Well, at least for web browsers we have choiced Chromium for 32 bit release and also SMPlayer for media files sur those basis.
For pictures I'm wondering why Geeqie is not included by default since 3.7.8 because is fast, light and intuitive (wheel mouse changes from pictures) and with Viewnior (the new default app) wheel mouse zooms in-out and to move between pictures we must do SHIFT+Wheel mouse....
@triantares Cairo dock customisation is nice, but GTK theme ask me for some extra time to discover it, at least in my laptop doesn't looks very nice, but I have it only since half an hour....
Anyway, I think that looking back the fantastic GUI that @Thanatermesis had made always in different Elive releases I have completely confiance in his choices and decisions, after that anybody can personalice later their OS like he loves, doesn't it?
Like I said before ..... I think we should offer a light and a dark theme as default on boot up like in "Gem" back in the day.
That makes it a user choice.
I'm all for having the user in control and sometimes don't see eye to eye with @Thanatermesis on that.
The choice of language being made for you (through your IP) without any option for control, except in a later stage is one of those things.
Of course you can set some default stuff to show how good it is and if you do it well, the user will stick with it ........ but in the end, the user needs to be in control.
I hate it when others try to tell me what I do and don't want, so I try not to make choices for others either.
If I didn't mind it, I'd probably be a happy Apple user
im not against to change the default apps, they are meant to be the best option from all available, and this is the only thing that matters offering the best option
by other side the default app needs to follow strict rules of quality and others in order to be accepted, is not about "tastes" or "personal tastes" but simply a calculation of what is the best option, where multiple things matter, for example:
usability: needs to be easy and intuitive
features: should provide a good set of wanted or nice features (but not useless ones)
lightness: even if we don't "care" much about this point in our -personal- preferences, it is a very important one for being default... in other words: if elive starts to using bloated apps like any other distro, why don't use any other distro? elive has a gigantic work made in being light and fast
beautiful: not a decisive point but is much better if has a beautiful interface
personal preference: "you like it more A or B?", everybody has a preference
more points?
We should not forget the difference between "our personal taste" and "the best for default in the OS", at the same time the installer (which gives the OS in a static way to the user) already offers features like changing default applications (like the office suite replacement to a lighter one)
Note: i think that these "rules" (and/or more) needs to be correctly listed in a specific thread on the forum, like a howto or similar... maybe @triantares remembers a post where I wrote similar ones in the past?
if i say green is because of a reason but not because i like it (again, if i like green i just install it to myself), a different thing is that "i didn't explained why the green is better option than the red one"
in fact a vote is not a correct way to determine decisions (even if we have been educated much with this idea of "correct"), a vote only includes the factor of "personal preference" (which is important), but before that, its needed the other factors, being objective with the reasons to use A or B. For example, let's say you like a lot app A, but it crashes all the time, even if your preference is for A it is not a good option to use because of the much crashes which turns it annoying and unusable. In a similar way imagine an hospital operation, on which from a screen a lot of people votes in a democratic way if he should be "opened" on the left or the right side for a pancreas operation, is this correct? of course no, it should be opened in the correct place where it should be, because of their specific professional and medical reasons, no matter opinions or preferences, it should be done in a correct way (not sure if explain myself correctly, I seen in the past an image that shows this and explain that concept very well lol)
we are talking about e17 theme or e16 theme?
for e16, yes it can be improved but i won't invest much time on that since e16 is a temporal desktop (but of course there's nothing against that, and will still provide a good e16 for the future too).
If e17, that's a much different topic, that's a theme which had a ton of work on it in order to be beautiful for generic tastes, friendly and usable
I propose to put our "best looking desktops" in the specific created section Screenshots , i don't remember right now how his desktop looked exactly (and yes your posts can have their images updated if you made improvements on it)
That's a silly proposal, your memory is getting short.
It's not about a nice desktop but about making the default e16
theme and the default cairo-dock theme compatible with each other ...... as well as making the e16/menu look a bit better. Currently it looks like an unloved, slapped together mess ..... not something you can put on offer publicly, no matter how hard you keep on apologizing for it. Especially because E22 isn't here on short notice either.
The current e16 in general (and dark-one theme specific) does not generate .svg icons, aligns text and icons badly (you noted that yourself for the light version) and does not have category-icons like the cairo-dock menu has.
the menu "enhancements" can be found in the subdirectory "FancyMenus" with the theme on github:
I've committed the last changes this morning.
The cairo-dock-light-panel cusztomization is in another repo there:
IMO the "light" themes need to be offered alongside the dark as default choice .... like in early "Topaz".
Currently the regeneration of the themes and menus kills off the installed light themes which is a PITA .... so direly need to be generically added to e16 on install.
On top I think the dark-one e16 theme as well as the default single-panel for cairo need some tweaking too but I'm not putting work into that if it's not going to be used/added (I don't use it myself).
seems like they are the best options: chrome for lightness (compared to others) and compatibility and being the most "commonly used browser", smplayer features a lot of things from mplayer and works much more optimally / light (which is a big problem when a slow computer bottlenecks trying to play a video in realtime), its only a good thing but also the most important one lol
mmh, geeqie was good and was the default in all other previous versions of elive, but recently it looked a bit ugly (i assume the code has not been updated to the new gtk things?), and viewnor seemed like to be a simple viewer that does the job (do we need anything else than that? more exactly: to edit we have gimp and others, for albums we have shotwell). The wheel thing is a point, but since with shift it works good i assume that is good this way , the question will be if there's a reason to use geeqie than the new viewnor
note: cairo-dock customizations (adding things) seems like to increase the ram required for it to run, the actual settings are pretty enough, maybe we need an extra launcher like for internet and hotkeys (anybody added a launcher, for me it restarts the app)
good "worth to use" themes can be included by default (just like it does actually), the default one needs to be both beautiful and userfriendly, for example: buttons should be not too small not too big, readable fonts, colors, intuitive elements, etc... i say that because is not easy to find themes that comply's a correct overall usability
yeah more like a look i think too that the main thing is "dark" vs "light", the actual alpha's are a mix of both lol (but main theme is dark), the result is not bad, but stills a taste thing, an extra light theme could be nice to include too, and if the overall result is better it can be set as default
it is good and needed to be able to customize everything as one's wish, that's one of the best things that the open source has, and providing a good defaults system makes that just perfect
well, its a specific section / place to share our beautiful customizations
tell me when it is more ready so i can make a package for it
maybe like an (another) popuped question on desktop start so that the user can switch to a light theme
looks pretty good
note: @triantares I moved your screenshots post to E16 light theme customization , maybe you want to edit it with links or something (not sure if you had already a theme entry or similar)
It messes up the order of the files i.e they are different than in the filemanager or from a terminal.
It's almost impossible to look at some comics or sequences in the right order.
I say keep it as minimal as possible for the default. There's already too much there. Web-browser, file manager, shortcuts and logout should do.
Personally I added cpu/ram monitoring and time 'cause I don't run "conky" but to each his own.
I had that a few times .... it just crashed or disappeared. Lately not so much though.
Nowadays we will be even special with a light theme as default,
because:
All and every now and then you'll see 'dark theme' even on win 10,
that isn't meaning that we also have to follow this stupid mainstream, I even also do not cut my jeans at the knees, because everyone else is doing it cause of lack of an own style.
We had dark themes now for more than 10 years on Linux, it ain't any special anymore and also not helpful in a daylighten environment at all.
I usually do not a comparison with other ideals,
but there is a reason for it, when Apple comes with a silver- white appearance for years.
Ya, now you can say - wtf I ain't care for whoevers OS - but it will be not any honest.
(e.g. Plank, Docky, Cairo..... and many more features are just a trial to clone from - guess who)
There was a time, when the digital world had
a visionary, and he made us
Think Different
This guy is sadly gone, and his visions are following him.
So,
now we have Thana as a real Visionary with a sense of seeing the beauty of a clear design -
under and over the hood as well.
Funny thing so far: He doesn't know it.
And so
it is on us to remind him from time to time:
Elive is special.
Keep on thinking different.
Light theme by default,
the dark theme as natural option onboard.
It's not meant as a customisation but as a (working) proposal to beautify the default theme settings.
The current default settings are not good enough to be publicized or as @Rebel450 colorfully puts it: a Frankenheimer desktop.
If we do it, then let's do it well !..... or leave it, hide in a dark corner in the digital cellar and wait for E22.
IMO e16 has to be the promise of what the future e22 is going to bring on Elive.
Not really, is a personal taste as in a PDF file we scroll with wheel mouse and use SHIFT+Wheel to zoom in/out and Ctrl+wheel to move left/right I think Geeqie follows the same pattern while viewnor follow an opposite pattern.
yeah i know that, but stills a good place to share / show it
@triantares not sure if i asked this before but the last / updated code that you have is always on the github sources? (didn't checked it yet, stills on my TODO)
people will still judge elive on anything (ok ok... only the stinky trolls do these things )
lol don't scare me!
the most important in any case is to make clear the correct information, like:
desktop is e16
its a temporal desktop
we are on alpha
system is not so featured / polished / userfriendly as the stable version, you must try the stable first if you didn't !!! (insert big spank here)
I agree, I love 3.0.6 stable, is fast, beautiful, and impressed me any time I worked with (and I still works with, i.e. in my last Belgium business travel when 3.7.9 lost network features, I even keep always a partition with 3.0.6 but for a new possible future user show him a Wheezy based release maybe is not the best idea, in the other way, some screen captures or small videos that shown visual effects and how fast Elive is they will be welcome.
offering the best option
but the last / updated code that you have is always on the github sources? (didn't checked it yet, stills on my TODO)
(ok ok... only the stinky trolls do these things 
