GTK

I took a pretty big risk with this title, as it makes it sound like I am against Ubuntu having any kind of attractive features whatsoever from a cosmetic perspective. In reality, I would love to see Ubuntu evolve into something more visually attractive, but I hardly see this as a focus at this point.
What [...]

Andrea Cimitan implimented transparent widgets in the GTK theme engine. Finally. OK, well, maybe not finally, but it’s about time GTK caught up with 2004:
“GNOME theme engine designer Andrea Cimitan has implemented support for transparent widgets in the Murrine GTK theme engine, bringing Vista-like translucent glass effects to the GNOME desktop. Cimitan used RGBA colormaps [...]