Release Mode

[Eike Hein]

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> i have, and imo it looks waaaay better without the splitters jumping out and 
> smacking me across the face. some of the more popular kde3 styles also did 
> similarly.

True dat. Here's a few shots of Michael Lentner's excellent
Domino style engine, which currently represents the state
of the art in KDE 3 style engines in terms of graphical
sophistication and meeting modern expectations of cohesive-
ness rather than "blockyness":

http://www.eikehein.com/konq-domino.png
http://www.eikehein.com/korganizer-domino.png
http://www.eikehein.com/kcmstyle-domino.png

IMO it makes a pretty good case for a rather "line-free"
look. I'm happy that Oxygen follows that lead, and improves
over Domino with a number of unique characteristics that
give it (and thus KDE) visual identity, such as the original
group box design. There's obviously work left to be done, a
lot even, but the direction is strategically sound.

The real problem is a lack of manpower to address all the
little (and not so little) corner cases the engine currently
doesn't cope with. The "the last 10% of the work need 90% of
the time" mantra applies to style engines, too. Surely we
have more graphics-savvy coders in KDE than are currently
working on the engine?


-- 
Regards,
Eike Hein, hein at kde.org