KDE can be one of the most beautiful DEs out there, but unfortunately, out of the box it does not look the best it could.

My biggest gripe is the horrible ugly and depressing Windows 98-style shade of grey that is used by default in Oxygen. The shade used in the Oxygen Cold colour theme is much better has a much more modern feel like Windows 7. The OpenSUSE version (openSUSElight) is IMO the best as it uses some green elements instead of blue everywhere.

Oxygen Cold might be too bright for some, and I'd actually use the beautiful Obsidian Coast as dark themes are easy on the eyes. The problem with these dark themes is the issues they cause for Web browsers etc. This needs to have focus as would give KDE a well known signature look if a dark theme was the default.

As for icons, I think these are great and nice and colourful. Please do not go down the route ofthe latest fad that has taken over MS Visual Studio, OSX, and GNOME by using black and white icons. Black and white icons are a usability fail, and hard to identify quickly. The colourful icons KDE uses are quick and easy to identify and brighten up your day.

Another major issue is fonts. The Oxygen Font is beautiful and should clear up a lot of this issue, but it's still not the default yet. This issue is compounded by the outright ugly font rendering out of the box in many distros (OpenSUSE I'm talking to you); even with sublimely rendering enabled fonts are still not smooth without a lot of fiddling about with separate subpixel/infinality repos.

In a word, no. I think paulm makes a good point above, however I also think that making the default settings what they are gives those who want something different an opportunity to spread their artistic wings, so to speak, and be creative.

I am not new to Linux, but I am new to KDE and I am finding the nearly endless possibilities of tweaking the desktop a very refreshing part of using KDE. Whomever is responsible for this, thanks!

Yes and no, out of the box KDE is ugly. It has unappealing backgrounds, it wastes UI space (being not compact) and has too many effects slowing it down to make it clumsy to use. There should be more varied presets for different tastes stressing especially the lightweight and straight forward approach for those who don't prefer to waste their free hours downgrading all the bells and whistles that KDE comes with by default. The reason for me to use KDE is usually that it is most advanced in it's functional side compared to other options, meaning mainly the KLaunch. KDE being such complex bloatware my preference nowadays is Cinnamon 2.0 which delivers similar functionality added with relative simplicity and lightweight approach still being good looking and up to date. Its only caveat is that it's not just yet integral to most otherwise appealing distros leaving practically Linux Mint the only realistic option to use it - nothing wrong with LM, just would like to have more choices.

All in all the Linux DEs lack something I'd call good middleground. There are many ultra lightweight windowing desktops from the Unix days, and then there are some more modern lightweight variants that give rather limited tweaking options in overall lookwise (LXDE, Xfce, MATE). Then there are the weird ones in the middle like Unity and Gnome which look flashy modern but give very little tuning options and don't appeal to users from other OSs at all, they just don't feel right.

KDE again is ambitious and has good ideas for it, but at the same time goes far over the top in it's multitude of default effects and plethora of settings to tweak about which are not very user friendly to tweak but scattered all around the settings space making it very difficult to figure what happens from where for an occasional user (like it's said not everybody prefer to waste their spare time tweaking the KDE appearance details constantly thus remaining an expert of that just to make the DE "their own").

From KDE I'd like to see the rumored KlyDE project coming and create competition to the direction of Cinnamon style desktops, something that's functional, nimble and agile yet modern and good looking without excessive burden for the user. In many respects most Linux Distros are far superior to Windows for an OS, but the user interfaces of most Linux DEs generally lack intuitivity making them unappealing to many. I'm convinced that there are plenty of people out here (and there) who would prefer to switch to Linux family OSs for good, but the DEs seem to be the biggest hurdle to overcome and there should be more soft landing spots for the Windows refugees to make Linux a success in the future.

For me it's not so much that KDE is Ugly but outdated. KDE was just fine and even pretty when it came out in 2007 but now we're in 2014. 7 years have passed and a LOT has changed in the world of GUIs. Personally I never liked oxygen buttons and I found the lack of padding a great issue in KDE but most than that my concern is that the widget and icon theme has barely evolved since the 4.0 release.
In all this time we had Windows Vista, 7 and 8, OSX has evolved from extreme Aquaish to a less colorful tone and most of all, we had iOS and Android which changed the way we interact and the things we expect in a GUI and meanwhile KDE 4.12 is a slightly more polished version of KDE 4.3 released many years ago.
Now, I know that Google, Apple and MS have a lot of money and people working for them, designing the next UI paradigm (Apple is specially good at that) and that maybe KDE does not have many graphical designers which can help in this but in this time GNOME has evolved too. You may like it or not but GNOME and Ubuntu in 2007 look nothing like GNOME and Ubuntu in 2014.
Now look at the promised KDE 5 and most of the comments are: we're changing everything behing the stage but basically it will look like KDE 4. The oxygen team does not plan to change anything serious anytime soon and like it or not, fashion changes and most of all, the human being gets tired of looking always at the same thing. So when KDE 5.0 comes out, expect most of the comments be 'KDE is ugly' but what I think they want to say is 'KDE is so outdated, we've been seeing the same for 7 years'.

Hi getaceres! We need people like you to join in on the Visual Design forum! -> https://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=285

Make sure you read the rules, but don't hesistate to jump in with ideas, suggestions, mockups, napkin doodles etc.

KDE IS quite ugly in few areas. For instance those kerning bugs (in the krunner, in the window right click menu), ill-placed elements on plasmoids, font scaling issue in digital clock. At least some of those should be fixed in the KDE SC 5.

The other story is blindly trends following. Oxygen icons are glossy, detailed and colorfull ─ just because that was a trend back when it started. Tray icons are monochrome  ─ also because this is the current trend. Unfortunatly, trends change and KDE looks obsolete.

<usual disclaimer>
There is no KDE 5.0. There will never be KDE 5.0.

The /thing/ that will be released is Plasma Next (whatever the exact version will be at the time).
</usual disclaimer>

If anyone is willing to work on a different icon set, a different widget style, they are more than welcome.

You are right that fashion changes often. But this does not imply that we ought to change our design every time somebody else does, and we should not need to follow other people's styles just because it is 'the new black'.

Like the aforementioned Windows line - they only change the theme because they realize that the previous one was dread-awful - they always do a complete overhaul. Unlike them, Apple (which I have absolutely no love for) evolved the UI gradually for OSX.

Oxygen did evolve since 4.0, but, unfortunately, not that much. There were quite a few subtle changes (which I realized only upon having to work on 4.1 a couple of months ago).

Personal opinion: I still think that Oxygen from 4.0 (the widget style, not the plasma theme obviously ):
http://petesodyssey.org/files/kde4screenshot2.png
looks more modern and pleasant than Windows 8.1:
http://www.winbeta.org/sites/default/fi ... 4gkl90.png

And the same goes for the 'outdated' Oxygen icons.

And the same goes for the 'outdated' Oxygen icons.

They are not outdated, they are just like ideal and trendy icon set should look back in the 2005. But now perfect icons should be flat, square and minimalistic. Both trends are not my cup of tea.

Unlike them, Apple (which I have absolutely no love for) evolved the UI gradually for OSX.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gu ... 90-1-1.png
OS 9

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gu ... osx102.png
OSX jaguar.

And than gradually make it look a little bit more sane.

I just want to say that although it doesn't matter what is the current trend, it just matters if new look is good. OSX jaguar was awfull, but it setted trend that rest of the world was following blindly. Now minimal is new awesome ─ but is it any better? Maybe we should make KDE look like iOS7 with childish, flat icons? And square ─ square icons are trendy!

I just think that It is possible to get your own unique style. At least GNOME 3 has it.

> But now perfect icons should be flat

Because MS made flat modern (Modern^TM)?

I don't care about that, and I don't think that the flat icons on mono-colour rectangles are the way to go (an opinion shared by most other plasma people).

I do agree that minimalist icons can look nice. But not always, and not for everything.

> I just think that It is possible to get your own unique style.

+10 - and we just need to find it (again)

Because MS made flat modern (Modern™)?

Because Apple did that in the iOS 7 Android is also flat.

This is just modern trend. It is stupid, but it is here. I'm just afraid because KDE followed new trends in the past. Especially oxygen icons is any example, they strongly resemble Apple look.

I saw that the Android UI is mostly flat, and almost the same with iOS7 but wit a lot of blurs, gradients and candy.

But not the icons - they have slight shadows and highlights:
http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/000 ... Kat-1-.jpg

As for iOS 7 icons, I'd rather be retro, it that is modern

Well, personally I would have nothing against some cartoonish icons with solid outlines, but I guess there is no way back to that

And so KDE VDG presents new icons. I'm not surprised.

My opinions:

About the icons:
Icons should change. They are shiny and they look like those fake themes that you can install on win98 or xp.

About the panel:
The running applications' icons on the panel should be larger at a given panel height. Their fonts should have good contrast with the default theme.
The active, passive or minimized window should be EASILY noticeable by not focusing eyes on the panel.

About the applications:
The number of default applications is HUGE. Funny thing is that you can not uninstall them due to dependency issues. There should only be apps like text editor, picture viewer, system monitor, network manager etc. (what everybody uses). When I look at the menu I see a junkyard of apps that I never need. I don't even know what they are and I don't care to know.

If there is a better alternative to an application, people don't use it. Compared to Konqueror, Dolphin is better for file browsing, Firefox is better for web browsing. That's why Konqueror should not be installed by default.

> They are shiny and they look like those fake themes that you can install on win98 or xp.

I really do not understand all the hate oxygen icons get. They might be outdated, not following the /modern/ designs, and a few of them are really problematic. But all in all, majority of them are very clear, crisp and straight-forward which is really hard to achieve for icons this realistic. And realism was all the rage back then.

The strange part is that everybody is talking about how glossy they are, as if nobody actually remembers what glossy actually meant back then:



> The number of default applications is HUGE.

That is the fault of the distro you are using. They are choosing the apps, not us.