Mint-Y colors for Linux Mint 20

[clefebvre]

Scope:

We want to try and make better color variations for Mint-Y.

• Green and Brown won't be modified for this release.
• Yellow folders are coming but we won't make a Yellow GTK theme.
• The scope of this study is restricted to color tints only, no other theme changes.
• Only one tint per color will be shipped. We can't ship both new and old.

Progress:

• [ ] Aqua (#2)
• [ ] Blue (#3)
• [ ] Grey (#5)
• [ ] Orange (#6)
• [ ] Pink (#7)
• [ ] Purple (#8)
• [ ] Red (#9)
• [ ] Sand (#10)
• [ ] Teal (#11)

Terminology:

• "Old" and "Original" refer to colors as they were before (in Mint 19.3)
• "New" refers to newly introduced bright colors, as showcased on the blog.
• "Reverts" refers to current themes, updated for Mint 20, but without color changes (i.e. with "original" colors).
• "Final" refers to the set of colors used for the Mint 20 stable release.
• "Median" refers to a color which has the hue of a new color, but is exactly in between the old and the new color in terms of saturation and value.

General considerations:

• Making the colors more vibrant makes the DE more fun to look at and more beautiful.
• Going too far breaks the theme, because it creates a distraction, takes the focus away from what matters (the content) and can make the user experience less comfortable (too much contrast).
• Each color is different, we can probably push eye-candy way more on certain colors than others (pink vs purple for instance).

Decisions:

To give ourselves more time and take this one color at a time, we'll ship BETA with the old colors. We can test new color codes rapidly but it takes time to regenerate some of the assets, thumbnails and window buttons. We want this to work for BETA.

Testing instructions:

To properly test a theme, don't just look at a screenshot of it, either install it or generate it and then use it as your main theme for a few days. Many colors look great in a screenshot but they can be overpowering and too distracting when used in the long run.

To generate a theme use the make_theme.py script. For instance, to make a Mint-Y-Blue theme based on #0000FF, use:

./make_theme.py blue 0000ff

If you want to quickly go back to the old or the new colors, you can install the debs in this archive:

• Old: sudo dpkg -i debs/original/19.3/*.deb (or get them from https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-y-colors/tree/master/debs/original/19.3)
• Reverts: sudo dpkg -i debs/original/reverts/*.deb (or get them from https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-y-colors/tree/master/debs/original/reverts)
• New: sudo dpkg -i debs/new/*.deb (or get them from https://github.com/linuxmint/mint-y-colors/tree/master/debs/new)

[clefebvre]

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[Magarif]

@clefebvre I would say that my personal preferences are:

• Aqua -> new
• Blue -> new
• Grey -> new
• Orange -> new

Other ones look better with the old colors IMO.

[clefebvre]

Thanks @Magarif but we'll need more info than that and we'll split the conservation per color. I'll lock this topic here so people actually do that.