- This topic has 15 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated Nov 15-7:41 pm by Anonymous.
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Anonymous
I’ve seen in some posts here things like “I have been looking at the logo for AntiX and been thinking, isn’t it a bit dated?”, “Any suggestions on how to improve fonts/rendition?
We are open to ideas.” and some similar and was thinking little bit about it.AntiX is an OS which is primarily meant to be used on older HW despite working perfectly well on newer machines so, it shouln’t get “modern” but, a small lift-up could help it.
Giving it a “modern” look would somehow make it “completely out of time” on older machines and also hugely decrease the usability since, “material” look might be “pretty” (for some — it’s a matter of personal preference) but certainly doesn’t have any advantages and a lot of disadvantages (“usability” isn’t a matter of personal preferences!) compared to, what some people call “’97 look”.
So, I have a couple of proposals for those interested:
1. Font rendering in Antix — see my post #13306
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/fonts/
2. Design lift-up — see my post #13308
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/antix-screenys-general/page/7/#post-13308
Note that I didn’t change all of the icons (none in start menu and “show desktop” and “volume control” on taskbar) because either I’ve no idea how to do it or there is no real simple way to do it, except to replace them one by one all over the system. However, it gives you the idea how it could look like.
For the screenshots, I’ve used Meliae icon set which, in my opinion is a very eye friendly, slightly old fashioned (“3D” — shadows) and very well suited for AntiX.
Another icon set, with more modern look would be Plane icons, which are flatter but also not completely flat like “material design” ones.
The third set of interesting icons would be much more suited to MX then to AntiX but, for those who like it flat and do not want the “uniform” look (almost all “modern” distros out there use Paper / Papirus) — there are Newaita icons.
Meliae SVG
Meliae SVG Dark
Plane (Gnome, Arch, Manjaro, Ubuntu, Magenta)
Newaita Icon Theme3. AntiX logo draft / idea …
Fonts used were Trees of Happiness (3x) and Philosopher (1x).
With their slightly antique curves, they would make AntiX logo look much more “modern” but same time, not “too modern” so it completely jumps out of “AntiX identity”.
anticapitalista
Thanks for the ideas and logos. Just to point out – we are antiX not Antix.
svg icons do not work with fluxbox menu so any good set of png icons would be considered for next release.
- This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by anticapitalista.
Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.
antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.
Antix or antiX is quick change but, how do you like the fonts used?
I found couple of interesting fonts but, not very “antiX”-uitable.
dirkd
I prefer the first one, but in fact, the old logo appeals me more. I only wish i could get in better quality.
Also, with this font I think it is better to center the text in the circle.
Personally, I don’t give a damn for the wallpapers, icons, logos and such. One turns the PC on, opens one window, then another one and … one more and … 🙂 🙂 🙂
I never come to see any of it. 🙁 I agree on centering but, that’s a “finishing move” since any change of font-family or size or … whatever, needs new centering.olsztyn
AntiX is an OS which is primarily meant to be used on older HW despite working perfectly well on newer machines
Please!!! Will all the respect I have for creators and major contributors such as yourself, it would be a great disservice to AntiX if it were categorized as such. I am very new to Antix, but having discovered this gem it is running (after various customizations) as practically primary OS on my many laptops, full spectrum from Core2Duo to powerful i7 high resolution machines, having replace previous distributions. Low resouce requirements does not translate into being meant for old machines… And fancy desktop environment other distros are restricted to is not superior to simple Space Fluxbox of AntiX. Quite the opposite, as often they are restricting flexibility.
Antix is the most flexible, modular, customizable architecture meant also for most modern and powerful machines. Perhaps some clever desktop environment to complement the current windows managers would not hurt though for those who really need such…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parametersbut, a small lift-up could help it
It needs not a small lift-up in desktop fonts… You can bear with these the way they are after finding acceptable size but their rendering is not very good.
E.g.: Font in menus (Space Fluxbox) are fine. It is desktop fonts that need improvement, Rendition of other windows managers in AntiX, such as IceWM – very bad.
In my opinion, and it might be going against what AntiX creators have in mind, AntiX is too good to stay in the shadows… It must move into the mainstream and for that aesthetics are important too.Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parametersolsztyn, FWFW, here on my system, the iceWM font rendering is very good, crisp. This machine has no special graphics driver. The graphics card is radeon7700 series. I don’t know why you are seeing a poor result.
missTell, if you search the forum archive https://duckduckgo.com/?q=logo+site%3Aantixlinux.com%2Fforum-archive%2F&ia=web you’ll see previous occasions where people (including me) have submitted logo ideas. But the logo is embedded is so many places (various .deb packages, website assets, FAQ/documentation pages, sourceforge project page, distrowatch listing page, and I can’t guess where else). I realize that it would be a real time-intensive chore to change the logo, so I’ve submitted logo ideas “just for fun” not with any anticipation they’ll ever be officially used.
Mainstream? That too has been discussed and can be found via forum archive search
mainstream site:antixlinux.com/forum-archive/
The top result when I searched just now, is a page titled “antiX-17-a2 32 bit only for testing. – Page 6”
https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/antix-17-a2-32-bit-only-for-testing-t6901-s75.html
where I mentioned “mainstream” and (FYI) anticapitalista chuckled at the notion of [worrying about] “grow antiX to the mainstream”Cogito ergo sum … Sometimes I ask myself, why I bother writing at all when nobody reads it anyway.
It needs not a small lift-up in desktop fonts… You can bear with these the way they are after finding acceptable size but their rendering is not very good.
E.g.: Font in menus (Space Fluxbox) are fine. It is desktop fonts that need improvement, Rendition of other windows managers in AntiX, such as IceWM – very bad.Did you take a look at …
https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/fonts/
Post #13306
… fancy desktop environment other distros are restricted to is not superior to simple Space Fluxbox of AntiX. Quite the opposite, as often they are restricting flexibility. … Perhaps some clever desktop environment to complement the current windows managers would not hurt though for those who really need such…
Hmmm … so … what do you actually want??? WM or DE?
There’s more than one WM included, you can add more if you wish so. WM’s are quick and low on resources but, not “clever” enough to you.
You can also easily add any DE you wish …
sudo apt-get update
apt-cache search task-*-desktop
sudo apt-get install task-yourDesktopEnvironmentOfChoice-desktopLog out, choose DE and log back in.
Some you can also install over control center.
But, installing a full DE gives you “fancy desktop environment other distros are restricted to” which you also don’t want.
DE means DE — it’ll bring a bunch of additional applications and dependencies for everything and you can afterwards remove all that unnecessary stuff that originally came with antiX, (or keep everything triple or quadruple) since you will get a prettier, more functional or both replacement for everything.
But, where’s the sense of installing XFCE on antiX? You would get MX.
Where’s the sense of installing Cinnamon on antiX? You can take LMDE3.
Where’s the sense of installing … on antiX? You can take … .
Non cogito …
Cogito ergo sum … Sometimes I ask myself, why I bother writing at all when nobody reads it anyway.
missTell:
With all respect it appears you probably misunderstood my point… I did ‘read’ your post on font quality analysis and I will likely continue reading it for the next few weeks… Not because I misunderstand it but rather that it requires time to analyze what you submitted and some people are working full time to make living…
The analysis you presented is greatly appreciated, so please do not jump to a conclusion it is not read…
To spell out my other points I meant, so as to clarify misunderstanding:
-To me as a user the distinction between DE and WM is a moot point. I just want a highly usable, flexible, customizable, modular system and AntiX with Space Fluxbox is fine with me except desktop fonts rendering. Fonts in menus are good, if this a clue to anyone… If you have very high resolution screen you may not notice this though…
– I do not need any DE, if they restrict more than help and require resources. But some people like them in spite of bloat they carry. My point was to make AntiX a universal system, for almost everyone – leveraging flexibility and modularity. Neither of the other systems you mention do this, just AntiX (perhaps MX to some degree but it is hampered by clumsy DE). You may get DE you like but lose all the Live capabilities, integrated Control Center, etc.
– Continued success of AntiX in the future depends a lot on popularity. The more universal it becomes the more popular, not just a niche distro for old machines as it is (mistakenly IMHO) portrayed in this forum. I am running AntiX on three of my laptops with i7/8GB…
Thanks to AntiX creators…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersPlease, DO NOT comment anything else except what you personally find better.
Please, DO NOT comment at all if you can’t see any differences.
Yeah, read it… and quickly decided that replying there, commenting on poor-quality screenshots grabbed on someone else’s machine (not mine) would be rather pointless.
desktop fonts rendering. Fonts in menus are good, if this a clue to anyone
It’s an important detail because… fluxbox doesn’t know about, isn’t responsible for managing the rendering of “desktop fonts”.
When you launch a program, the window manager paints titlebar+border (or not, if “undecorated” is specified or EWMH-hinted) and “something else” is repsonsible for rendering everything displayed into the program’s window rectangle.The “something else” depends on, varies according to, other things like 1) the graphical toolkit chosen by the program author, 2) the user’s chosen toolkit “theme” and/or font selection, 3) the graphics hardware+drivers present on the machine.
Do you know, have you already discovered, the “lxappearance” font-and-theme setting tool?
Using that, you can explore/test other fonts to find some that render more clearly on your system.
Also, read about “font hinting” and sub-pixel rendering (settings tweakable via lxappearance) and test the effect (on YOUR display) from changing those settings.
(The as-shipped default settings for these can only reflect a best guess as to which type display will be most prevalent across the userbase.)Frustratingly (in my experience) you might choose a sweet-looking font+theme via lxappearance… then discover “some of the programs I launch ignore those settings”.
Well, lxappearance only shows previews for GTK2 themes… and if you choose a theme which lacks a GTK3 variant, yeah, that selected theme can’t be applied to the window contents of programs which use the GTK3 toolkit.spaceFM or ROX manages/renders icons+text on the desktop surface. I’ve lost track whether antiX is shipping a “built for GTK2” or “built for GTK3” version of spaceFM. (Can use synaptic, check which gtk packages the installed version depends on). My point here is to explain that If font selection you made via lxappearance isn’t being applied in a given context (desktop icon text, or the content of a particular application window), there’s probably some other means of choosing/enforcing which fonts will be used in that context. ROX has a settings panel GUI for this, spaceFM also (check available flyouts under “Preferences”)
One-by-one or, said differently, each time a program launches… we can pass a “use this theme” directive on the commandline.
Similarly, we can edit .profile and declare $ENV preferred themes (might affect just font sizing, not fonf face)In addition to GTK2 and GTK3, some of the desktop applications you install might use the “Qt” graphical toolkit.
qt5CT utility is useful toward wrangling fonts for Qt apps (ah, but there’s a Qt4 toolkit… those apps might ignore your font specified via qt5CT)Hello. I’m explaining that, in general, “the status quo of font management in desktop linux” is a confusing mess.
Achieving same-same across all pre-installed apps is one of the appealing features (I hesitate to say “benefits”) for folks who choose to use a fullblown “desktop environment”.
By choosing an operating system like antiX which pre-installs a more-loosely-coupled set of “modular” desktop components and… post-install, by choosing individual “best of breed, best for me” applications, without regard to which “graphical toolkit” each one uses, we each gain the freedom (the “responsibility”) to wrangle fonts on our own terms.Maybe the current assortment of fonts pre-installed in antiX is sub-par?
Maybe too few of the pre-installed GTK themes provide a GTK3 variant? (and, how can a user know which ones DO provide gtk2 and gtk3 variants?)
Maybe the current, as-shipped, default desktop font doesn’t render well on some systems?
Maybe font settings within the as-shipped preferences of default browser can be improved?
These are valid questions/issues to consider when we’re betatesting next antiX release. In the meantime, you really should read the existing docs/FAQs and the existing tips/HOWTO topics… and, as you personally encounter and solve font-related problems, pitch in by contributing new tip/HOWTO topics.Sometimes I ask myself, why I bother writing at all when nobody reads it anyway.
imagine how the author(s) of the existing documentation must feel, along with the umpteen folks who assisted to create translated versions…
dirkd
FWIW, my personal experience with Antix.
Ever since I first came across it, maybe five years ago, I fell in love with Antix. Foremost with its speed and responsiveness and its economy of means, sure, but with the looks too. I quickly decided to use fluxbox and I never looked back. The few experiments I did afterwards with desktop environments never had much appeal anymore. I’m very satisfied in general with how the fonts appear on my screen (1280×1024). The few times I wasn’t I switched to another application. I can only remember two or three: Ted (rtf-editor was included in Antix13 if I remember correctly. I can do without) and mupdf (I use qpdf instead, mainly for esthetic reasons). In Antix17 I was dismayed at first with the font rendering in Q4wine. But I learned how to switch on anti-aliasing, and the fonts look just fine.
Esthetics are important for me, personally, and I spend quite some time to set up my environment in a visually pleasing way. But I realize my judgment is subjective. One of the things that bothered me a great deal, e.g., were the blue folder-icons as standard in Rox and SpaceFM. But I got used to them since and if you ask me now SpaceFM is a lot prettier then Nautilus was in Ubuntu.
I don’t mind the inconsistency in looks across different applications at all. And a great benefit of Antix as a loose collection of more or less independent tools is that it lets you learn about how an operating system works in the first place. I learned more in 5 years Antix then in 20 years of Windows.E.g. Skidoo’s post about fonts in Antix was very enlightening. And the remark above made me smile.
@dirkd:
“Blue folder icons” you can easily change for the brown once if you prefer so. The basic theme used in antiX is re branded Faenza with some small changes (like the color of folders).
If you want a better font rendering, you can use the configuration that I posted at the end of the fonts thread. It will definitively improve the font rendering on any LCD screen, no matter what size or brand.
Further improvement on a conventional LCDs is not possible. For further improvement you’ll have to change your HW — get yourself a Mac with Retina display.
@skidoo: About “poor-quality screenshots”:
Hmmm … so, whom we’re gonna blame on that matter? Are we gonna blame antiX or Debian makers, Scrot or Image Magick, HW producer which assembled a screen that another HW producer assembled or maybe we should simply blame PNG or the laws of physics? Maybe rather user which doesn’t know that screenshots should be compared 1:1, or maybe even some optician who prescribed the wrong spectacles? One could also blame the brain since, that’s where the picture forms itself.
No need to rewrite what has already been well written before: “Don’t bother.”
“When you take a screenshot, you’re literally capturing the pixels on your screen, so it’s a raster, or bit mapped.”
“Improving” the quality of “poor-quality screenshots” by some technical means would also negate the purpose of screenshots in itself — they are simply reflecting the poor quality of technologies (HW + SW) used, not more, not less.
“A screen shot is literally that … what the user would see on screen. There is no need to make it any higher resolution or sharper than it is. It is what it is and that is what you should show the user.
In other words: It’s fine. Just leave it!
That said, the lazy solution: If you can run the software or website on a Retina MacBook, use that, as your screen shot will contain 4x the pixels by default.
If the issue, on the other hand, is that your images are getting fuzzy in software they are being imported into, the issue is potentially that the images are being converted to JPG and re sampled. This is common when making PDFs. A workaround for that would be:
– save screen shots as PNG files by default — not JPGs
– Make sure your image import settings (or, if PDF, your image compression settings) are set to
do not re sample
do not convert to JPG”All that said, at the end of the day: Screenshots are raster images, best consumed at 1:1 ratio.
Nothing is good and nothing is bad and there’s only better or worse — if one can see it.
If not … well, less you know, happier you are.Comparing two screenshots made under the same conditions and compared properly against each other (at the same ratio) will still, clearly show the differences.
Note: On the font comparison image below, the FONT DIDN’T CHANGE, only the font rendering settings are different!
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