The shape of things to come
Probably by now most people have probably seen Marco Martin wonderful work on the new 4.1 theme I started on Tokamak in Milan.
Apart from the trivial artwork, it provides new theming possibility's into plasma. Like for example now clock pointers can have shadows ;).
So whats next?
4.2 Obviously!
I plan to spend allot more time working in plasma in the 4.2 series. And we have already started to work on those things we can improve :)
This is just a first approach to some of the new concepts plasma introduces.
But this is all for the 4.2, for 4.1 there is still alot of work to be done before the artwork freeze so need to get back to it. ;)
So whats next?
4.2 Obviously!
I plan to spend allot more time working in plasma in the 4.2 series. And we have already started to work on those things we can improve :)
This is just a first approach to some of the new concepts plasma introduces.But this is all for the 4.2, for 4.1 there is still alot of work to be done before the artwork freeze so need to get back to it. ;)
Comments
I am thinking also about the bug [1] that active windows are too similar to inactive.
I remember you did some great mockups. Will you commit one of them?
[1] http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160117
It's f@cking awesome!
There's aleady a clock in the bottom right hand corner. Is that next to go, like icons on the desktop?
I love your work and your efforts. Really I do. But I really wish we would stop publishing mockups like this before working out what can or should be done on the coding and usability side of things.
Maybe I shouldn't say "stop publishing". Perhaps "stop publishing without the context that the end result may look signficantly different once it goes through coding and usability review".
But this what I do if I want to comunicate what I'm doing, I realy can't cant's show code can I.
This is allways a god way for me to get some feedback from the kde fans. And some times to promote kde and the work we do.
Btw the clock was a request from several people.
see the top-right corner of http://www.bbc.co.uk/
p.s. I love the way firefox can now zoom web pages, scaling text, flash content, images etc to fit together. It means I can have a really good look a the BBC clock.
I think, such artwork will make people last much longer in front of their LCDs. :)
Don't listen to the guys, who say, we don't need this and that, it will really improve productivity, because it does harm folk's eyes at a level of NULL.
I love you! :)
maninalift is very right, the clocks second hand would look really neat if it had that little play in it.
I think I agree with posts on your previous blog, that the clock needs the digits to be above the carbon cross-hatching. That said... The rest of it is lovely!
The task bar is stunning - a really huge leap from 4.0. Please code it and commit it right away... It's gorgeous.
The image viewer is also great :)
I just saw a screenshot from Digg of the Oxygen progress bar being flattened a bit - it's a big improvement.
Is there any chance that you can exert a little influence and get the scrollbar changed in the same way? The default blue bar is better than the 4.0 grey, but one that matches the progress bar would be nice.
you are my favorite artist, i just love your plasma theme.... This is like the first desktop "default" theme that i do not want to change.. keep it up!!
Ohh.. but a new Wallpaper for 4.1 would be nice :-)
the plasma items have the close button at the bottom. i think this is not consistent.
It would be cool because some themes just don't looks good with some wallpapers or sometimes, users see a screenshot and just says "wow, I want all of this !", without bothering to search for the wallpaper used in the screenshot.
Another idea is that the theme could contains a list of suggested wallpapers, choosen by the authors but it's maybe more tricky as it needs to link to external files (eg on kde-looks.org).
Another idea (again!) : a kind of "meta packages" which can contains
- a wallpaper
- a plasma theme
- a color theme
- some fonts settings
- a windows decoration
- a set of defaults plasmoids and their placement on the desktop
So when the users select this kind of theme, it could check what he wants to be applied (all, some entries or just one) and voilà !
yes but The colors are themable and i tried it agains a full white bg and it was still prety readable. ;)
@ chris
you are totaly correct, that is part of the things that need to be worked with, but this is not a window, that icon x is just somthing that is there until we dont get somthing beter to say "colapse"
And for the people that love to complain of clocks... if you don't like analog clock, don't use it... There are a lot of people that use and love it! In fact, I am one of them (have a big analog clock in my kitchen wall and another in my room) and I (and many others) asked Nuno to make this AWESOME theme.
Keep up the good work guys! Hope I join the team for KDE 4.2.
Augusto Leite
Just to clarify, I completely understand that it all getting in shape and that what i can see from this post.
I really hope the coders will take that as a base. It would be a HUGE improvement to how it is now...
If you guys actually deliver all this in 4.2... Damn! It's just so beautiful and serene!
Pretty,
Belo,
Divino,
Belo Trabalho Nuno!
Although you can see the new analog clock (first shot ) and the new task bar and panels (second shot) already running in this new theme (compiled from svn), the folder view parts (second shot) are still a mockup, to be implemented for KDE 4.2 or later...
Wait until the end of this week, I think the opensuse's packages will updated.
Augusto Leite
KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!!!
Please keep up the great work, you are the best designers ever!!!!
KDE4 ROCKSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keep up the excellent work =D
The close button in the right most corner is nice, but it should be consistent with windows..
I disagree with the lack of continuity in window style. I am totally a fan of slickness, but I appreciate the contrast and visual distinction between "plasma" stuff and my current open "apps". Now I'm aching for 4.2, and 4.1 isn't even out yet; thnx nuno.
The taskbar is especially improved here.
Um abraço aqui do Brasil!
This is awesome! KDE has come a long way when it comes to looks...
Somebody better start coding this so that it will not be only a mock up... You cant tease us with this and then not less us have it in kde4.2 ;)
I'm not to sure about the blue highlighting of the active window though... It doesnt do it for me...
But thanks for your time and energy you put into it. Its really appreciated. And I realize that it will be an impossible job to make all the users happy. So there will always be people how wont like what you are doing. So far I am not one of them :)
DJ
The default Plasma theme in openSuSE is called Ada, and I agree it's ugly. They use it because it uses the same color scheme as the KWin theme. What is being discussed here is the default Plasma theme as chosen by KDE. I don't even think it has a name, it's simply known as the default.
I don't think that blue highlight works, and I think the scrollbars a cursor look like candy (the same way the Windows XP theme is described as Fisher-Price. Not good). Aside from that, it's all awesome, and when in comes to the Oxygen KWin theme, I really don't see room for improvement. It looks perfect (aside from the scrollbars and mouse cursor).
Perhaps it would be possible to use the Plasma Folder View in Dolphin. This for example could allow something similar to Cover Flow, but that's just one thing that could be done.
I really appreciate KDE and the work done about its improvement.
But I can't understand how a shadow in an analogic clock give more tools and utilities to users.
In my point of view, both KDE 4 and Windows Vista just improve the look of the system, but we need something that makes our work a bit more produtive.
In other words, it's really beautiful, but is it usefull? Dolphin is a disaster if compared to Konqueror. The new system menu is a bit confuse, you need to do a lot of steps to find applications.
Instead turning things easy, developers are turning things difficult and improving visual...
Can't wait.....
Dolphin may look/feel odd the first time it is used (at least I felt that way), it grows on you as you keep using it and suddenly you find that you miss it if you log into KDE 3.5. It is so easy to use!! Everything is just where it should be...
KDE 4.1 is looking awesome enough......and now such an appetizing glimpse of KDE 4.2....
Thanks a lot....looking forward to even better......
I miss these functions so much...
Under Context Menu check "Show 'Copy To' and 'Move To' commands" and you are done.
I have compiled kde 4.1 from svn BTW. This option may not yet be on distributions providing kde 4.0 (I vaguely remember this option not being there when I installed 4.0.....I am not sure......but it is definitely there in 4.1)