Hello everyone,
I'm dropping by to talk about an idea for a modernized version of the IRIX user interface for other (newer) platforms. I really enjoy the look and feel of IRIX. The rounded Motif widgets are a lot easier on the eyes than other implementations like the widgets in CDE. I've decided to work on some themes for XFCE on Linux/BSD that copy this interface and even improve upon it.
There are two reasons why I'm working on this. Firstly I'm doing it because there aren't really and complete and good looking themes of this kind out there for use with Linux or BSD. The are some X cursor themes, some xfwm4 themes, etc but nothing that's an all-in-one package that's easy to use. The second reason, and it's sad to say, but SGI hardware is slowly dying, and so is the software development scene. My O2's motherboard broke a couple years ago and I haven't repaired it or bought a new one because I can't justify the expense for what I see as a dead platform. This makes me sad, so sad that I'd like to build a replacement that's just as good so I never have to deal with this again. If I make an open source desktop that runs on common Unix-like systems, it can be forked and updated forever.
With XFCE I have the functionality of a modern desktop environment and I can make it look like whatever I want. XFCE has been ported to OpenBSD, NetBSD, and Devuan, my three main operating systems. It runs well on mediocre hardware like my 1GHz Intel laptop, and can run all of the apps and tools in less than 500MB RAM.
Here are screenshots of what I have so far. It's the "Vancouver" theme based on screenshots of IRIX. Today or tomorrow I'm going to work on making a Toolchest replacement out of the xfce4-panel application. I'm going to attempt to use custom images for buttons and have custom menu files to match.
Desktop:
<URL url="https://ibb.co/csJ1ZT">
https://ibb.co/csJ1ZT
Login:
<URL url="https://ibb.co/cKhs8o">
https://ibb.co/cKhs8o
Let me know if there's any interest in something like this.
