48688 - Installer option for default skin

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[rbs]

Spin off of bug 48205:

Comments From Joseph Elwell 2000-08-11 15:32:
I read reviews that said there should be an option in the installer. i.e. 
the last installer question would be: What theme would you like to use as 
default: () Modern (X) Classic.
This way we get high visibility on the availibility of themes, and we 
allow people to start off in Classic.
----
[Note: I ticked Classic to highlight that it is the default if the user
clicks OK] -- Also there should be thumbnails/comments to give a clearer
clue to a user about the meaning of these "themes/skins".

Comment 1

[Joseph Elwell]

(X) Modern. :P
hahahhahahhaha

Comment 2

[Henri Sivonen (:hsivonen) (not reading bugmail until 2025-02-06)]

That isn't funny.

Comment 3

[Alex]

This is the best comprimise between bug 48710 and 48205 thay ive sees so far

Comment 4

[jamacht]

If the installer has a custom install, then yes, it should prompt the user, 
allowing them how the interface would look, but providing a default. Otherwise, 
use the default skin. The default is the result of the battle between the above 
two bugs.
 

Comment 5

[Jason Eager]

We should give the user the choice on which skin is the default even if it is a
"default" or "standard" install.

This isn't rocket science. The user just chooses one of the radio buttons, sees
if he likes the image on the left,
and hits ok.

Comment 6

[rbs]

Plus, for assurance there could be a note that they can still change their minds 
later, saying they will just go to Edit->Preferences->Themes, from where they
could switch back (with that visible link for more ads... skins at netcenter).
Surely, one would think that marketing will have no problem with this bug.

Comment 7

[Alan S. Jones]

I think the installer option is the best idea of all.

Every theam should be sumitted with a samll image that could be incorperated 
into the installer.

If another group wants to customize Mozilla and and adjust the installer they 
could make their own theam as an option.  The installer option could be 
a scrollable text box listing all the current theams that come standard.  If 
another company made their own skin it could be bundled in the list also.  The 
user could click on any one of listed skins see a small image of the skin.  Then 
install with that as the default.  

If the installer is done right it could be setup to have many skins listed 
giving users an imedate choice in the future as people write more.

This would give skins more visibality and at the same time make things more 
flexable.  

Comment 8

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

I think this is going to get wontfixed. The Mozilla Installer is a generic app,
ill-suited to throwing up highly app-specific dialogs such as this one. And this 
would require a fair bit of native work on each platform. And that's even before 
we get onto the difficulty of showing a preview of an arbitrary skin inside a 
native dialog ...

Comment 9

[rbs]

To keep a reasonable download, two skins are enough.

Comment 10

[Alan S. Jones]

I think we could do more then two, but it dependson the over all size of 
Mourzilla at that point.  A neat idea would be to include the 3 Clasic 
skin platforms in the 3 major builds (Linux, Mac, Windows).  I just saw the mac 
clasic skin in Win32 and I like it better on win32 then the Win32 skin.  That 
would truly be a neat option that would set Mozilla appart.  

Depending on what happens with the xpi installer size of the extra skins may not 
be an issue if the the skins themselves come from remote site and not in the 
actual download file.

Comment 11

[timeless]

sorry. This is the WRONG answer. The option should be in the profile manager 
not the installer.
a) afaik the installer really gui
b) Each user should be able to pick it when the first run mozilla/netscape
c) If the user wants to quickly test something while live switching is horked 
needing to reinstall is silly.

Comment 12

[Jason Eager]

Timeless: No-one is talking about the theme selector disappearing from the
properties menu. We're just talking about allowing the user
to choose one of them during install to act as his (or her) default skin. We'd
put something on that dialog box which would say "To change
your theme after installing, simply go to Edit->Preferences->Themes". I think we
NEED this to introduce some of our new users to the
concept of themes. I don't see the profile manager starting up during install.

Matthew, what difficulty do you see in displaying a preview of each theme? I
just thought we'd make a representative PNG or JPEG. We're
not talking about re-theming the install dialog itself! 

Comment 13

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Firstly, you have to put an image rendering engine into the installer.

Secondly, you have to special-case the Mozilla installer (which, AFAIK, is a 
generic installer for installing any program) to deal with a program which 
happens to have skins (Mozilla), and show a special skin selector dialog just for 
that.

Thirdly, you have to make sure that the preview image is up to date with the 
skin.

And fourthly, you have to make sure that the preview image is up to date with the 
chrome.

These problems go away if you're talking about the profile manager rather than 
the installer -- but the profile manager doesn't show if you are only migrating 
zero or one profiles.

Even if that could be solved, I still think it's a really bad idea -- because 
users shouldn't have to care about skins unless they actually *want* to (i.e. 
unless they actually go into the prefs and look). They just want to run the damn 
program.

Compare: Windows (Display control panel), Mac OS (Appearance control panel), and 
the various skinnable media players, don't *force* you to choose a skin when you 
first start them.

Comment 14

[timeless]

Compare w/ many display managers: xdm, gdm, kdm
Each require/allow you to select your gui as you startup (login)
... very much like the profile manager.
Windows these days has a login screen that you see once (even in single user 
mode).
MacOS 9 has one ... MacOSX will probably do so too
BeOS and Mac OS [pre 9] do not, erm.
--Installer could chain to profile manager.--
I agree w/ mpt the work for adding this junk to installer isn't worth it.  I 
also think that it isn't logical (see my previous commments)

Comment 15

[leger]

Reassigning from bdonohoe to hangas

Comment 16

[rbs]

It also looks like routing this via the profile manager could greatly simplify
the implementation, possibly just popping up the XUL themes-switching dialog
(which is already XP). Perhaps then, with the simplification, PDT could like 
the idea. It will be nice though to improve the themes-switching dialog to show
thumbnails/previews before RTM.

Comment 17

[hangas]

I would love to see the installer ask about the skin and show the preview images 
allowing the user to choose the skin that suits them best.  We do by the way have 
the Pref panel skin switching preview images in the tree, and now that jar files 
should work on all platforms they will even show up in the builds.

Comment 18

[Zach Lipton [:zach]]

Chaning the qa contact on these bugs to me. MPT will be moving to the 
owner of this component shortly. I would like to thank him for all his hard 
work as he moves roles in mozilla.org...Yada, Yada, Yada...

Comment 19

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

updating to new owner. sorry for the spam.

Comment 20

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Wontfix. Installers and profile managers are both annoying, and this would make
ours more annoying.