I haven't posted for a while - work has been busy and I've also been working on designing Emerald themes.
What are Emerald themes? I hear you ask. Well, when I wrote about Ubuntu, one of the advantages I mentioned was that it was customisable. Emerald is a program that draws the windows on programs (the close, maximise buttons and other stuff). In Ubuntu (and any other Linux distribtion, for that matter), there are loads of emerald 'themes' that alter the look of your windows. You can make them light, dark, colourful, metallic, simple, silly, retro ... anything you want. There are literally hundreds of themes that can be downloaded from the Gnome Look site. You can also modify themes or make your own from scratch.
In the end I made three different themes that are all very different. All three themes have been popular on Gnome Look and have collectively amassed over 3000 downloads in less than a month.
Cloud 9 was my first attempt at an Emerald theme and remains my favourite. It is the theme that I use on my computer. It has very simple buttons and a cool glow effect on the windows.
My second theme is called Googol and is my take on what a Google operating system might look like. This has been very popular on Gnome Look and has also been highly rated - currently 83%
My third theme is Playstation and uses the buttons on the Playstation controller as inspiration for the window buttons. This has also been popular and currently has a rating of 80%.
I've enjoyed making these themes and also learnt a bit about how things work on my computer. It's also great fun tracking your themes ratings and reading comments about it on Gnome Look. It also means I can make my operating system look exactly how I want it to.
