Inconsistency in Header Bars between Maximized and Normal windows states

Bug #1729340 reported by Alfred E. Neumayer
10
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu theme
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned
ubuntu-themes (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Since Ubuntu 17.10 Header Bars (and title bars) use inverted styling when a window is maximized.
AFAICT this is for better visual integration with the top bar gradient.

Transitioning from the top bar gradient to the header bar gradient is a good choice,
though it changes meaning for tab selection, for example in GNOME Software where
the UI is split into several tabs, making the visual appearance change perception
about which tab is actually being represented as "selected".

This means that in normal state, the selected tab appears to be pushed inwards,
where as in maximized state the selection looks pushed outwards, which makes using
these types of applications kinda odd.

I see 2 ways of solving this:

* Revert the change of visual inversion of header bars in maximized state, but invert the Shell Top Bar gradient instead
(I can see multiple reasons to keep the top bar going from light to dark downwards, though..)

* Separate the visual representation of tabs within a Header Bar using color, contrast, etc. and keep it consistent between maximized and normal state.
This might be a good choice, but probably requires to adapt other types of Header Bar widgets in the same way.

description: updated
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

I agree. In fact I was wondering about the wisdom of inverting the button gradients when Marco was talking about it a couple of weeks ago...

tags: added: visual-quality
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in ubuntu-themes (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in ubuntu-themes:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Alfred E. Neumayer (beidl) wrote :

Additionally, taking GNOME Builder (from the Ubuntu archive) as an example: the window always uses the inverted gradient, without having to maximize it. Might be due to Builder adding another CSS class called "workbench" to its main window (GTK_DEBUG=interactive), throwing off GTK somehow.

Putting myself in the mindset of an app developer who wants to target different distros with different default themes, I'd be rather confused.

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