Light-themes should suggest matching background

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It is not something which can be fixed in the theme as well. There is no option to specify wallpapers.

Vish, there is indeed an option to specify wallpapers. One only needs to add the single line of:

  BackgroundImage=/usr/share/backgrounds/<filename>

/usr/share/themes/Ambiance/index.theme and /usr/share/themes/Radiance/index.theme

Since this is so simple to fix, I am also proposing as a papercut.

I'm setting the status to Triaged since this bug report doesn't need further processing and is ready for the developers to work on. I'm setting the importance to Low because I think that we should provide the themes as complete as possible, including the wallpapers.

Interesting! Good to know , never knew the option existed :)

Adds background image suggestion for the Ambiance and Radiance themes.

It is not our policy to change something once the user has set it themselves.

Ubsubscribing review team as well.

We do provide extra wallpaper by default and if the user chooses one of the other wallpapers , every time the user opens the dialogue the default theme will be shown as a custom theme , and if the user selects the light-themes , they are prompted to change the wallpaper. It turns out to be more of a hassle than an usability win.

Closing papercut task as well.

The patch does not make any changes, therefore the policy is not violated. The patch merely tells the Appearance Preferences to suggest a background when the theme is selected. The background is not applied unless the user takes action to apply the background. See the attached screenshot.

Screenshot of the Appearance Preferences with the patch applied. The Appearance Preferences will inform the use that a background is suggested and make it easy for them to apply it if they so choose. No changes are made to the background without explicit action from the user.

I'm reopening this bug and patch for consideration as it's clear that due diligence was not performed in reviewing the patch. Kenneth Wimer's comments suggest that the patch does something that it does not do. Please apply the patch then review.

Argh, right, I misunderstood exactly how it worked.

I think this might be a good idea but I think it's something we should look at for Maverick

As a papercut , I'm a skeptical of this change , we already *do* set the wallpaper by default . Nothing is going to be improved for a new install.
Why the need to force it along with the theme? Even if it does not force a change , This change would mean we will end up with a prompt for *ever* , if the user wishes to change the wallpaper. Do we want to always keep prompting the user to use the wallpaper. If the prompt is to occur only once this might be a better.[ But even then why?] How does it improve user experience?
Further the prompt reduces the theme viewing area.

David Siegel, I'm inclined to mark it invalid. what do you think?

> Do we want to always keep prompting the user to use the wallpaper. If the
> prompt is to occur only once this might be a better.[ But even then why?]
> How does it improve user experience?

It improves the user experience because the wallpaper is part of the theme. The widgets that make up the theme, combined with the wallpaper, make the whole of the visual experience that the user sees when they first use Ubuntu. In my experience, one of the first things users do on a new operating system is explore the appearance settings, second only to changing the desktop background.

I had read that Lucid will ship with as many wallpapers as can be fit on the CD [1]. If that's true then it may help to provide a way for the user to easily restore the original wallpaper if they choose to restore the original theme. Should the user choose to restore the original wallpaper, it will be more difficult for them to find it if there are more images to search through.

I agree that it might be questionable if this is a papercut, but it fit the criteria, and at least we could easily track it for inclusion in Maverick if we decide to implement it.

> Further the prompt reduces the theme viewing area.

Agreed, but there is much that we can do there. The height of the Apply Background notice could be reduced a bit. Also, the "Get more themes online" link wastes much vertical space. That link could be replaced with a button and placed next to the four buttons above it. I can work with upstream to improve this if you think it would be of value.

1. http://davidsiegel.org/lucid-wallpaper-contest/

On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 15:08 +0000, Matt Perry wrote:
> It improves the user experience because the wallpaper is part of the
> theme. The widgets that make up the theme, combined with the wallpaper,
> make the whole of the visual experience that the user sees when they
> first use Ubuntu.
Yes , that is why we already /do/ set the wallpaper for the system.

> In my experience, one of the first things users do on
> a new operating system is explore the appearance settings, second only
> to changing the desktop background.

Yes, but as a user changing and trying the wallpapers, where would a
user look to revert the wallpaper back to default? > In the backgrounds
tab .
But this prompt is in a totally different tab. Why would a user expect
to look for the prompt to revert wallpaper in the themes tab? How are we
helping the user here?

Also , the default wallpaper is always listed in the backgrounds tab ,
isnt it easier for the user to preview-and-set what they want to use
than to blindly revert?

This change would be trying to *incompletely* solve something for a very
limited user scenario.
Users who change from default wallpaper and doesnt like anything else
and would like to revert to default and doesnt remember the default
wallpaper.
Which is a very limited compared to number of users it will end up
annoying and obstructing.

> I agree that it might be questionable if this is a papercut, but it fit
> the criteria,
Yes it is a simple fix , but after using the change and trying it out is
what makes me think this is more of a problem than trying to solve
anything.

If we implement this I would expect users to file bugs saying , :"I know
the default wallpaper and i dont want to use it. Why are you prompting
me for something I know and have changed on purpose?" Or "How do i
remove this prompt?"

On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 15:08 +0000, Matt Perry wrote:
> It improves the user experience because the wallpaper is part of the
> theme. The widgets that make up the theme, combined with the wallpaper,
> make the whole of the visual experience that the user sees when they
> first use Ubuntu.
Yes , that is why we already /do/ set the wallpaper for the system.

> In my experience, one of the first things users do on
> a new operating system is explore the appearance settings, second only
> to changing the desktop background.

Yes, but as a user changing and trying the wallpapers, where would a user look to revert the wallpaper back to default? > In the backgrounds tab .
But this prompt is in a totally different tab. Why would a user expect to look for the prompt to revert wallpaper in the themes tab? How are we helping the user here?

Also , the default wallpaper is always listed in the backgrounds tab, isnt it easier for the user to preview-and-set what they want to use than to blindly revert?

This change would be trying to *incompletely* solve something for a very limited user scenario.
Users who change from default wallpaper and doesnt like anything else and would like to revert to default and doesnt remember the default wallpaper.
Which is a very limited compared to number of users it will end up annoying and obstructing.

> I agree that it might be questionable if this is a papercut, but it fit
> the criteria,
Yes it is a simple fix , but after using the change and trying it out is what makes me think this is more of a problem than trying to solve anything.

If we implement this I would expect users to file bugs saying , :"I know the default wallpaper and i dont want to use it. Why are you prompting me for something I know and have changed on purpose?" Or "How do i remove this prompt?"

Closing papercut task , since we are not really fixing anything here

Spoke to Kenneth and he too doesnt see any benefit in doing this.
Marking bug as a "wont fix" ,Thanks for the patch though