Hello,

I am really, really trying to go from KDE3 to KDE4. Still, I am so hooked on my customized desktop that I simply cannot make the step unless I can reproduce my colors, layout and favorite apps on KDE4.
So - here's a screenshot of my desktop.

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/9479/kubuntu.jpg

Nothing fancy, if you take a look. Maybe that's why I cannot make it look the same way in KDE4 - KDE4 is for complex widgets and effects, but when it comes to font size and colors, it seems to be of no use at all?

Anyone who thinks that can help me with this, please, let me know how I can solve this puzzle.
Thank you all !

Here are some requirements in order to achieve this task

Panels:
1) Multiple panels with custom position and size
2) Transparent panel without composition. I don't care if it's fake transparency or not, I just want to see the desktop picture underneath the panel. I don't care if I cannot see a window underneath the panel, I just want the Desktop to look smooth and not waste resources
3) Panel that behaves like a quick launch bar (see left-side panel in the picture) = icons on a panel that I can click on to launch applications

Windows decoration:
1) Custom colors/fonts for windows title bars - active/inactive
2) Custom colors/effects for windows buttons - close/minimize/maximize

Panel applets
1) System tray - please note that I use Kdocker to put anything I want in the system tray. The only customization i need on the system tray is to be able to select icons I want to hide
2) Task bar with custom fonts and colors and WITH NO BORDER for each task in the task bar - see KDE4. If I can have the option to display only the icons/text/both of the tasks, so much better
3) System monitor applet FOR THE PANEL and NOT on the desktop. Custom colors and fonts, also. Look at how neat the Kima applet looks on my desktop
4) Time/date applet for the panel - custom colors/fonts/style
5) Weather applet for the panel

Desktop
1) Custom icon settings - custom size, custom font color and size.

3D effects
1) No effects - I came to the conclusion that it's nice to look nice, but it's even better if you can do the job without spending extra time/resources.

That would me more or less it, please help me, I want to upgrade to Lucid Lynx and I am stuck.

Thank you all !

Panels:
1) totally possible. (with the desktop unlocked) Right-click on the desktop -> add panel. Click the panel's toolbar icon (the little half-circle thing on the end of the panel) and use that to adjust the size, orientation, etc.
2) Transparent panel without compositing currently isn't possible. You can try different plasma themes to see if there is one that looks smooth enough without transparency (or you can define your own plasma theme, they are merely svg files).
3) Have a panel that just has application launchers. There's also a few different plasmoids you can use for launching applications, like Fancy Tasks, Daisey, QuickLaunch, etc. These can be placed on a panel, or on the edge of the desktop to look like a panel.

Windows decorations:
I can't see your snapshot (imageshack is blocked at my work), so I can't say which themes to use. You can customize the colors in the same ways that you would in KDE3.5 (in the KDE settings -> appearance -> colors).

Panel Applets (plasmoids):
1) There should be an app that you can install to allow you to force anything into the system tray. There's work being done on the hiding of specific icons in the system tray. I'm not sure what exactly is planned, but you can do some research on these forums and if it isn't quite what you want, submit an idea for what you want to Brainstorm.
2) I'm not sure what's required to customize the fonts in the taskbar. The theme of the taskbar is determined by the plasma theme. You may also want to take a look at Smooth Tasks which has options for optionally contracting the taskbar items to just the icon by various criteria.
3) You can put any plamsoid on the panel(s). When adding the plasmoids just drag it to where you want on the panel instead of the desktop. Custom fonts and colors are up to the plasmoid (and the plasma theme). There are a number of different system monitor plasmoids you can choose from, and if none of them quite matches what you want then try modifying one or making your own.
4) The digital clock plasmoid is fully costomizable.
5) see 3.

3D effects
1) You don't have to enable compositing (desktop effects); unless you want the panel transparency, in which case you can enable compositing for the transparency but turn off all of the other effects that you don't use.

Thanks for the reply. Let's take them one by one - background transparency without compositing - that's OK, I can live with it, as long as I can set a background image for the panel.
As for windows decoration - I tried so hard to change the titlebar color for active/inactive window as well as the font and the font color of active/inactive widows - I couldn;t find out how - can you help me with that, please ?
Then I'll take another look and try to find some plasmoids that suit my needs and talk about it.
Thanks !

For setting the custom panel background, you can try changing it in System Settings -> Appearance -> Desktop Theme Details (at least I'm pretty sure where it is on Linux in 4.4, I'm writing this from Windows and they put it in another place altogether).
For Window decorations, you probably at least need to change the style because as I recall the default Oxygen theme only uses the Window Background/text colors (so that the decorations have a nice fade into the window) from the current color scheme. Other decorations obey the Active/Inactive Titlebar colors (also specified as part of the current color scheme).

TWIST: how about the system tray plasmoid "intercept" other application icons to render them in monochromatic way ?

can it be done ? could it be done ?

oh the suspense ..




off-topic rant: all this systray icons talk reminds me: where on earth is the wifi/network management plasmoid ?! ..

ps: i love the new icons.