70

Summary: Ship 10 KDE themes with KDE

I'm suggesting that KDE ships about 10 themes that of high quality, but significantly different visual tastes. KDE is has for awhile not been very flexible, but the default theme looks distinctively KDE, if there is such a thing, which by itself is good. However, may not be appealing to everyone.

I'm suggesting a first-run type app along with a set of 10 themes which appeal to different styles, the app allow a user to easily and quickly experience each of themes -- without having to go find them themselves, or thinking that KDE can only look how it already looks. Example theme types/feels.

- KDE default (whatever the art team has in store as the default for that release)
- Gnome (their default) like them
- OSX like theme
- Windows XP like theme
- Windows 7 like theme
- Chrome OS like (I see at least one Chromium like windeco is available already)
- Sci fi movie example (pick a theme that's similar to what one would expect in a sci-fi movie)
- a minimalistic theme
- a dark theme
- a bright theme
- a child's theme
- a teenager theme (if that can even be defined)

So with little effort a new user could easily rotate through those themes, either picking one that suits them, or at least realizing how flexible the platform is -- encouraging them to find some other theme that more closely matches their expectations.

I second the sci-fi one!

We need more futuristic themes, I say!

I think we should promote some of the KDE best looking theme : Oxygen, Bespin, Sculture, Polyester, QtCurve.
And then propose themes that looks like familiar environnements : Windows, OSX, Gnome, Chrome...
And other themes.

Maybe the Windows theme should be re-worked, and propose multiple settings like Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista/Seven... that would be so nice (especially for the 3.1 one) !

plaristote wrote:I think we should promote some of the KDE best looking theme : Oxygen, Bespin, Sculture, Polyester, QtCurve.

My only problem with the "best of KDE" themes is that they seem to be all of similar artist style.

plaristote wrote:And then propose themes that looks like familiar environnements : Windows, OSX, Gnome, Chrome...
And other themes.

Maybe the Windows theme should be re-worked, and propose multiple settings like Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista/Seven... that would be so nice (especially for the 3.1 one) !

That would be cool for new users I believe.

I also think a 'dark' theme (along with proper window decorations, would be lovely)

KDE 3 I believe had a wizard where you could choose windows like and it would theme it like windows and behave like windows... I think a return of that wizard would be cool.

Yes, it would be a great way of showing off the customibility if KDE to new users. KDE already ships with loads of wallpapers after all.

That sounds great! But it would mean 10 times as much work for the theme making people, or maybe even more since some of these themes would be probably more difficult to make than Oxygen O_o

I agree, but it should not only be the theme. For example a Windows 7 theme should use an appropriate windows7 taskbar applet instead of the standard one, or an os x theme should use a dock applet and a global menu. A gnome theme should present a gnome panel layout, with 2 thin panels on top and bottom and the classic menu as default.

nlefk83 wrote:I agree, but it should not only be the theme. For example a Windows 7 theme should use an appropriate windows7 taskbar applet instead of the standard one, or an os x theme should use a dock applet and a global menu. A gnome theme should present a gnome panel layout, with 2 thin panels on top and bottom and the classic menu as default.

That is an entire desktop layout, theme, desktop containment type, panel layout, icons. It is essentially an entire plasma configuration. That is a lot more complicated than what this idea is about, and cannot even be implemented under KDE as it currently is, since there is no way to package an entire plasma configuration like that.

^ I see your point but I still think it would be great. I'll post it in a new thread then

Wouldn't this be something a distribution would decide? For example, Pardus 2009 offers a whole bunch of customization options upon the first log-in, including theme selection, wallpapers, window styles, etc. Their program's wonderful, and I wish Kubuntu had something similar, but I'm not sure KDE is the right place to implement it.

1. story: make doing themes easier.

2. story: then a lot more people would be making great themes then do now

3. story: when I look at the performance issues of the bespin theme, I say: make the themes usable, that is: fast!

4. story: I'd put the Mac-OS theme in second

5. how about a l-cars theme speaking of scifi themes

If we have too many themes in KDE, it becomes more work for distros trying to keep their CDs under 700mb. We add 20 megs worth of themes, we severly cut into the limit of what they can do.

Currently we have a dark theme, and a light theme. If we want to add more themes, I would suggest a theme that has vibrant, configurable colours. Dark, Light, Coloured.

Another thing we could do; every incarnation of KDE has refinements and stylistic changes to the themes. We have received many configuration options for plasma themes, but often some of the styleistic changes don't have options to revert back. For example, 4.4 has the square-pattern, while 4.3 had circles - we should have options adjusting stylistic portions of plasma themes aswell.

Take a look to http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=122050 made thanks to "TheRob".

It's the most beautiful theme/style I've ever seen.It looks like Mac OS X but much better.
I suggest to implement it as one of deffault theme/styles, it would be very interesting and attractive for our KDE4 and old and new linux users to come to the light side