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I know, blur is already done i trunk. Wonderful. But why don't go further? I mean:
1. Support for ARGB in Oxygen
2. Making Aurorae a default decorator
3. Blur under Aurorae decorated windows

What can we get? If the background of QT style was fully transparent, background of Windows could be fully determined by Aurorae style. It would be able to make windows and Plasma look similar and more consistent. In addition, blured windows with RGBA will make KDE look more modern and beautiful.

It shouldn't be so much work with it and effect would be really cool!

I've made up a simple mockup, but when it's done, it will look much better.

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Anton suggested:

My suggestion would be to give oxygen the option not to paint the window-background.

I like the idea of making Aurorae a default decorator. Not because how it displays window decorations but because how it installs them. I find it strange that I can install new plasma themes, color themes, wallpapers etc. by just clicking "Get new themes" button but can't do the same with window decorations. Also I like your mockup, blur is the only thing I like in Windows' Aero

Otaq wrote:Not because how it displays window decorations but because how it installs them. I find it strange that I can install new plasma themes, color themes, wallpapers etc. by just clicking "Get new themes" button but can't do the same with window decorations.

Well this is possible in the upcomming KDE SC 4.5. There is a "Get New Decoration" button which will download Aurorae themes and they are listed in the list just like normal themes. As a user you are not able to distinquish if a decoration is native or an Aurorae theme

So I think there is no need to make Aurorae the default window decoration in 4.5 as the fact if it is an Aurorae theme or not is just a minor and unimportant implementation detail.

Adding translucency to the window is something the Oxygen designers have to decide. This could be added to the Oxygen decoration without the need of Aurorae (Aurorae is not yet capable to render a complex theme like Oxygen).

About blur: blur requires hardware support and we have to remeber that. We cannot just enable a high level of translucency and think there will be blur. In fact lot's of users's won't have blur. So this is in my opinion a no go as a default. It's also very important to remember that the Windows Aero blur is perfect and that our implementation would be compared to it

mgraesslin wrote:
So I think there is no need to make Aurorae the default window decoration in 4.5 as the fact if it is an Aurorae theme or not is just a minor and unimportant implementation detail.

I agree.

mgraesslin wrote:
Adding translucency to the window is something the Oxygen designers have to decide. This could be added to the Oxygen decoration without the need of Aurorae (Aurorae is not yet capable to render a complex theme like Oxygen).

I spoke with Nuno Pinheiro, he does not seem to want this feature for oxygen but he will perhaps change its opinion when blur in Aurorae will be ready.

mgraesslin wrote:
About blur: blur requires hardware support and we have to remeber that. We cannot just enable a high level of translucency and think there will be blur. In fact lot's of users's won't have blur. So this is in my opinion a no go as a default.

I agree.

mgraesslin wrote:
It's also very important to remember that the Windows Aero blur is perfect and that our implementation would be compared to it

This is one more reason to meet the chalenge

Thank you Martin for your great work on Aurorae !!

Look at Air-Oxygen aurorae decoration in 4.5, it has blur.

But I don't think this is a good approach to this.
My suggestion would be to give oxygen the option not to paint the window-background. As KWin paints the window-deco under the window too, the window-background would be the decoration.

For standard this wouldn't change anything, because the Oxygen-windowdeco looks exactly like the Oxygen-window-background, but if you use a transparent aurorae-deco the window-background would be transparent, too.

Anton wrote:My suggestion would be to give oxygen the option not to paint the window-background.

I agree. It seems to be the best way to solve it. When QT style background painted, it would look as it looks now. But when it was turned off, the window's background would be determined by decorator, so that the result as in the mockup could be acchieved.

By the looks of it, KDE 4.5 has all aspects of this covered in terms of technical capacity. It seems like it's only getting slowed by implementation now.

Blur is KDE 4.5 confirmed, which was the big new "thing" that had to be re-added. Aurorae is now available very easily.

Oxygen is the last major hurdle. All it needs, I believe, is a check-box in the theme config to actually knock-out the background to let transparency through (Again, what Anton said). I don't know much about the blood & guts of the Oxygen theme - please correct me if I'm wrong, but right now I think some widgets would not play nice with the RGBA background. I think oxygen is the last hurdle because making the theme look good for both RGBA and standard backgrounds would be difficult / time consuming - and I would not blame the devs for holding back on an imperfect look & feel when they already have it quite polished.

Being said, I would fall head-over-heels for RGBA in Oxygen, through and through.

With how things work in 4.5 the idea of making aurorae the "default decator" becomes irrelevant. Users are simply provided a list of decoration appearances, it is hard if not impossible to tell which are aurorae themes and which are binary themes. And there are ARGB versions of oxygen for aurorae, so I think that aspect could be said to be implemented as well (from a user perspective, since the user can't really tell the difference).

TheBlackCat wrote:With how things work in 4.5 the idea of making aurorae the "default decator" becomes irrelevant. Users are simply provided a list of decoration appearances, it is hard if not impossible to tell which are aurorae themes and which are binary themes.

OK, so this part can be considered as done.

TheBlackCat wrote:And there are ARGB versions of oxygen for aurorae, so I think that aspect could be said to be implemented as well (from a user perspective, since the user can't really tell the difference).

Are there? I have seen only Oxygen Aurorae decoration and not QT style. And without the QT style with ARGB it's unable to see the aurorae's transculent window background.

I was only talking about the decoration, translucent widget themes are still pretty experimental I believe.