Category: Best Desktop Theme

Remember twm and its amazing level of customizability? Window Managers have made great strides since then! An entire new crop of "Themes" has popped up to make sure that those of us with the design sense of a gnat still have desktops that make our coworkers drool and ask us what operating system we're running. This category is for the theme you think looks the coolest. Nominate Away!

Cheese!

[volsung]

Maybe I'm just sick, but I find the Cheese theme for GNOME hilarious. Maybe it's just that I find it funny when I show it my Windows-using friends and watch their eyes bug out. (Granted, they are probably experience an unnatural mixture of awe and disgust, but it amuses me just the same.)

FinalE for Enlightenment

[bergie]

Heretik's [themes.org] FinalE for E [enlightenment.org] is clean, good looking and efficient - just what most of us want from a Window Manager theme. It gives E a nice slightly futuristic look similar to some themes in BlackBox.

You'll find the theme from http://e.themes.org/themes.phtml ?themeid=944708022 [themes.org]

/Bergie

--

E-StarEnli

[kuiken]

StarEnli [debica.pl] is the coolest E theme around (if your into Star Trek)


"THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT"-Death

Decisions, Decisions

[Mark Bainter]

This is a tough one. I love blueheart (E). It is great eyecandy and is very functional. But recently I discovered SpiffE. It has very small window decorations allowing me to maximize my available workspace and it's default bindings are closer to the way I work than any other theme I've tried. Which means less customization (and thus less work) for me. You can view these themes here:

http://e.themes.org/themes.phtml?themeid=942226563

http://e.themes.org/themes.phtml?themeid=935200355

Ganymede for Enlightenment/GTK

[CentrX]

I have to nominate Ganymede, you can see it at gtk.themes.org [themes.org] and e.themes.org [themes.org] for the Enlightenment and GTK themes, respectively. The author's e-mail address is: [e-mail].

Chris Hagar

Re:Ganymede and pr0n!

[CentrX]

Do you mean you want guys in the background or something?

Well, whatever it is you want, I'm starting to see fewer themes that come with backgrounds. It's simply that it bulks up the theme download when, if you want the background you can simply download it somewhere else and put it in. Which is exactly what you can do, download whatever background you want and put it where all your backgrounds are, then just make that the background.

Chris Hagar

Cyrus theme for enlightenment.

[Error27]

Although many of the skins mentioned here are very good. (I have tried a lot of them). I always seem to come back to the Cyrus theme by Markus Kniebes http://kniebes.de/

Obviously to be a good skin it has to look good. But to be a great skin it has to look good day after day after day. Too many skins have huge borders, or really gaudy colors that may have seemed like a good idea at the time but after 3 weeks begin to grate on ones nervers. For a truely elegant and polished looking skin then try Cyrus at http://e.themes.org/themes.phtml?themeid=934138341

After using Windows at school all day it's nice to come home to menu's that aren't beige (apparently MicroSoft did this to match the compute case). Instead Cyrus theme is darkish green. But what strikes me most is not the color but the texture. The menu's are soft looking. A softness broken by a few small, hard, see-through buttons. For a long time I believed they were actually see-through but now I know that it's just a beautifull illusion.

There is a brilliant use of texture throughout this theme. The buttons on the title bar, for example, are the same color as the title bar but just raised up a little.

At first this theme may not seem very colorful because most of the colors are fairly subdued. But if you look carefully you'll notice that some buttons turn red breifly after you use them. The reflections on the title bar and the way the border is darkest on the lower right hand side make it look like there is a light source at the top left of the screen. Most people don't notice this because the illusion is so complete.

The largest thing that seperates this theme from its peers is the complete absence of rough edges. The author had extreme attention to detail not just in the art but everywhere. In the handling of the mouse for example. There is a unity overall. It is beautifull. If I had to live with a theme for the rest of my life this would be it.

-error27