[kde-linux] KDE-4.10.1 - Pager sort of a mess

[Mark Knecht]

On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 7:33 AM, James Tyrer <jrtyrer at earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 04/08/2013 06:38 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>     I updated to KDE-4.10.1 last week when it became stable on Gentoo.
>> It's working but I find the new version of Pager not as useful as
>> previous versions. In this version, instead of making the current
>> desktop noticeably lighter in color, it seems I'm only getting a few
>> white pixels at the corners of the selected desktop. To me this isn't
>> visible on a 1920x1080 screen at an arm's length. I have to lean
>> forward and change focus to find out which one is active. Using the
>> older version I only had to glance to the bottom left and I'd see
>> which was selected very easily.
>>
>>     I wonder if anyone has found any settings that might make this more
>> readable for me? The Desktop Name & Number features don't help but
>> maybe there's something buried elsewhere I haven't found.
>
>
> Hi Mark:
>
> A quick warning, I'm back, but more about that in another post.
>

James,
   Welcome back. I look forward to reading about it when you post back.

> This has nothing to so with the Pager.  It is just another example of art
> gone wrong in KDE, that is that art totally neglected engineering or
> usability (and in some cases is simply bad art).
>
> If you look in:
>
> $KDEPREFIX/share/apps/desktoptheme/<desktop_theme>/widgets/
>
> [Note: if your desktop_theme isn't listed, then look in: "default"]
>
> you will find a file: "pager.svgz" which contains 3 images that are named
> 'normal', 'active', & 'hover'.  In the case of Aya, that would be Left to
> Right.  I presume that: "hover" is a transparent overlay.  What pager does
> is determined by these images.  The same is probably true for other applets
> and widgets.
>
> So, if you don't like what pager does, copy the file for the theme that you
> are using (or default if it doesn't have one) to the same position in your
> home directory and then open it in InkScape and modify it being careful to
> maintain all the labels.  I wonder why there isn't just one label for each
> of the three images.
>

Great info. Thanks!

So in my specific set of history & setups:

1) I no longer know what I was using at the time I started this post.
When I first wrote this I thought the whole theme was just one KDE
setting. I know understand that it has like 5-10 different parts, all
potentially with the same or different names. I made a number of
changes figuring this out and now have no way to go back to the exact
problem I had originally.

2) I am now using, and pretty happy with:

a) Window Decorations - Oxygen
b) Cursor Theme - Oxygen Black
c) Desktop Theme - Slim Glow
d) Widget Style - Oxygen
e) Colors - Probably Default or Oxygen but not sure
f) Icons - Oxygen
g) Emoticons - kde4

At this point those are the ones I know about. There may be more that
influence how I see the environment. I don't know! :-)

3) Most pertinent, for this setup there doesn't seem to be a specific
pager.svgz file, at least for the theme called slim-glow, so maybe I'm
using the default or some file I haven't found yet. I've emerged
inkscape so I can get familiar with the files when I find them.

Again, thanks for the info. Quite interesting!

Cheers,
Mark