Menu Shadows in GTK2

unmadindu noted that there is a now a gtk shadow patch which does what it says for GTK2 applications. You can see a screenshot, or another or yet another. And if you're lazy, here are some RPMs with the patch. One more piece of eye candy to brighten up your weekend.

Comments

Save the eye candy

[legcramp]

I think the Linux community should stop trying to emulate the bloat of XP. What are they smoking? The point of Linux is to be alternative. And if the alternative is the same, looks the same, and takes the same amount of memory to run. Then whats the point? Arg.

Re:Save the eye candy

[yobbo]

It's free.

Re:Save the eye candy

[kenthorvath]

And if the alternative is the same, looks the same, and takes the same amount of memory to run. Then whats the point?

The point is that the alternative isn't the same - it's not proprietary, it's source is open, there are no licensing fees, the community spirit of the developers is reflected in 98% of all software developed for it (iow, it's also open and free). There is an alternative, and it is better.

Even if there was a 100% compatible open sourced version of WindowsXP that had no licensing cost, which would you use? Now imagine if the "freeXP" had no anti-aliasing, onlyh ran in 8-bit color mode, and looked like Windows 3.1, would you still rather use that than the real McCoy? Emulation of an already successful product is not a bad thing, in many ways GTK has already surpassed MFC, now they are filling in the holes.

Re:Save the eye candy

[Speare]

To some people, "alternative" means:

not spending their money for Microsoft,

not being vulnerable to viruses made for the mainstream platform,

has source code available so you can tinker or learn,

has public bug reporting so bugs you discover have a chance at being fixed,

experiment more openly with Human-Computer Interface concepts.

Some people like the look and feel of XP (though I don't). Some people like the product but despise the creator. Some people want to recreate effects they've seen in code, because they wonder if they can reverse-engineer it accurately.

I saw this and wondered, "what if the mouse pointer were the light source for GUI shadows hanging off menus and window frames; would it be horribly distracting or helpful for tracking the mouse pointer intuitively?" I value experimentation over one-size-fits-all, so that's one reason I choose Linux.

Slow news day?

[m00nun1t]

If this was a post about Windows getting shadows, there'd be dozens of posts listing the zillion OSes that already have shadows and bitching about Microsoft's lack of innovation.

When GTK2 gets it, it's cool.

Such is life.

More than visual fluff

[puckhead]

Shadows provide a visual clue that should speed up the users analysis of what's happening on the desktop. This isn't earth shattering news but is an improvement.

Re:More than visual fluff

[Anonymous Coward]

Shadows gets rid of another 1px black line. Ever notice how MacOS windows don't need a high-contrast window border? Shadows create a less cluttered look without sacrificing usability. I don't like menu-shadows, but that's mostly because they're usually done in a very bad way: High contrast shadow, only to the bottom right and only 3 or 4 pixels wide. Instead it should be a smooth shadow under the whole menu panel, offset slightly to the bottom right.

Hmmmm, might be bad.

[Krapangor]

My experience with shadow dropping menus is that the overall usuabily and visual quality degenerates. The underlying text structures are worse to read and after 16 hours in front of the screen your eyes start to hurt. And it seems to me that it reduces the menu contrast, which I personally don't like, too.
It's rather strange that people always want to add this feature. In real live you wouldn't read a news paper in blinding sunlight just to see the pages drop a shadow, would you ?

I'm not so sure...

[nepheles]

It might be of more benefit to everyone if the GTK people focussed instead on overall useability, which is lacking in many places. Once the interface is as refined as, say, that of OS X, we can concentrate on the eye-candy.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe someday they will actually have a usable file selector dialog as well.

Yes I know its not fair to point out one little thing someone worked on and complain why X wasn't done first, but really there are certain things that REALLY need to get done first.

Like how the Gnome project continues to not fix the basic flaws in Nautilus. I mean really this thing does everything but manage files well. They keep adding more and more eyecandy and yet when you do something basic like browse a remotely mounted directory Nautilues chokes bigtime. I simply don't have all day to wait while Nautilus "thinks" before displays my files.(yes preview etc is turned off).

It seems like the Gnome project is getting ahead of itself without fixing basic flaws that should have been fixed by version 1.0.

And No I'm not Trolling. I'm a fulltime Gnome user, have been since 2.0. Coming from KDE the unpolished parts I've mentioned really stand out though.

how depressing

[hmatt]

why not use Qt, already.

Re:That's the point I was making.

[Nutcase]

Nothing wrong with ignorance. It's the default state of knowledge for everyone on just about every topic.

The thing you should get upset about is willful ignorance. Choosing, and indeed working, to remain ignorant is unforgivable. Doubly so when that ignorance creates intolerance of others.