Welcome to a new issue of "This Week in Plasma"! Every week we cover as much as possible of what's happening in the world of KDE Plasma and its associated apps like Discover, System Monitor, and more.
Ehā¦ one thing that constantly bugs me about KDE Plasma (especially in the blog posts screenshots) - default system (contour) icons. Would it be possible to make them āsofterā? Something like icons offered by Edna Light (edit: Iām also limited to posting links so instead of nice link: www.pling.com/p/1529191/ )?
See the difference:
(there were two images for comparison bus a new user on discuss, because it uses yet another credentials Iām limited to single image embed so hereās the screenshot of the previous embeds )
The challenge here is that icon style preferences are extremely subjective. Yes, thereās broad consensus that Breeze icons could use an overhaul (hence the project to do so), but how?
More roundness? How much? Someone will complain about that.
āThese icons look like toys now, where are the adults?ā
Thicker strokes? Someone will complain about that too.
āThey look so heavy! Where did that nice breezy aesthetic go?ā
Stop strictly following the color schemeās text color to reduce contrast, at the expense of reducing color consistency between text and icons and reducing readability for people who need that contrast? Needless to say, someone (in this case probably a lot of someones) will complain about that too.
Ultimately this is why we have an icon theming system. Itās truly impossible to please everyone. Ideally the new icon theme will please more people, but there will always be a long tail of people dissatisfied with the default theme and want to replace it with something else. Thereās no way to prevent that.
It just means that Spectacle leaves the KDE Gear release schedule and adopts Plasmaās release schedule. So there will be Spectacle 6.4.0, 6.5.0, etc. It remains a standalone app, like other apps on the Plasma release schedule such as Discover and System Settings.
This was done to sync up Spectacle with the major software libraries it depends on (KPipeWire and KWin) which also use the Plasma release schedule. Not matching has been a source of bugs in the past.
Oh I donāt mean the icon theme, Iām just using breeze, and my colours from System Settings apply there.
It just now occurred to me, my plasma theme is Breeze AlphaBlack, and Iām using the AlphaBlack Control widget with it, that allows a custom colour, too. So thatās another option for ājust the panelā softening of colour. But I tested it with vanilla breeze plasma theme and it does get my colours applied too.
Breeze does a pretty outstanding job honestly. Anyone whoās tried other icon themes or, bless their hearts, tried to make one, knows that it can go wrong 1000 ways. Even the best alternatives all seem to be based on breeze.
Anyway back on topic, Iām hyped for 6.3. For those of us interested in testing it, letās say we had to roll back to 6.2.5 for some reason, is it expected that our config would probably be OK? Or is that more of a āyouāll probably have to restore from that backup you tookā kind of thing?
I mean, itās testing, I expect nothing, and obviously you canāt make promises at this point, butā¦ Iām just trying to get a rough idea of how risky it is.
One of the non-written conventions in Free Software is that those who do, decide.
You will not be able to go in and impose your criteria on people who have been contributing day in and day out for years on day one, no. obviously. But by helping out, you will be in a better position to make the change you think should come about.
I know, I do maintain couple, of projects and contribute to others, but mostly codeā¦ with KDE I mostly donate (and test stuff) as C-land not my forte (I mostly work in backend)
This was my question - each project has itās goals, aims and (design) principles. One could suggest something and get immediate feedback. You initially replied with āget involvedā link but if the maintainers have certain vision what to do, even if I came with whole set of (probably very subjective) ābetterā (quote canāt even start to to convey how impossible is to define that term) then it would most likely be rejected.
Hence initiall inquiry about general outlook I noticed for some time migration from colourful to monochrome icons (very welcomed) and also sticking with āsquareā motif which would suggest that itās the preferred Look & Feel / design choice
Another thing you should consider is that most aspects of your desktop can be modified. If you donāt like your icons, install a new set from a trusted source or design your own.
Digital freedom comes at the cost of users taking responsibility for their own software. Always delegating on to others is how we got into the current proprietary pickle in the first place.
I feel like I offended youā¦ (?!) that was not my intention
Iām aware of that and I have already customised the desktop to suite my needsā¦
Bouncing this off: collaborative, public project could also use input/suggestions from the users especially if they to absolutely love the software and want it to be used more and more. And having better default experience is one way of achieving thatā¦
KWin is now smarter about choosing a default scale factor for devices with small screens; now it wonāt choose a scale factor too high to be practical. (Vlad Zahorodnii, 6.3.0. Link)
KWinās automatic scale factor chooser now chooses a scale factor thatās rounded to the nearest 5%, no longer to the nearest 25%. (Xaver Hugl, 6.3.0. Link)
Landed a huge overhaul of how fractional scale factors are handled in KWin. Now it makes an effort to always snap things to the screenās pixel grid, greatly reducing blurriness and visual gaps everywhere. Iāve been using these patches with a 175% scale factor for a week, and everything looks just fantastic! (Vlad Zahorodnii and Xaver Hugl, 6.3.0. Link)
should help a lot of folks have a much better first-run experience in Plasma, regardless of their screenās characteristics. Folks spending less time tweaking display settings in those first few minutes of use should lead to more of that time being available to appreciate the design and features that are now available to them.