What should the default Cinnamon theme for Mint 13 be?

[cwwgateway]

Ok, I was wondering what people thought about the default Cinnamon theme versus other themes. Since Mint 13 will at least have a Cinnamon edition, I think it would be interesting to see what themes people would like to see as default. By default I mean the theme you see when you do a fresh install and log into Cinnamon, not included by default (which is why you only can choose ONE item). I include the current theme, the theme from mint 10/11, the theme from mint 9, and the top three themes on cinnamon-spices. Obviously, there are going to be some people who want other themes, so if you want a different theme please specify, and if one or two themes are said often I'll add them to the poll (if I can, I've never actually made a poll before so I don't know if I can edit it, so we'll see ).

Edit:
This just occured to me as I was re-reading this post and bimsemasse's (because he gives a list of good themes that aren't mint default material) - I think that it should be important to remember that a good theme isn't necessarily a good default theme. I know that sounds kind of vague, but I can't really explain what I mean by that. All I can say is think about if you could visualize it as the default mint theme. All of the suggestions so far have been very good, this is purely for the future.

[z06gal]

I absolutely love the holo themes so that would be my pick. Minty is also very nice but I will confess that I like darker themes

[realitykid]

I like Cinnamon Classic.

[bimsebasse]

The default theme isn't among the 15 best themes IMO and it's bit of a shame it probably remains default.

Of current themes with default potential unaltered both Minty and Ambiance Mint strike me as easily more attractive, especially Minty. Nightlife Mint isn't much different from the default but certainly an improvement. An altered version of Baldr (trademark Mint green highlight instead of the inset shadow effect) could also be nice. As for the retro Gnome 2/Mint 11ish themes surprisingly none has been properly made yet (both "White" and "Cinnamon Classic" seem to me half-arsed attempts, sorry guys ). I've started making a Mint-Z theme a few times (to go with the default window theme) but never completed it, the colours don't really appeal to me - someone else who likes Mint-Z should do one, though

Fave themes that aren't really Mint default material:
ElementaryOS
Eleganse
Holo
Delorean
OMG

[Gaugamela]

I Vote for Gnome!!

I really love Eleganse. But will have to try Minty. It looks great.

[cwwgateway]

The default theme for Mint 13 will be Nightlife-Graphite - Quote for Clem:

@Joseph: We're adding Mint and Graphite to Mint 13 and using Graphite as the default theme. Congratulations on a fantastic job! Note that UP1 now has hoverable and reactive systray icons (the systray applet itself lost its "applet-box" style and doesn't react like it did in 1.4). That means you can style the status icons to hover the same way applet box does

[realitykid]

The default theme for Mint 13 will be Nightlife-Graphite - Quote for Clem:

@Joseph: We're adding Mint and Graphite to Mint 13 and using Graphite as the default theme. Congratulations on a fantastic job! Note that UP1 now has hoverable and reactive systray icons (the systray applet itself lost its "applet-box" style and doesn't react like it did in 1.4). That means you can style the status icons to hover the same way applet box does

Funny how nobody voted for Nightlife on this thread. lol

[cwwgateway]

The default theme for Mint 13 will be Nightlife-Graphite - Quote for Clem:

@Joseph: We're adding Mint and Graphite to Mint 13 and using Graphite as the default theme. Congratulations on a fantastic job! Note that UP1 now has hoverable and reactive systray icons (the systray applet itself lost its "applet-box" style and doesn't react like it did in 1.4). That means you can style the status icons to hover the same way applet box does

Funny how nobody voted for Nightlife on this thread. lol

Yeah, but there weren't many votes . Anyway, Cinnamon comes with lots of themes by default.

[bimsebasse]

Nightlife is certainly a step up from the default theme and an OK choice when it couldn't be Minty or a variation of Minty

There are pros and cons in adding themes to the default Cinnamon install, it makes themes/customization more discoverable to many users but I assume, like with the Cinnamon 1.2 stock theme pack, that included themes won't receive updates and therefore will become outdated quickly.

[cwwgateway]

Nightlife is certainly a step up from the default theme and an OK choice when it couldn't be Minty or a variation of Minty

There are pros and cons in adding themes to the default Cinnamon install, it makes themes/customization more discoverable to many users but I assume, like with the Cinnamon 1.2 stock theme pack, that included themes won't receive updates and therefore will become outdated quickly.

Actually, I do think, or at least hope, that the themes will be updated. Cinnamon-themes is a package, and it can be updated for every new theme (or once every so often).

[esteban1uy]

Actually, I do think, or at least hope, that the themes will be updated. Cinnamon-themes is a package, and it can be updated for every new theme (or once every so often).

Yes, I hope so. Otherwise you are forced to manually install the themes, because you can't use an un-official ppa to do so.
For example, add Bimsebasse's ppa to your repos list and try to install any of the themes included by default in Maya, then you'll get this overwrite error:

[bimsebasse]

great...

[esteban1uy]

great...

Great???

No so great to me... I want to be able to use your ppa to get Cinnamon themes, because I know it's always up to date!!!

[bimsebasse]

I'll just nag the devs relentlessly and annoyingly whenever one of the themes in the package is more than two hours behind the latest update.

"Eh hello!????? "White" received an update over two hours ago and still you have done NOTHING about it!!"

[esteban1uy]

I'll just nag the devs relentlessly and annoyingly whenever one of the themes in the package is more than two hours behind the latest update.

"Eh hello!????? "White" received an update over two hours ago and still you have done NOTHING about it!!"

Haaaa... ha ha ha...
I'm sure they're going to love you sooooooooooo much...

[cwwgateway]

I'll just nag the devs relentlessly and annoyingly whenever one of the themes in the package is more than two hours behind the latest update.

"Eh hello!????? "White" received an update over two hours ago and still you have done NOTHING about it!!"

This is going to be a long six months...

[esteban1uy]

Ok, now seriously, would'n it have been better, for the Mint developers, to create independent packages for each theme?
That way everyone can install/uninstall/upgrade any theme a piacere without having conflicts between official repos and user's ppas.
For certain things that kind of meta-packages are really useful and necessary, but for some other are a real pain in the you-know-where.

My vote is for themes (and applets and extensions if that's the case) independently packaged.

[bimsebasse]

Ideally, imagining unlimited manpower and devs with nothing more important to do, all theme/applet/extensions would be installed and updated the way Gnome Shell extensions are here: https://extensions.gnome.org/

Or some built-in helper program.