Feedback: the new Breeze mouse cursor in Plasma 6 Dev

Brainstorm
1

I am probably very late to the party, but some days ago I was surprised to realize that the standard Plasma Breeze mouse cursor has been changed in Plasma 6 Dev…

Before I write anything more I want to make it clear that I don’t want to discredit the work and time someone has put into this in any way!
And that I know that different people have different taste.

Here is a screenshot-comparison of the mouse cursors from Plasma 4, Plasma 5 and Plasma 6 Dev (the latter ones were taken from KaOS):

cursors_overview

cursors_overview2

My critical opinion:
I think it is no good decision to change the very unique outer shape of Plasma’s default mouse cursor…
One can distinguish the Plasma 5 Breeze and Plasma 4 Oxygen mouse cursors from e.g. Windows’, macOS’ or any other Linux DE’s by their shape at once. The new Plasma 6 Dev Breeze cursor not so much.

As small as it is, the mouse cursor is one of the things the user is inevitably and permanently being confronted with in a desktop environment.
At least for me the unique shape of “our” cursor has always been something I associated with KDE Plasma - it has been much more of a “branding” for me than for example the official Plasma 4/5 Desktop logos (the “cashew” with the three “dots” and the “bracket” with the three “dots”).
And even some Windows users have identified the Plasma 5 Breeze mouse cursor as “the Linux cursor” in my presence (this was not on my computers and in some cases the cursor was not even used in Plasma but in other DEs…).

Changing the mouse cursor’s colours is another cup of tea entirely IMHO.
This already has been done from Plasma 4 to 5 / Oxygen to Breeze for good reason (but the outer shape had been preserved!) and though the colours are not that important to me I indeed do understand why this has happened in Plasma 6 Dev.

Yes, I know that I will be able to change the mouse cursor to one of my liking, but I think the important part is with what cursor the user is confronted by default…

What do you think?

PS: I am sorry if this already has been discussed somewhere, but I was not able to find anything.

5 Likes
2

Same opinions here, it lost its uniqueness and I really liked its shape. I was even planning on publishing the current 5 one on the store so I could keep using it.

5 Likes
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I remember when we were finally technically able to do 3D cursors and icons and it was lauded as a step up. Then later, we went flat on everything. It was like a step back in time. I for one, was hoping this age of flatness was about to end. I would love to have the 3D and shape of the Breeze5 cursor with the new features of Plasma 6.

Think of it like bringing back the Cube. Who needs the Cube? No one. Why do we want it? Because we can.

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Probably the Plasma 5 cursor is not that distinctive, anyway. I haven’t seen the change mentioned in any articles or videos about Plasma 6 Alpha. Nor did I notice it myself until you pointed it out.

That said, yes I prefer the old one too.

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Hi. Thanks for this post! I agree with you and was actually thinking of making a post about the same issue.

I respect the decision to change, and it is always welcome to improve, but one of the things that I really didn’t like of the new features coming for Plasma 6 was the cursor.

I even made some comments on reddit when I knew about this. I think the new cursor is very generic for its shape and color. To me, the Breeze cursor is something that I see and think “Plasma, so beautiful!”. I read that the reason for this change was making the cursor less rounded so it could be more precise, but I think there is no reason to change the overall shape and color to do that.

I would’t mind so much if they made the current cursor available as built-in option, but when I commented no one answered.

1 Like