I want to try to answer each of your points, but first I try to find a more general philosophical explanation. Why is it so difficult? I listen to all the comments and understand much of it. So the last positive comment makes me see things positively, while the last negative comment makes me see things negatively.
Design involves personal judgment. There is not only artistic improvisation here, there are also, sometimes, standards that I try to respect, sometimes. Standards set by professionals. But sometimes the standards diverge and contradict each other, from one source to another. So there are personal choices to make.
I sometimes hesitate to change things, because this
FreshMint already inherits a history of "do" and "don't". This FreshMint is the descendant of another project, an ancestor:
Prosilver-lm. I had already had some feedback from Clem and Xenopeek on Prosilver-lm. On Slack and on private messages.
Re: PRE-RELEASE: Prosilver-lm forum theme
I'm sure it's a nice looking theme. It doesn't look to match the color palette of the main website
https://linuxmint.com/ or the blog
https://blog.linuxmint.com/. Those are the websites that most recently got a redesign. If we'd go with a different theme for the forums I think Clem would want to go with a color palette at least somewhat in line with those two. —Xenopeek, private message, Sun Mar 05, 2023
So, there is already a long history of experimentation and communications behind this FreshMint. First, of course, there are all the previous versions of FreshMint which led to this version 2.5.0. But there is also the whole story of this ancestor, Prosilver-lm, which preceded all that. We see a small part of it here:
https://github.com/SebastJava/prosilver ... er/preview
Examples taken from https://github.com/SebastJava/prosilver ... er/preview:
Nice fresh green background on the logo, combined with a subdued "Greeny blue" for better readability.
All posts here share the same white background, and you can still clearly see the separations between them, with this darker overall body background (
#E8E8E8) and 3X margins, here at 12 px.
I don't remember getting any positive feedback on those. Things like this can explain the more conservative approach taken here on this newer FreshMint. This FreshMint is the result of numerous and sometimes contradictory requirements. So, I was asked to take on the colors of the
main website and the
blog. But the colors are not the same between these two sites. So I chose the main website as a reference. But, then again, I encountered problems.
The main website is based on a professionally designed template:
Wizixo. The problem is that, according to
W3C standards, some elements lack sufficient contrast in this Wizixo template. I am talking about contrasts with white text on green backgrounds, and vice-versa. It should be at least 3.0, or much better, 4.5, or excellent at 7 and up. But not all the way up to 21, of course. Color contrasts are measured with tools such as this
https://colorable.jxnblk.com/, or this
https://marijohannessen.github.io/color ... t-checker/ or this Flatpak Contrast application, available right here in your Software manager.
So, I chose to use the color gradient in the header more or less as found on the
main website, "vibrant" and of rather low contrast with the foreground white text, because I consider that the contrasts in there are not so important, since there is not much reading to be done in there. That's only for the logo and a few words. Again, I was told to come up with a color palette somewhat similar to the main website, and that's what I tried. In fact, I had the exact same precise values, but felt I had to improvise on those. On the other hand, for the massive amount of titles and links found everywhere else, I chose colors which are very different from those of this Wizixo template. Colors that have much more pronounced contrasts, to be more readable. You could consider that Wizixo's pale green links can work on the main website, because the text is significantly larger there. But it doesn't work for the forums. The text is too small. I must admit that most of the contrasts on the current forums are good. I therefore set myself the objective of making it prettier, and more comprehensive, functional, and without neglecting contrasts and readability. Altogether, as always.
With the exception of the colors on the header, which are pretty, but which lack some contrast with the white text, and which are rather “vibrant”. Once again, I repeat that these colors are the result of a compromise between what was asked of me, and what I thought was good. I had already proposed some less “vibrant”, darker and more contrasting colors for the header, in the ancestor of FreshMint, this Prosilver. But the feedback was not unanimously positive. And then, at a certain point, I no longer had any answers.
Clem and Xenopeek had cut off all communications with me. They now no longer respond. I guess I behaved badly. Maybe the problem is I don't always do exactly what is asked from me. Or maybe the problem is that I offered too many choices, too often. Or something else. It was not explained to me why communications were suddenly broken.
In any case, this breakup, and this time elapsed between the Prosilver project and this new FreshMint, all that explains my attitude. Sometimes I do pretty much what was asked from me, in search of approval, and sometimes I take initiative, in order to meet other requirements, such as contrast standards or personal preferences.
The core of the problem
But I think I'm getting to the core of the problem here: I have personal opinions and preferences. Design is first and foremost an artist’s affair. It's personal work. It doesn't fit anywhere here in this community.
And I find it very difficult and laborious to have each element collectively approved one by one, especially since element B depends on element A, and element C depends on B, and after having revised and approved A, B and C, it will be necessary to revise A again, since A depends on C... And so on. And it would take one week or one month to get each element approved...
But I still tried that, this “collective design” approach. Maybe that's why Clem and Xenopeek left... There was tons of proposals and they had more important things to do...
And then, maybe there's something else underneath all this...
I started trying to contribute with my personal vision to the design of Linux Mint in 2018. I was more “kiddy and unprofessional” at the time. I think I have gained some knowledge and experience since that time. But perhaps the bad impressions resulting from my beginnings have remained anchored in your memories.
And I know there are people who are not happy with the changes made to the logo and the GTK colors. I wasn't the one who made these changes, but I may have been a small part of this wind of change.
Speaking of wind, it's the spring wind that is starting to appear here in my country. It's time for me to go out.
P.S.: I forgot to answer any of your points, on this preceding post here. That's for my next post, coming soon. This second one should be short and concise.
