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I would like to implement a downloadable Window Decoration design for Plasma 5 with a better logical natural mapping. I would like to base it on the Breeze window decorations as I think Breeze is beautiful except for the logic of the window decorations. Does anyone know where the SVG files for the Breeze window decorations are located? It seems though that the Breeze window decorations are not a standard Aurorae theme so this might be more complicated than I think?

@paulm Oxygen is not based on Aurorae (neither is Breeze). It is a binary-plugin (written in c++ and compiled by your distro).

The only theme that ships by default which is based on Aurorae is Plastik. You might want to base your theme on that one - change the button shape, and add the shadows.

To summarize, the problem I see with the oxygen-style window controls is fourfold:

1. There is not a direct visual mapping from the buttons to their function, as explained in the OP.

2. The arrows in the oxygen-style window controls are not even in the same context. That is, an arrow pointing up and another beside it pointing down implies that they have the direct opposite behaviour of one another. This is not the case. Despite their names, minimize and maximize are not direct opposites and one does not undo the other. The direct opposite to maximize is actually "restore". This is why when I first started using the Oxygen-style controls I kept accidentally clicking minimize when I meant to click restore.

3. Arrows are already overused in KDE and using them again in the window controls adds yet another unneeded context to decipher. For example:








With client-side/dynamic window decorations this will only get worse (I accidentally clicked minimize when not paying attention, thinking it was a drop-down menu):


4. People move their panels/taskbars to different sides of the screen and so "minimize" is not always below.

ivan wrote:@paulm Oxygen is not based on Aurorae (neither is Breeze). It is a binary-plugin (written in c++ and compiled by your distro).

The only theme that ships by default which is based on Aurorae is Plastik. You might want to base your theme on that one - change the button shape, and add the shadows.

Thanks, Ivan, but Plastik was too ugly and Windows XP-like to start as a base, and the non-Breeze themes are less functional. I actually think I prefer C++ . I created my own Breeze icon subvariant called "Classik" which looks as follows:

UPDATE 2021: The icon set in the above image is now called "Kite"

As well as a configuration option to allow you to toggle between the icon styles:


Here is also a video of it.

I created a new thread concerning this for the visual design group to look at here.


UPDATE 2021: This is now on GitHub at: https://github.com/paulmcauley/classik
The design has been updated to look like this: