On 19 Nov 2019, at 13:49, Ivan Vučica <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2019, 23:40 Sergii Stoian <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Plus themes support bloats the GNUstep codebase. I understand that the 
> initial idea was to attract more users/developers, but… It’s not working.
> 
> Have you guessed why it's not working?
> 
> Users who would be attracted by a different theme are not aware there are 
> different themes or how to set them up.
> 
I think we have to consider several types of users:
1. Developer - reads documentation and write code. They’re getting knowledge 
from documentation.
2. Technically-skilled user - sometimes ;) reads docs and tweaks 
configuration/icons/WM. System administrators, package maintainers.
3. User Vulgaris ;) - uses what their distribution provides as DE (Unity, 
GNOME, KDE, XFCE).
Obviously, type #3 is not our target audience. For type #1 and #2 should exist 
reference implementation. That is Linux/FreeBSD based OS preconfigured for 
everyday usage (development, sysadmin tasks, package building) with 
documentation in human readable format to make their experiments easy and 
valuable. That's what I’m trying to create with NEXTSPACE.

> A solution is to ship a "gnustep-recommended-config" package as a Recommends 
> of the libgnustep-gui package. Speaking in Debian terms; same goes for other 
> OSes.
> 
> This package would pull in a theme and a systemwide plist configuring a 
> modernized theme etc.
> 
That’s an option.

> Today, if a KDE user born in 2001 installs a GNUstep program (they may not 
> care about the rest of the environment), the UI is totally out of sync with 
> their expectations. And if they go through the effort to explore an entire 
> environment, they get greeted by the 90s — whether they want it or not.
> Am I misreading expectations of a prospective user?
> 
Personally I’ve decided to define such user as "not my target audience” (I’m 
talking about NEXTSPACE here). Because such user looks for something MacOS-like 
or Windows-like. He will find DE that meets his expectations - GNOME/KDE/XFCE.

> I mean, these are my expectations, and I'm born in the late 80s. I love e.g. 
> System 7 look. NEXT look is decent to me (but just decent). I'm personally 
> around for the programming language and the frameworks, not for the default 
> theme.
> 
> Nextspace seems cool and I should get around to trying it out.


You’re welcome. I’ll be glad to hear your impression/critics.

Sergii

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