<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><br><div><div>On 26 Mar 2014, at 19:17, Mike Connor <<a href="mailto:mconnor@mozilla.com">mconnor@mozilla.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div lang="EN-CA" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">So, this diagram worries me, because it’s adding more layers of inheritance, and that’s been problematic in the past. It becomes an issue because it’s not clear what’s potentially layering on top when you’re making a change (i.e. in WinLin there’s four different places there could be a rule modifying what you’re changing).</span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The way we’ve been working with build-time includes of shared resources and jar overrides has proven to be quite easy to work with and reason about.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div lang="EN-CA" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">I was hoping that this was closer to “one unified theme with different platform CSS only when absolutely necessary” (which feels like a huge win for developer sanity). That would mean shared + WinLin / OSX are the only layers in play, so it’d be much more obvious if the code is platform specific or shared.</span></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I also believe that this should be the end goal, but consider this proposal as the first step to getting there. We need an iterative plan, because there are many other things planned for the upcoming quarters.</div><div><br></div><div>The notion of a Shared theme/ folder was also introduced at some point by MattN and since the whole team was on board with that, we iteratively added/ moved more and more resources to be shared, with success.</div><div>So that’s a very pragmatic approach that has worked for us in the past and that makes it the most viable path to one theme for both Windows AND Linux, to me. </div><div><br></div><div>An obligatory note to warn us to not sink our teeth too much into getting Windows and Linux themes merged: the number of modes/ configurations that we currently support in the Windows theme is already making it the most complex blob of CSS we have. Adding Linux as an additional ‘mode’ will introduce another layer of complexity that won’t constitute in a win for developer sanity. :-/</div><div><br></div><div>What I _can_ see in the near future, however is that we’ll have one include for Linux styles at the bottom of WinLin’s browser.css. That way it won’t be a separate theme anymore, but just a file, possibly with other includes in there.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div lang="EN-CA" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">-- Mike<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></div><div><div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(225, 225, 225); border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 3pt 0cm 0cm;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>firefox-dev [<a href="mailto:firefox-dev-bounces@mozilla.org">mailto:firefox-dev-bounces@mozilla.org</a>]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>On Behalf Of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Mike de Boer<br><b>Sent:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>March 26, 2014 10:44 AM<br><b>To:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Firefox Dev<br><b>Subject:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: Proposal: Introduce a WinLin theme<o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was hoping my message would’ve been clear (hence my lengthy email, which I generally tend to avoid), but I see I didn’t succeed…<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Allow me to try with a little schematics:<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> Themes</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> Shared</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> OSX</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> WinLin</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> Windows</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> Aero</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> XP</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New';"> —> Linux</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">So we’d practically start with moving all styles and resources that are currently shared between Windows and Linux to WinLin. After that it’s possible to apply/ move even more Windows styles to WinLin, so that Linux will inherit more over time.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Thusly, having more styles common between Windows and Linux will be up to UX, of course. Right now, for example, the buttons placed in toolbars other than the nav-bar assume the GTK-look, which will most likely end up to inherit the (Windows) Australis style in the near future as bugs get filed by Linux users.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I hope this adds the necessary context to my message.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mike.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div><div><div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">On 26 Mar 2014, at 15:14, Mike Connor <<a href="mailto:mconnor@mozilla.com" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;">mconnor@mozilla.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br><br><o:p></o:p></div><blockquote style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br>On Mar 26, 2014, at 8:19 AM, Mike de Boer <<a href="mailto:mdeboer@mozilla.com" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;">mdeboer@mozilla.com</a>> wrote:<br><br><br><o:p></o:p></div><blockquote style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">My proposition is to create a shared theme for Linux and Windows, let’s call it WinLin for the time being, that collects all the styles and assets we can share for both OSes and start with the Windows (8) theme as the baseline. This has various benefits:<o:p></o:p></div></blockquote><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br>Rephrasing Gijs’ note, there’s a couple of questions we should answer separately:<br><br>* Is this the easiest and best way to maintain these two platforms?<br><br>I think this is a clear yes, and this is more or less where we started in the mists of time, we only diverged significantly later on when we moved to a “native” icon set through GTK theming. That design is in the past now, so undoing the divergence seems to make sense.<br><br>* Would the result be considered “good enough” from a UX/visual perspective? (A question I’d like UX and Horlander to answer, ideally)<br><br>Honestly, I agree it’d probably look fine, and I’d argue that as long as we respect theming (i.e. colours and fonts) on the key platforms, we’re doing well for those users. Any marginal benefit we’re getting seems significantly outweighed by the marginal cost.<br><br>— Mike</div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>