Comment 18 for bug 284975

I had filed a bug regarding this to the ubuntu-artwork package before coming across this one. I'll just post the description here, since this bug report is more active and I believe this is an important issue that needs to be considered before the final Intrepid release.

Here's what I wrote for the other bug:

In the latest daily builds, semi-transparent panel backgrounds are being forced on the default Intrepid desktop. This idea is very badly implemented as it's not part of the Human GTK theme itself, interferes with the casual user's ability to change desktop themes and the background itself is poorly designed.

For example, when switching from Ubuntu's Human theme to another GTK theme, the panel background won't change. If a casual user wanted to use the Darkroom theme (or any similar theme for that matter), his panels would become unreadable and unusuable as the background is not removed. Not everyone knows instinctively that you must edit the panel's configuration if you're planning to use any other theme besides Human (and you shouldn't have to know this). Making the panel backgrounds optional instead of forcing them upon users should be the best course of action.

If the panel backgrounds are to be implemented regardless, the current way of doing so is not optimal. A good idea would be to integrate them into the Human GTK theme itself as a "bg_pixmap[NORMAL] =" value (so they are removed automatically when the theme is changed). This way of implementing panel backgrounds also fixes the borders of workspace switcher applet amongst other things. The only drawback is that transparency is not allowed, but this isn't an issue as a nice gradient panel would be an improvement over a normal flat panel.

And lastly, the background itself needs some redesigning. The last three pixels are a pseudo-shadow. While this looks nice at first glance, it seriously disrupts the visual integration of the lower panel. The window-list applet, the workspace switcher applet and regular panel buttons take up most of the vertical space in the lower panel and the pseudo-shadow causes the panel to appear as being smaller than the buttons/applets themselves.

I can only hope that these concerns are taken into consideration, as the release date of Ubuntu Intrepid is coming very soon and it would be a terrible thing to see something so simple overlooked and cause an unnecessary concern to casual users.