And dark themes for apps are in GTK+

Another week, another GTK+ feature. This week's feature is probably easier to implement for applications that would require it, but the uses are also more far-reaching.

Before

After

What does it mean for me, application developer?

If your application matches the type of applications that would benefit from having a dark theme, please try it out. The 3 lines patch is easy to add to existing applications.

You'll most likely want to switch to using symbolic icons as well, for most of your UI, so that the icons show in the expected colour when a dark theme is not available.

What does it mean for me, GTK+ theme designer?

Either you keep your theme as-is. Then all applications will use that theme. This is most likely what should happen for Accessibility-related themes.

Or you create a "gtkrc-dark" file in your theme, at the same level as your gtkrc, and make it dark (not a bit darker like the bad example above, but real dark). Test it out with gtk-demo's “Application Window” demo.

By the way, you might want to update your theme for GTK+ 3.0 at the same time.

Tea break! (and High-Quality vids)

We're currently closing up on some discussions at the GNOME UX Hackfest, and I'm going through my browsing history and cleaning up my TODO lists at the same time.

I thought I'd mention this nice link if you haven't seen it. Theora, when encoded with a newer Theora (Thunelsda) encoder, should at least match “MPEG-4” (in quotes, because I don't want to mention specific profiles, and get into a pissing contest).

Monty's been working on Theora and Vorbis quite a bit, and I'm pretty sure he would admit that the Theora of past didn't do justice to the capabilities of the codec.

Have fun with the surround sound work in Vorbis too :)