of a computer for me is the jobs it can do and I want clear, non-fussy icons to help navigate to applications and files which can be displayed on a non-fussy desktop. Everyone has their own taste certainly, choose what satisfies your own needs of course but hopefully the developers of MX25 will continue to make it easy to choose what suits us as individuals - one of many reasons I like MX-Linux so much is that it can so readily be personalised.