[FFe] improve the appearance-page in gnome-control-center

[Muqtadir]

[Changes:]

1. The Appearance-panel in gnome-control-center uses 2 GtkBox to center the Windows color one at the start and one at end. The problem in behavior arises when the window is resized one of the GtkFlowBoxChild moves to next line even though there is plenty of space in the current line or when the Window is maximized. Specially noticed with lower-resolution dispalys

With the use of HdyPrefrencesPage and HdyPrefrencesGroup, the Window colors section stays fixed even when the window is resized or maximized.

2. The Appearance-panel has extra border around the Page, HdyPrefrencesPage removes the extra-border

3. The Window colors section uses thumbnails that do not resemble with current Yaru's look offered in 21.10 and have purple-gradient color as the background.

With the use of style=content-view and icon-dropshadow the thumbnails stand out better in the absence of purple gardient background.

4. The Window colors section has orange as the color for the selected GtkFlowBoxChild, With the use of margin as 2px the selected GtkFlowBoxChild has a 2px orange-color border.

5. The Dock-section makes use of rounded corners around GtkListBox by using style=content

6. The Dock-section makes use of HdyActionRow to replace the use of GtkGrid, GtkLabel, GtkListBoxRow.

Orignal-issue: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Community/Ubuntu/gnome-control-center/-/issues/3

MR: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Community/Ubuntu/gnome-control-center/-/merge_requests/4

see: screenshots and screen-recordings below for before and after

[Muqtadir (muqtxdir-m)]

@robert-ancell, the MR mentioned above is completed and ready for review. please have a look at it

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

We are past https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserInterfaceFreeze so we would need an exception for such changes.

[Muqtadir (muqtxdir-m)]

Before:

- GtkFlowBoxChild moves to next-line when resizing.

- GtkFlowBoxChild has orange over Text(light) when selected

- GtkFlowBoxChild has old-Yaru look for screenshots

- Appearance has extra-border around the page

[Muqtadir (muqtxdir-m)]

After:

- GtkFlowBoxChild does not move to next line when resized and stays in center

- GtkFlowBoxChild does not have orange over Text(light) when selected. Orange is only around border of GtkFlowBoxChild.

- GtkFlowBoxChild uses new-Yaru look screenshot and removes Purple-gradient as background.

- Dock section now has rounded corners for GtkListBox

[Muqtadir (muqtxdir-m)]

Hi @robert.ancell

Could you please push a ubuntu-41 branch on the gitlab. So that I can create the MR again for this there.

[Robert Ancell (robert-ancell)]

I've made a branch that just contains the "ubuntu" (appearance) panel - https://gitlab.gnome.org/Community/Ubuntu/gnome-control-center/-/tree/ubuntu-panel

I think that will make more sense than maintaining the whole ubuntu-41 branch as this feature is sufficiently self contained that it works without the other Ubuntu changes and we can build the patch from this branch.

Let me know if you have any issues building this!

[Muqtadir (muqtxdir-m)]

Thank you for the reply and for setting up the branch, I'll do the MR on this branch.

[Muqtadir (muqtxdir-m)]

Hi @robert.ancell

I have created the MR against ubuntu-panel branch: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Community/Ubuntu/gnome-control-center/-/merge_requests/5

please have a look at it.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-control-center - 1:41.1-1ubuntu3

---------------
gnome-control-center (1:41.1-1ubuntu3) jammy; urgency=medium

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * debian/patches: Refresh
  * d/p/u/display-Allow-fractional-scaling-to-be-enabled.patch:
    Ensure renderer is initialized.
    It may not be the case when running with non-patched mutter, so not a
    bug, but this helps in development scenarios.
  * d/p/u/Allow-tweaking-some-settings-for-Ubuntu-Dock.patch:
    - Do not crash if gedit is not installed
  * ubuntu-panel: Save dock monitor by connector and support primary monitor
    Dash to dock used to use the shell's monitor ID to pick the monitor in
    which should be used, however this is not something that worked well
    in case one switches configuration or uses a laptop in different
    scenarios as the dock may be moved to the wrong display.
    As per this:
     - Add a "Primary monitor" item, to bind the dock position to the
       primary monitor (whatever it is)
     - Store the selected monitor by its connector
     - Add backward compatibility support for the old 'preferred-monitor'
       key, and migrate to it.
    Related to: https://github.com/micheleg/dash-to-dock/pull/1630
  * multitasking-panel: Sync workspace and monitor isolation dock settings.
    When using ubuntu-dock the multitasking panel setting doesn't fully
    apply, because even though the user selects to isolate workspaces, the
    dock may still continue to show icons from all the workspaces.
    As per this, ensure that the settings are applied also to the dock, plus
    include dock-specifc settings to control multi-monitor behavior.
  * ubuntu-panel: Use libhandy widgets for the dock section.
    This will help with Gtk and libadwaita porting in future, so let's just
    such widgets that are also more integrated with the current g-c-c design
  * ubuntu-panel: Use more modern libadwaita widgets for dock settings.
    This should make gtk4 porting even easier, plus we can be more consitent
    with the majority of other g-c-c panels.
  * ubuntu-panel: Add dock specific dialog to control.
    Add a dock settings dialog to control some more specific settings.
    So far we only support toggling the visualization of device and trash
    icons, but this could be extended more in future. (LP: #1846205)

  [ Muqtxdir ]
  * ubuntu-panel: Improve appearance-page to use more consistent look
    - Make use of HdyPrefrencesPage for Appearance-panel.
    - Make use of HdyPrefrencesGroup for Window colors.
    - Make use of custom css style classes from appearance.css
    - Update the light/dark variant preview images (LP: #1943849)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <email address hidden> Mon, 31 Jan 2022 03:42:47 +0100