[dot] The Road to KDE 4: Oxygen Artwork and Icons

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1173332156/

From: Troy Unrau <troy.unrau at gmail.com>
Dept: kde-flavoured-oxygen-bar
Date: Wednesday 07/Mar/2007, @21:35

The Road to KDE 4: Oxygen Artwork and Icons
===========================================

   One of the big visual changes just happened in KDE 4, the  transition
of kdelibs to the Oxygen Icon set [http://oxygen-icons.org/].  This
transition is  still in progress, and it includes a massive icon naming
scheme  change that affects thousands of files.  But, the Oxygen artwork
 project much is more than just an icon set, it's a unified way to do 
artwork for KDE 4.  SVG an essential part of Oxygen, so many 
applications that are now capable of SVG display are also using  Oxygen
styled artwork.  Read on for more...

     Please keep in mind that the artwork I am showing today is a work
in progress, but shows things that have already made their way into
KDE's SVN as the new default.  Oxygen will be the default art scheme
throughout KDE 4, but many of the elements can still use some tweaking. 
If you have constructive feedback on any of the artwork demonstrated
today, the Oxygen team would be happy to hear about it in the comments.
:)

     Back on the first of January, I wrote an article
[http://dot.kde.org/1167723426/] showing some SVG widgets making their
way into KDE, thanks in part to Qt's new SVG capabilities.  Some of the
artwork shown in that article was placeholders that were produced by the
Oxygen team.  Since then, there have been improvements to much of those
graphics, but the really big visual change that just happened is the
inclusion of the new Oxygen Iconset into the KDE libraries as the new
defaults.

     Oxygen is a far reaching project, and extends well beyond icons.
They have a sort of unofficial tagline: "a breath of fresh air for your
desktop", which encompasses the look and feel of the whole KDE
environment.  They are a team of developers and artists that are
dedicated to making things look beautiful.  And not just shiny effects
either, they are ensuring that KDE has a unified, easy to recognize
interface.  For example, icons that end up in toolbars all have the same
shadows below them to give them a consistent look. Colour palettes have
been created for the artwork to ensure that icons don't clash with one
another, and yet are still easily recognizable.  All of the icon sources
are SVG files create using Inkscape (and other SVG capable programs),
and having the sources available makes it easier to make simple tweaks
to the SVG files.

     We also now have an official icon naming scheme for KDE 4. Previous
versions of KDE grew the naming scheme organically as KDE evolved, so it
was somewhat random in many places.  The Oxygen team was responsible for
developing parts of this naming scheme, but they did so as part of
freedesktop.org so that there is less confusion about icon schemes
between Gnome and KDE (and other environments) in the future.

     So, rather than just talk about Oxygen, I have some screenshots to
show the icons in action.

     Below is a screenshot of Dolphin showing Oxygen icons, and a shot
of Konqueror (from KDE 3.5.6) showing the same folder.  Many of these
mimetypes also have previews available for them, when previews are
enabled.


[http://static.kdenews.org/content/the-road-to-kde-4/vol11_4x_dolphin.png]



[http://static.kdenews.org/content/the-road-to-kde-4/vol11_356_konq.png]
     You'll notice in the Dolphin shot that there are still a few old
icons sticking around, even though the Oxygen iconset includes
replacements to those icons.  One of the biggest changes that happens
are part of the Oxygen transition is that many icons got renamed.  Old
code may be referring to the old icon names, rather than the newly
corrected Oxygen names -- when the crystal SVG icons are removed from
kdelibs, it will become more apparent which names are affected.  For
those who like the old icons better, they will also get renamed, and be
offered as an icon-theme within the KDE artwork package.

     As the Oxygen Icons have now been made the default, you will be
seeing them in all future articles in the Road to KDE 4 series, and
should get a better appreciation of how complete this artwork is. Of
course some icons still have room for tweaking, which is easy thanks to
using SVG sources.  I'm not providing the screenshots of the whole
iconset in this article as you can find them in websvn
[http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdelibs/pics] or by building KDE 4
yourself.   The next snapshots of KDE 4 will of course include the new
icons as they are now considered the default.

     But, like I said, Oxygen isn't just about the icons.  There are a
lot of other places within KDE where the Oxygen artwork is popping up. 
Here is a shot of KDE 4's new logout dialog.



     One of the biggest advantages to using Oxygen artwork in various
locations throughout KDE is that it is (mostly) resolution independent. 
Which means, certain applications can be made to scale to any size you
want, and it will still look good.  So, for instance, if you are playing
KBounce (from KDE Games), and you want it to be big or small, it just
adjusts the size for you.


[http://static.kdenews.org/content/the-road-to-kde-4/vol11_4x_kbounce.png]

     So while KDE 4 is not a true, resolution independent desktop, and
this isn't necessarily a goal for KDE at this time, some KDE components
do now operate on a resolution independent basis.

     There is another two elements of Oxygen currently in development,
that are not yet complete.  These are the Oxygen Widget Style, and the
Oxygen KWin Decoration.  These have not yet been made the defaults for
KDE 4 as they are not yet far enough along.  But owing to the fact that
it has not yet become the default for KDE, I'll decline to show it off
just yet.  Just bear in mind that the Oxygen Icons and related artwork
are just a few elements of the Oxygen project.  The Oxygen team is
making a lot of progress on the Style and Windeco, but this whole
project is an enormous amount of work.

     There are also other visual elements of KDE 4 underway that do not
directly involve the Oxygen team, but will work together with them when
required.  These are things like KWin's composite branch, or the Plasma
Workspace theming capabilities.

     For those that are interested in helping KDE out through artwork,
you should visit #kde-artists on irc.kde.org and get in contact with
some of the artists there.  They are quite friendly, and take
constructive feedback from artists and non-artists alike.

     Individual KDE projects are also looking for artists:  Recently,
Carsten Niehaus of Kalzium put out a request
[http://edu.kde.org/kalzium/iconsets.php] for some help producing some
kid-friendly icons to represent the elements of the periodic table in an
optional kid-friendly layout. Anyone up to the task should visit the
#kalzium irc channel.

     Also, the Amarok project has recently informed me that they are in
need of some artwork for their upcoming 1.4.6 release (for KDE 3.5.x)
which doesn't need to be Oxygen styled, as Oxygen is intended for KDE 4.
 Join the #amarok irc channel if you're interested, and talk to
'markey'.

     Editorial aside: I'm glad that so many people are showing interest
in KDE 4's development, but please try to provide constructive feedback
to help improve KDE 4.  Many of the developers read the comments on the
dot and implement things that users request if they are well-reasoned. 
For example, Peter Penz implemented the Tree View in Dolphin, and Rafael
Fernández López made changes to the Job Progress Manager based on your
constructive feedback.  Your feedback is very welcome, but as last
week's article has shown, when the comments get out of hand, it becomes
harder to sift through them for the constructive ones.  On the flip
side, that article absolutely demolished the previous dot.kde.org
comment records. Hopefully we can break those records again one day as
the interest in KDE 4 grows.  Until next week...