Closed Bug 218329 Opened 21 years ago Closed 17 years ago

Make Modern the default theme for Mozilla instead of Classic

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: Themes, defect)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
Themes
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: gerv, Unassigned)

References

Details

In the "Make 1.5 more user-friendly" newsgroup discussion, it was suggested that
we should make Modern the default theme instead of Classic.

"If we are positioning ourselves as a Netscape 7.1 upgrade, which we do because
1.4.1 will include security fixes which NS 7.1 did not include, we should use a
similar appearance."

"I prefer Classic :) partly because it uses system colors & themes."

Gerv
Blocks: 218324
Is shliang active anymore?
FWIW, this issue has been WONTFIXed twice in bug 55454.
>Is shliang active anymore?

no
arg... I don't like this one. can we have a wontfix?
Please fix. Classic reminds too much of N4.
bz: I just assigned this to the default component owner.

I can see this bug is going to provoke argument... :-)

Gerv
No longer blocks: 218324
"I can see this bug is going to provoke argument... :-)"

That's an understatement if I ever heard one!  ;-)

Personally I like Classic more than Modern, but have never cared for the
Netscape 4.x icon set. I Didn't care for it when it first came out, and time
hasn't changed my mind.

Using the Netscape 4.x icons gives Mozilla a dated appearance. It also has the
disadvantage of reminding people of Netscape 4.x and all it's problems.
Allthough Modern was redesigned between between Netscape 6.0 and 7.0, it still
bears to much similarity to Netscape's marketing blunder.

Mozilla needs a new theme that will establish it's identity as being independant
of Netscape. The Qute theme in Firebird meets this goal. Neither Classic, nor
modern do.

For any future 1.4.x updates the best way to go would be retaining the Classic
theme as default, but with a different icon set. Just changing the graphics, NOT
making any major changes to the css files.
Gerv, will you be okay with changing Classic icon set instead? I can supply
neoclassic graphics.
It's not what _I_ would be OK with that's the point of discussion :-)

Anyway, I think that this bug is no longer the best forum for this question.

Gerv
Why not ask the user which theme he wants ?

Just add a step in the installation procedure. A little window which shows
themes' previews. And the user can choose between classic and modern theme.
I just installed v1.83a and created a new profile. To my surprise, it starts
with Modern as default. Is this intended?

Prog.

Ok, I think I figured it out. A newly created profile seems to inherit the theme
used by the profile that was used to launch the Manage Profiles window (through
Tools -> Switch Profile). I wonder if it's a new bug...

And by the way, that was supposed to be "v1.8a3" in my previous comment.

Prog.
*** Bug 280357 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Assignee: shliang → themes
QA Contact: pmac
IMHO this should be done for the planned community release of Seamonkey (Mozilla
Suite 1.8).
(In reply to comment #14)
> IMHO this should be done for the planned community release of Seamonkey (Mozilla
> Suite 1.8).

Just don't make Modern the default one for Mac. It looks really bad on mac.
Modern is certinaly a better choice than the anachronistic Classic, but other
than its excellent tabs, it doesn't have much to go for it. It's a good idea to
make it the default for the first stage, but we should keep looking for
something better for future releases. Are there any candidates?

Prog.
Actually, this shouldn't be in Core, only in Mozilla Application Suite. And it
might get WONTFIXed there, as it might be the target to improve Classic instead.
We have no official team to decide on such things yet though, so don't flame me
for that comment, it's just my opinion.
Hmm, wanted to move to Product = Suite but then Component = Themes does not exist.

Gerv already mentioned the biggest plus for Classic in comment #0, it uses the
system's properties. Modern is more cool as a theme but always makes Seamonkey
look like an alien on any system.
But I agree that Classic needs an update. Firefox abandoned Qute a year ago,
perhaps it's author wants to join the Seamonkey movement or we can get his
permission to use (part of) his artwork?
Just my $0.02, but personally I much prefer the classic look over the modern.
While the classic reminds me too much of NS 4.x, the Modern reminds me too much
of NS 6.x+... which I despised even more than NS 4.x... I hope we can work on a
new theme for the new "SeaMonkey"... by the way, is there a way we can vote on
the new name? I would love to see something like OpenMoz.org or something
similar. Let me know, thanks!
Please do NOT discuss what you like or dislike here, and things like a name for
the suite are 1) completely off-topic and unwanted here and 2) something that
suite drivers have to decide on soon, but now now.
ISTR someone mentioning one reason to keep Classic is that Modern is broken for
256 color users.
(In reply to comment #21)
> ISTR someone mentioning one reason to keep Classic is that Modern is broken for
> 256 color users.

What many people use 256 color mode today?! No more than 0,0001%.
Modern should be default and Classic should be improvet to 16bit colors.
Look at the Minimum Hardware requirements for the Suite, 

http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/sysreq.html

I doubt that there are are many systems capable of running the Suite that only
display 256 colors. Compatability with older systems is a good idea, but you
have to have a tradeoff between that and failing to meet the capibilities
offered by newer systems.

We have reached the point where a 256 color limit is like trying to support
Windows 3.0 users. There simply aren't enough of them to make it worth imposing
software limitations on the vastly larger group of users that have systems with
higher color resoulations.

Modern's lack of support for system colors and widgets is a problem, but it's
higher color requirements isn't something that should stand in the way of a
change to the default theme.

If anything Classic's icons should be replaced with more modern ones that take
advantage of newer systems's capibilities instead of adhering to a 256 color
standard that has outlived any usefullness.

IMO, this is the _last_ thing you should be thinking about changing right now.
The 1.8 release should go out with as few changes as possible, and then you
should sit down and work out what a 1.9 would look like.

Gerv
Gerv:
We (project managers) don't think about doing it right now, it's only that some
people have discovered that bug report now.

Others:
This will probably be WONTFIXed in favor of improving the default thmeme
(different icon set and polishing) when we think it over for a future release.
Please don't post here what's you personal favorite. We will likely be keeping
to support the modern theme in some way in the future but I don't expect it to
become our default. Please also don't discuss those issues here, bug reports are
no discussion boards.
SVG will be enabled in the first SeaMonkey Release. So somebody might care to
re-make the modern theme using SVG instead of the current raster graphics. Like
this it should be possible to use the system colours, right?
SeaMonkey is replacing the Classic icon set with more modern images in bug 348720 which should make many problems with Classic in people's heads go away. The default theme should always stay one that tries to fit in with the OS, which is what we're trying to do now.

Modern does not fit in with any OS, so this is WONTFIX.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 17 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Product: Core → SeaMonkey
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