Learning More About KDE's Plasma Next Desktop

[newwen]

Guess what? If you don't the default theme in KDE you can completely change it, and it's easy they even provide a downloader that will install them for you. As well no matter what it looks like, somebody is going to complain about it, because everyone has different tastes, and I for one do not understand what issue you and others have with the default theme.

It's not only the ugly theme, it's the interface itself wich is bad designed and looks clutered. You can see in those screenshots that there're too many buttons. The artwork has also quite bad taste.

[scionicspectre]

You obviously haven't dealt with any of the fruit company's products lately....


On a more serious note, I agree the default theme is nothing exciting. So what? As long as the UI is released with a few screenshots showing off customization options, what does it matter? Besides, it really is very difficult to satisfy everyone. Especially when some people, like myself, prefer dark themed desktops because they are easier on my eyes. Other people prefer the classic white/light colored background ("daywalkers". Yuck.) Icons are fairly customizable too.

So why waste time trying to find something that is going to please more people, even though in reality it will probably end up pissing off existing users (who use other themes anyway)?

Hah, well it certainly wouldn't hurt to TRY. You don't have to kill the theme and make a new one to make improvements. Also, as I've previously mentioned, I don't think a little consistency across the visuals would piss anyone off. I agree that customization is one of KDE's strengths, but it shouldn't be an excuse to ignore lackluster defaults.

In general, it's quite interesting to observe the psychological landscape that produces these kinds of excuses within free software projects. I'd be very interested in finding out how to overcome this kind of stagnation without alienating users.

[FourDMusic]

I'll believe that when I see it. For nearly a decade the KDE people have been woefully ignorant of aesthetics. It's like the whole team is colorblind and autistic. I love that they haven't gone full retard like GNOME and Ubuntu have but my god does KDE need a crap ton of work in the design department.

Why don't you make a KDE theme and try to get it submitted as the default theme?

[mendieta]

Simply uncalled for.

Yes, one more troll kiddie to add to the ignore list. Oh well.

Michael, would it be possible to add an "ignore" button close to each user? The process is a bit convoluted, and the growing popularity of Phoronix is bringing trolls more often than in the past. Thank you!

[mendieta]

By the way, I don't see the reason to keep users who are obviously bored and looking to disrupt the forum (just click on her/his name and search for all her/his posts)

[lolnope]

"being good enough" or "make your own theme" should not be a valid excuse anymore
the fact of the matter is that the default KDE theme is garbage and KDE(with the amount of resources they have) should atleast hire a professional designer or something. I'm saying this as a KDE user
free software projects should rise above being just hobbyist projects if they want to be taken seriously

[schmidtbag]

Yes, one more troll kiddie to add to the ignore list. Oh well.

Michael, would it be possible to add an "ignore" button close to each user? The process is a bit convoluted, and the growing popularity of Phoronix is bringing trolls more often than in the past. Thank you!

I'm not sure if phoronix really is growing that much, though I don't really know a way to prove that. I do see new users popping up more lately but the quantity of posts (at least on articles) seems to remain about the same. That being said, I think Michael is getting burnt out, which is affecting his performance and causing more hate than usual. Personally, I think people are a lot more whiny than necessary. Sure there's a bit of unprofessionalism here and there and a lack of citations, but personally, I don't really care. I'm here for the news and benchmarks; I don't really care how its delivered as long as I get it.

[schmidtbag]

"being good enough" or "make your own theme" should not be a valid excuse anymore
the fact of the matter is that the default KDE theme is garbage and KDE(with the amount of resources they have) should atleast hire a professional designer or something. I'm saying this as a KDE user
free software projects should rise above being just hobbyist projects if they want to be taken seriously

It IS good enough. It might not be the best style, but at least it looks very modern. And you don't have to make your own theme - KDE allows you to download entire themes or even pieces of themes (such as icon themes, window decorations, color schemes, mouse pointers, etc) without root access or any 3rd party utility. KDE is VERY user friendly when it comes to changing the appearance. That's what I seriously don't understand - people complain so much about KDE's appearance when it takes so little effort to tweak it. Windows XP looked ugly but that didn't prevent people from using it, and that was more difficult to tweak.

[lolnope]

It IS good enough. It might not be the best style, but at least it looks very modern. And you don't have to make your own theme - KDE allows you to download entire themes or even pieces of themes (such as icon themes, window decorations, color schemes, mouse pointers, etc) without root access or any 3rd party utility. KDE is VERY user friendly when it comes to changing the appearance. That's what I seriously don't understand - people complain so much about KDE's appearance when it takes so little effort to tweak it. Windows XP looked ugly but that didn't prevent people from using it, and that was more difficult to tweak.

You can't really compare a Linux desktop environment to windows. People use windows because it works well for what they want to do. If you want people to switch to Linux, the default theme/wallpaper should be much better than what you find on say osx. 99% of the people don't give two shits about downloadable themes.
the major turnoff for most gnome or xfce folks is that KDE doesn't look good by default

[TheBlackCat]

the fact of the matter is that the default KDE theme is garbage and KDE(with the amount of resources they have) should atleast hire a professional designer or something.

KDE recently formed a design group and their first task is cleaning up the default theme and plasma appearance.