My first impressions of Brigantia (Release Candidate)

These are my initial impressions of Brigantia. The version I'm looking at is the amd64 Trisquel 5.5 Release Candidate (20120411). I did not take any screenshots so I hope my explanations are detailed enough.

I installed it on a Thinkpad T61 laptop with a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen and an Nvidia graphics card.

I have found some things that annoyed me. Please note that most of these are my personal opinion and not necessarily bugs, so do not read this post as an ungrateful demand.

In order of appearance:

1. The Plymouth splash is (still) corrupted. I looked at it here: http://trisquel.info/en/forum/plymouth-corruption. This is an upstream issue. I don't think a lot of people are getting it and I believe it is only related to some Nvidia cards. However, if applying the workaround has no noticable effect for people not experiencing this problem, perhaps we could include it?

2. The default image used as the splash and wallpaper. The first time I saw it I liked it. Subsequently I felt a little uneasy. The moment I changed my desktop's wallpaper I knew that I had to remove it. But there is no way for the average user to do that. My suggestion is to use a default image that is much more neutral or abstract. At least the splash/GDM screen should not be a photo. I would also prefer if the imagery used somehow tied in with the Trisquel brand. Ubuntu has its purple/aubergine (and in the past brown), SUSE and Mint has green, Fedora has blue, etc.

3. Fonts. The default font sizes are much too small for me on this laptop's screen. It would be much worse for somebody with Full HD on a laptop. But even on a 17" 1280x1024 and a 21" 1600x900 the fonts were a little too small. This has been the case since Trisquel 4.0. I must always change the font sizes and/or the DPI.

Gnome Tweak/"Advanced Settings" allowed me to change the font sizes and/or "Text scaling factor" to make it more comfortable. However, I could only get the desktop icon font size to change by using "Text scaling factor" and then only after I logged out.

The default font size in Ubuntu felt more comfortable. I realise that people have different screen sizes, but maybe the default can be a little bigger? What is the target resolution that the default font sizes are aiming at?

4. Text drop shadows used on the Panel main menu, Panel context menu and Window menu bars. The white shadows irritate my eyes and it makes the text stand out too much, especially with the non-bold menu bar. I think they are OK if used sparingly on a website, but not here. Also, GTK2 applications do not have the drop shadow on the menu bar and causes an inconsistent look. I would prefer if the shadows were removed all together since there is no easy way for a user to remove it.

[BUG] 5. The volume image displayed when adjusting volume using the buttons on my keyboard is blurred. Both Mute and Non-mute look like they use a small image that was upscaled.

[BUG] 6. The touchpad images displayed when enabling/disabling the touchpad using the keyboard buttons make no sense. When the touchpad is disabled the image shows a light grey touchpad. When the touchpad is enabled it shows a flat 2D touchpad with dark buttons.

7. Changing desktop background. The first time I go to the Background selector it shows a dropdown under the monitor image that allows me to select how the image should be displayed (zoom, scale, tile, etc). Once I click an image that dropdown disappears and never comes back. I think this happens with Ubuntu also, so I believe this is an upstream issue.

8. Changing font scaling/hinting/antialiasing causes the Panel to turn solid grey except under the notification area and the window list. If I logout or change the background it goes transparent again. I think this is a Gnome issue and not related to Trisquel.

9. Panel Main/Application menu. Is it possible to make it darker like with 5.0? Also, the bold text looks a little clunky. IMO bold text should be used sparingly. Window titles are OK in bold. For other interface elements bold should be used to denote something important (like "strong" vs "b" in HTML) or when used as a heading or something similar. I think I could get used to it, but it's a lot of bold in one place.

10. Nautilus. There is not enough distinction between the sidebar and the main area. There should be a more prominent border between the different "panels". I don't think that color alone should be used to distinguish such sections. There is a 1 pixel border but it is nearly indistinguishable on my screen. It should be made darker at least. BTW, this looks even worse in Ubuntu. Perhaps this is an intentional design element as far as Nautilus is concerned, but I certainly do not like it.

The "folder location" bar (showing the folder hierarchy) at the top does not have enough horizontal padding in the individual elements. The border of each "button" is too close to the text and makes it look bad. Increasing the font size does not add more padding.

I also don't like the Back/Forward buttons being on the right (not Trisquel's fault).

When using "List" view, there is not enough padding between the folder list and the blue sidebar.

At the moment Nautilus looks like it is a website that is in the process of being styled with placeholder styling elements still visible.

11. Panel calendar popup. The arrows used to change the month/year look like they are placed on a button. There are visible light grey blocks behind the triangles.

12. Adding/changing themes. This is a mess and Gnome's fault. But it looks bad for Trisquel. The Theme selector on the Background changer is not the same as what is provided by Tweak Tool (Advanced Settings). Changing a theme using either method causes the Panel to go solid grey again. There is also no easy way for a user to add themes.

There are 2 things that I am missing (not Trisquel's fault):
- A temperature/sensors applet for the Panel. I couldn't find one for the fallback panel. Shell seems to have some temperature applets, but they are useless to me. Not having this, however, won't kill me.
- Something that can replicate the Compiz Grid plugin. I want to use 2 windows next to each other and I want to position the windows using the keyboard. Some software for this probably exists -- I haven't looked at all. Not having this functionality, however, does impact my performance in a floating WM somewhat. I could hook Compiz back up (it does work with Fallback) but it is unnecessary and the future of Gnome+Compiz doesn't look too good to me.

Besides the above issues, 5.5 is looking good. I haven't tested much besides the above. If all the appearance issues are resolved I can say that 5.5 is roughly at the same level as 5.0 and I am comfortable using it.

Congratulations on the good work!