Hi there,

I'm curious about the widget style for KF5.

In the PlasmaPrototype preview, we are told to install QtCurve and try the Next preset. Does this mean that QtCurve will be the default widget style for KF5?

I know that I can always keep Oxygen if I don't like the new widget style. However, I would like to see the merits/disadvantages of Oxygen discussed before throwing it away (as the default). Have I missed this already?

P

The QtCurve style was made mostly to demonstrate the whole default look and feel of Plasma Next, and creating a QtCurve style is relatively easy from a technical POV.
I don't know if the technical specifics for the final default widget style have been decided (or even discussed) yet.

The current Oxygen style would not fit the overall design direction that was taken with Plasma Next at all. The relatively flat white widgets withing Plasma wouldn't mix well with rounded, gradient-intensive Oxygen widgets.

colomar wrote:The current Oxygen style would not fit the overall design direction that was taken with Plasma Next at all. The relatively flat white widgets withing Plasma wouldn't mix well with rounded, gradient-intensive Oxygen widgets.

That's a pity, I'm the world's biggest Oxygen widget style fan (not joking!). It must have taken so much effort over the years to perfect this widget style (plus the gtk2 and gtk3 versions).

It seems that the momentum is going towards flat Gnome 3, Android or Windows 7/8 styles. Are there no other champions of Oxygen?!

P

Everything has an end, look ahead

pepedopolous wrote:That's a pity, I'm the world's biggest Oxygen widget style fan (not joking!). It must have taken so much effort over the years to perfect this widget style (plus the gtk2 and gtk3 versions).

As you said yourself, Oxygen will stay around. That's the cool thing: You are not forced to use any of the design being produced here. You can mix and match any way you want. But if you stick with one visual style for too long, people perceive you as "outdated" and infer that the technology underneath must be old as well. We get this feedback from people a lot. Therefore, the default look has to be refreshed from time to time to keep it from becoming stale.

Like Colomar said: the idea is to make it possible for people to mix and match, try and test and then pick something else - that's the awesomeness of Plasma by KDE.

I will be very clear with the fact that personally I am not a huge Oxygen Widget Theme fan (I am respectful of the awesomeness of the work though, just to have that clear). But that's the thing about us humans, we're not all alike. When the issue is "make something as good as possible and it will take up ALL your free time" (I think my husband has gotten used to never seeing my face at this point, just my neck highlighted by the glow of the screen) you have to go with your ideas and trust your choices so... yes, sadly for you that is not in a direction you prefer.

But since I am also not insane and think that the world is a "one size fits all" and design is best done by dictators-in-turtlenecks - I will do my best to ensure that you and anyone running Oxygen will get the very best performance and experience which is what you deserve. Just because we disagree in taste doesn't mean that our respective choices are mutually exclusive.

We're in this together.

Thanks for the understanding replies. Maybe I will end up loving the new theme just as much as Oxygen

colomar wrote:But if you stick with one visual style for too long, people perceive you as "outdated" and infer that the technology underneath must be old as well. We get this feedback from people a lot. Therefore, the default look has to be refreshed from time to time to keep it from becoming stale.

Agreed, but I remember using QtCurve with KDE3.4!


P

pepedopolous wrote:Agreed, but I remember using QtCurve with KDE3.4!

QtCurve can take on all sorts of looks. Try it out and you'll notice that it doesn't look anything like KDE3, promise!

I know that the QtCurve released in Pack Jens was only a draft, but since I'm already reading around a lot of criticism on the style flatt, I was wondering if it would be appropriate to open a topic on which direction we want to go the next style for windows, which is far better to do it now rather andafter ch ... I know that the first version will still be with Oxygen Plasma 2, but maybe it's better to start talking now of what style we want with mockups and samples ... What do you think?

Will we get a theme engine this time, or will the widget-style be hardcoded like in Oxygen? It's kind of … weird that one can configure almost everything and has the freedome to choose in KDE, but not when it comes to themes. Qtcurve and friends are rather limited, when one compares it with gkt+' capabilities. It's would be really nice if themeing like it's done in gtk+ was available.

if there's already the undertaking to make a new widget-theme, why not make something that's theming friendly? So, how will this new theme be build and how will theming be handled in future? (For more look here, although this thread looks dead)

Cheers

Let me just refer to https://blogs.kde.org/2013/03/10/fruits-css2013

flat style:



oxygen style:



The strength of flat styles would be, that even poor tool kits not supporting gradients could be made look integrated more easily.
I am not sure about the whole thing though. No gradients at all may look too empty. Some kind of gradient, at least in the titlebar/toolbar area like max os x would look really good.
I for one, like the oxygen style. It can be really made look good, given the right color scheme. And you can configure the contrast of the gradients, though it could be more flexible.
I think it will be very difficult to create a widget style that will be even near oxygen quality and support across different tool-kits (like gtk), without a person like Hugo who has the knowledge and the motivation to work intensively on this issue. I think this can be hardly done collaboratively (the design yes, the implementation will be difficult).

Worlds shortest reply (on vacation and family is looking darkly my way why I'm sitting in the shade writing replies instead of going to the beach):

A new theme is coming!!!

The issue is this: we need C++ devs. Thats the long and the short of it. Design wise and idea wise it's all good but most devs are tied up in other work so if you know any C++ programmers who can follow design guide lines, who know the importance of resource usage, who can be positive and inclusive and who aren't scared of being a part of design work - LET ME KNOW! The more we get the faster the new widget theme that's planned will get done.

(The current idea is visible in the Qtcurve theme you can download from the blog (yes we will get something more easily acquired soon))

Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to the devs. that the toolkit will be build with plasma technologies. i dont know the performance of this, but on the pro site is that we easily could change things, without c++ knowledge

maybe make a request on Planet KDE, I'm sure there are people around who would like to do this

The devs have kinda made a point of saying they don't have time right now due to the issues with Plasma Next - my plan has been to visit the local university that has a course for engineers for C++ and suggesting a third year project to the lecturers or something

But yeah everyone should check around