PortableApps.com Mid-Week Update (2011-04-19): New 2.0 Theme and Schedule plus Translations

I think dark would be an appropriate default. Easier on the eyes.

Many thanks for all the work you have been doing! Looking forward to the stable release

It's incredibly hard to choose between these themes. They all look amazing

I would personally choose the dark theme by a hair since it's more consistent with the overall menu. However, text on the white theme is a bit easier to read (not to glance at though).

I think the new look is awesome! A needed improvement.

WOW you made it flat................... I LIKE IT!!!!!

I love the new themes and their new look, I think glow is better for the default because it has a bit more work than the others, is more sophisticated and since the user can't edit it's color, it sounds more "default". Basically it has more "personality" and is still modern, clean and new.

Also for default I think the light version is better, the dark one looks too heavy to be default and one gets tired of it quickly. Maybe the best idea is to be more like the Windows Start Menu, so the new user finds it as intuitive at first look, so like the Start Menu, I'd choose white for the launcher area background.

Off I go finish the translations. Keep up the good work

Dark may be easier on the eyes but it's kinda monotonous too, easy to get tired of it. That said, I use it on Linux and through Wine the icons have a black canvas square behind them, no transparency, so my default has to be anything other than a white background, so I use rainbow dark. But, if that gets fixed (don't know if it's a PA.c bug or Wine bug) I'll start using the default white background again

It should be possible to make "Glow" another Chrome layer choice - you could have a "White Glow" and a "Dark Glow" variant. After all, the Chrome layer is just another png layer (behind the buttons and in front of the background) that is drawn in white with alpha transparency, right?

BTW, are you going to be incorporating the ability to select options for themes (the ability to select chrome, background image, and background color, and maybe fonts) into the GUI?

I know is is just matter of taste, but I made the experience with some desktop themes on linux which are based on dark surfaces that some elements are not easy to be seen.

Also if possible, colors in themes should be done so , that all looks also on lower color resolution , e.g. 16bit , somehow decent. Then all looks still normal on virtual machines etc, where higher color resolution is not easy.

+1 for the Dark Theme.

Clean, simple and easy one the eyes. I can clearly see the name of the apps.

On a side note: Why should PA be changed for Linux when its a windows app?

I prefer the dark glow theme myself. I feel like if it's a tiny bit harder to completely change the theme you will get less issues with those that aren't quite as savy about changing things while still giving them some freedom. Also the dark is much easier to look at and I like that it separates it from the windows menu.

That said I will probably be using the rainbow theme. It's awesome looking.

+1 for Glow Theme

Windows XP and 7 standard themes are also light, and i want to use the suite at work, so it looks more professional and legal in this document-like style.

But i also think the theme is not the most important thing of this suite, please concentrate on more needed functions like

- tooltips for menu items
- "Goto App Folder" in context menu of an item
- getting a list of all hidden items

Good work anyway, keep evolving!

Will the pink corners disappear with the new themes?

Nick

I think I will be in the minority here in saying this, but "me no likey". For me, the best theme PortableApps ever had was the Violet one from 2.0 Beta 4. Beta 5 made this look awful with the changes to the themes and the resulting washed out colours, and for me, these new themes are no improvement on the Beta 5 themes. Oh well, I still have a copy of the Beta 4 installer handy.

Re: dark vs light - please keep in mind that dark themes are frequently not good for anyone with less than 100% perfect eyesight (such as myself), due to the text being too hard to read. A good example of a (really bad) dark theme is the Adobe Photoshop Elements v8 dark theme. With it, I can't read any text (such as in the menu bar) without moving my head to within 1cm of the monitor and squinting.

My choice would be dark.
Dark with the white print is much easier on the eyes.

Thanks for all the hard work.

FWIW I like the new default white theme but to be honest I'm not that worried about the surrounding colours.

The Portable Apps concept is great in so many ways. So much so that my collection of useful applications has grown to be quite substantial (90+) and actually FINDING the one I want from a simple list can be time-consuming.

What I WOULD like to see is a better way of selecting these applications such as an option to open an expanding window showing icons for ALL the applications on the stick or even user-definable groups (systemtools, Internettools, office applications etc) of programs that could be expanded to find specific items.

I realise that this isn't going to happen in release 2.0 but offer the suggestion as food for thought.

Thanks to John and the other contributors for their development work on this really useful concept that I use daily.

I really like the new flat look of the default theme. It is a good evolutionary step forward without changing too much. It is still clearly recognized as PA.c platform but looks a lot more professional as it appears more "solid".
I would vote for the light design as it fits better to the new standard looks of Windows 7 (and maybe upcoming Windows 8). I always found dark themes difficult to work with because fonts are definitly harder to read (perception psychology) even if I sometimes used them just as it suits my taste.
I for one could use an even lighter theme. I often use the windows 7 theme provided with one of the 2.0 betas and consider making something comparable but lighter.

While feedback from hardcore supporters is always good, and it's great to see you're open to it, from a usability angle you'd need much wider, probably random testing. For example, coders and hackers tend towards dark themes on their websites, however the general public tend towards clean white themes. So although many here prefer the dark theme, it's unlikely they're representative of the majority of the userbase and you risk turning a certain set of users off by suggesting that PA is some kind of hacker tool, when of course it should be a boon to anyone.

Now that's got that out of the way, /personally/ I like the New Default, and I'd actually prefer the Rainbow look to the new Glow. I don't like dark menus and never had, but again, that's my personal opinion and it's separate from my comments above.

Adam

Personally I tend to prefer a bright theme. It may be true that dark colors are currently in vogue. But somehow such a GUI seems overwhelming and tiring. The readability is at such a dark theme adversely affected. Accordingly the functionality should be given first priority. For this reason I also think the introduction of categories is very useful.

If you look at the GUI of the most programs in more detail, you will notice that often bright and cheerful colors are used. These colors appear to the user simply living as dark variants. As a very good example I would like to mention the programs of the Microsoft Office 2007 Suite. But when you look at the black standard GUI of foobar2000 player, then this skin looks downright dissuasive.

In summary I would therefore the above first theme set as default.

Great job with all of them!

I think "New Dark" would be good for default theme.

A second option can be "dark Glow".

Both of them help with the eyes.

I'm unsure why the choice of the 'flat' borders is so important. The candy look (a year old) looks a bit more 3D-ish. I mean, the next step is flat colors?

Anyway I think the actual themes self are less important than the functionality.

Things I do miss from the past are the wide variety of themes, especially those free-form themes, remember those?

Anyway, also include the 'old' themes in the next release and have extra theme-packs to be added and updated the same way as other portable applications.

It brings some style to the app selection area.

we'll be including lots of colors in both light and dark as well as including both the new cleaner chrome and the older beveled chrome for folks who prefer that style as well

I think some of the criticism of the older beveled chrome, besides the colors selected for the background color, was an overall muddiness. I think if you can tweak the transparency in the chrome to let a little more of the color come through, it will be more acceptable to a lot of people.

Also, I vote for the classic red with the white beveled chrome.

Not sure why people are saying they find the dark theme harder to read than the white.
I find it 10x easier reading the dark theme, though.
(From the screenshots provided and the font and font size used)

If you do use the white, can't you make it a bit darker?(not dark, and not by much) I find it a bit blinding. It looks like its pure white (#FFFFFF).

EDIT:
I was looking at the wrong white default. The new one goes fine with the white background color.
Btw, the old image is a bit low quality. Its blurry.

Although I'll immediately change it to dark green.

I would love to see what a Rainbow Light would look like.

Yes, new themes are much better! Congratulations. Thanks a lot.

I prefer the light theme, as it is much easier on eyes, more readable.
Please consider sharing some source files for themes (maybe sliced .psd or whatever) and we'll be able to create custom themes and share it to the community. If you're concerned about quality and don't want to have a bunch of crap, you may create a pre-moderated gallery.

I tend to launch all my PortableApps with Launchy, so I don't see the platform launcher much.

In fact, I wish a Launchy-style launcher was built-in to PortableApps. First, the integration would be tighter. Second, Launchy development has stagnated.

Thanks.

My personal recommendation is for the Dark theme as default. This would give PortableApps.com menu the "new look" for the new 2.0 release. Major releases are the time for new looks, and a dark theme is considerably different than the light theme from the 1.0 line.

Disadvantages of course are dark icons (e.g. Inkscape, VirtuaWin, Audacity) do become harder to discern. Those who do not have the best eyesight can easily switch it to a more user-friendly version. After all, Windows is not configured out of the box for those who have vision deficits, it should not be assumed that by default PortableApps should be too.

Ease of access to change the theme is probably most important. Whatever the choice in the default theme, make it easy for the user to change it will be paramount. After all, new users will use the default theme, but then after a short while they will change it to something else.

I think I prefer the flat light theme. Thought I do use it with Linux (Linux is my main OS), most computers I work on using my flash drive with PortableApps are Windows PCs. And the non-transparent icon bug with wine doesn't bother me to much.

Go with a dark/black background. Obviously historical research proves what facilitates the "easiest" and "quickest" read. Example>> Newspapers; traffic signs; most billboards; default screens on word processors; etc, etc . . . NOT!!! (Think retro look of black background when that internet thing first appeared.)

Go for the masses, John. There will always be one or two that will buy a brown car, but facts point to the overwhelming popular choice.

Your current 'theme' and 'options' choices are super fine and should easily accommodate the most critical user with perhaps the buyer of brown cars.

John your work is outstanding and has 'legs' as it currently stands!!! Don't get distracted and run off on a gimmicky rabbit trail.

[My CV - 35 yrs in media arts]

I think the white app area makes the text and app icons more distinct. I think there is a tendency for the platform to look too dark overall, so brighten it up.

The very fact that you are asking the community to choose between dark or white surely indicates that this area should be a user-definable option? At the end of the day, me thinking things look more distinct on a light background could well be down to my eyesight, but there's the rub; everyone's eyesight is different and perhaps there should be a setup option that gives the user the choice, rather than going for a black or white choice and having to go with whatever the majority (or those that shout loudest) choose.

I personally wouldn't use the platform with a black app background. Take a look at the white app background on CodySafe - crystal clear.

...and I'm sure someone will tell me that you can switch between the black / white app areas?

Nearly forgot to mention: When you increase the font sizes to large, some app narratives don't show completely. Ended up having to edit the name. Just aesthetics.

Just my 2 cents...

I like all of these themes except that last one: "Textured Rainbow Dark". I'm not a fan of that one but as long as it's not the default I don't really care.

Thanks for all the hard work on this guys!

I posted earlier before lunch, but while at lunch I became aware of the dozens of people doing their phone/text thing and became noticeably aware of my own iPhone and now in my office my iPad. Light backgrounds, shaded boarders, 'bright look', is prevalent everywhere. Looks a lot more like PA's current theme/scheme than the flat darker new look being polled.

Can a trillion Apple users be wrong? While all the other retailers are vacant, Apples stores in the Mall are packed.

Suggest. Pay the "sincerest form of flattery" to Apple. Not too sincere though - Think recent Samsung action.

if it was in the installer- what theme do you want as your default light or dark?? id think this would be simple to set up (winamp's installer does this).

or you could put a poll on the main page that should get the problem solved.

just throwing ideas out.
i like the rainbow theme lol

What ever you do please include a blue theme in there some where. I like the blue one thats included in the beta version of the platform I'm using.

I personally would prefer to be able to open/close the right pane and make the whole menu more narrow.

Will that be possible with 2.0?

I asked about this a while back (back when 2.0b5 was first introduced), but never got an answer.

On the right-click menu, there's a Run as Administrator option. Could the security shield be shown there?

I'm not feelin the new themes.

The new theme looks nice, in a copper/rust kind of way.

WRT theme choices, I would like to see fewer choices. One default theme (with a day/night or light/dark switch in the settings that would apply to all themes) and a color picker much like what you get in Windows 7. Also the option to "snap to" the color settings you have in Vista/7.

That's how I'd do it, anyway, if it were up to me.

Definitely agree that an "explore this folder" option is needed, especially for Firefox Portable.

I get the magenta corners as well on XP at work. I always have. I brought it up on the forums at one point, and don't remember anything ever came of it. I don't use the Platform at home, but just checked, and no magenta corners, but I'm using Win7 here. Anyway, they don't bother me. I stopped noticing them.

My choice: New Default Dark.

I personally have always really liked the "black - Dark" theme. So the default dark version would be the one I'd prefer as a "default" theme. I've never been fond of any apps or windows that have text on a white background, unless I'm working on a text document.

It definitely gives the eyes a break.

Coming soonish to an internet near you... maybe. Please, I beg of you, stop mentioning time frames already. It only gets peoples hopes up only to be let down, again & again & again & again. Not a very good confidence builder, in fact quite the opposite. It's coming, oh wait... it's not. It's almost here, oh wait... not quite yet. This is turning into a bad joke of the magnitude that it's likely to overshadow how great & useful PAM is. I sincerely apologize if that seems harsh. I do indeed appreciate your effort and your willingness to give away the results of that effort, I use it everyday and will continue to. Just quit mentioning "when" is all I'm asking.

Are we gonna see some new icons in this next release (they're the same in the preview).