This is the conclusion of much of my work on U-lite Linux: I should get involved with LXDE directly. Ultimately, I am much more interested in programming aspects of Linux than just packaging and maintaining and as such I feel that is a better fit for me. Plus, it would mean that my work would be able to benefit everyone who uses LXDE. I hope everyone agrees that that is more useful. Thus, I would like to kick off my new involvement in LXDE with a status report on what I am working on.
I felt like one major area for improvement in LXDE was the default theme. Fortunately, another member of LXDE’s forum had started to work on a nice theme. I just took the screenshot of the theme he was working on (Currently default in Lubuntu Alpha 4) and ran with it. I created a custom Openbox and GTK theme as well as tweaked an icon theme to match it nicely. I further added polish by paying close attention to contrast to improve readability and reduce eye-strain. You are able to track the development of this theme at LXDE forums and I will also offer updates concerning it here.
Before I can start tackling the larger problems or deeper bugs in LXDE programs, I need to acquaint myself with their code base. To this end, I will try to tackle some of the easier bugs that have been reported or even a couple problems I have noticed. In this process, I hope to better get to know the code and in the process of submitting patches to get to know the developers more. For example, I am currently working on the minor annoyance of the taskbar buttons being larger than the panel icons. I believe I have come up with a solution to this and will post a patch after a little cleanup of the code changes I have made.
The final annoyance I may set my sights on is reworking the lxsession-logout dialog. It has grown to look a little clunky and with minor modification, we could have a sleeker dialog box for loging out of your system. However, I know someone was working on this so I might hold off to see if they continue (currently, they only changed the icons and text to be centered).
As a final goal, I am helping test the new version of PCManFM. I hope to use my knowledge of debugging to track down any problems I find.
Please stay tuned for updates to the status of my progress in these areas and launching of new efforts into improving LXDE.
