Plasma theme contest: My judgement

[Jamboarder]

Over the weekend I did my judging of the plasma themes from the contest.  My results follow.  Forgive the wordiness, but I'm wordy... Live with it.  :-)

For each theme, I downloaded it via GHNS, restarted KDE (needed due to svn bugs) and used for a period of time doing my normal computing chores.  I tried the theme with several different wallpapers and several widgets.  The two themes I entered were not evaluated.  

The main revelation is that screenshots are simply not enough to judge these themes.  They must be actually be used.  It made a big difference for me.

Theme: A Pimp Named Slickback
Score: 3
Objective observations: None.
Subjective observations:  Best... theme name... ever!  C'mon this is HILAARious!  Yeah it looks like a plasma was made for Windows 3.0 palette, but it was a good laugh for me nonetheless.

Theme: Pearla Negra
Score: 3
Objective observations: Several visual bugs (panel, widget borders).
Subjective observations:  Difficult to discern visual intent from visual bugs.  The bulging implied by highlights conflicted with other highlights and sharp corners.  Interesting clock, but otherwise couldn't find any comfort using this theme.

Theme: Blue
Score: 4
Objective observations: Incorrectly sized notes and logout theme.
Subjective observations: I hoped this theme would have finished higher but, after using it for a while, it felt heavy and over-saturated to the point of distraction. To its credit, it is a very consistent theme.  

Theme: Ozone
Score: 5
Objective observations:  Didn't notice any visual bugs or anything that was obviously broken.
Subjective observations: Decent attempt at balancing consistency and contrast. However, during use, the fuzzy borders were just uncomfortable for me; difficult to explain why.  When I removed all the widgets except the panel, it was better.  What should have been an elegant clock somehow ended up clunky.  During use, the sharpness and color of the task item theme was a welcome visual relief from the uncomfortable fuzziness everywhere else.

Theme: Heron
Score: 7
Objective observations: Didn't notice any visual bugs or anything that was obviously broken.
Subjective observations: This is a good theme. Nice consistency if not much diversity.  Good panel and task items.  The color and borders were the only areas that caused me some reservations. The borders kind of just stop.  They don't quite anchor the widgets enough for me.  The misty gray-blue translucent color doesn't look bad, but when combined with those borders it left me waiting for something; hard to describe.  It's almost like the widgets are fading in and stopped half way.  Still though I think it's a decent theme.


Theme: Silicon
Score: 8
Objective observations: Reflection effect obviously won't work well on rotated widgets.
Subjective observations: Good theme.  Similar to Heron but better borders.  Interesting reflection effect. Very good panel and task items. The slightly darker interior border of the widget background felt just a touch uncomfortable to me.  Wasn't a huge fan of the clock hands, though it was an interesting attempt at a different look.

Theme: Elegance
Score: 8.5
Objective observations: Battery hard to discern against widget or panel background.
Subjective observations: This is an example where screenshots vs usage drive different conclusions for me.  This is a beautiful theme judging by screenshots.  It is pixel perfect, very polished.  The tooltip is arguably the best anywhere.  Nice clock (Qt's SVG doesn't do it justice).  On its own the battery is fantastic.  After using the theme for a little, however, the widgets and the panel felt a bit heavy and inky. I could barely make out the battery on my laptop which has a screen that's brighter than most desktop monitors.  If either the panel or the widgets weren't quite so heavy/inky this would arguably be the best IMHO.

Theme: Uqbar
Score: 9
Objective observations: Very minor pixel imperfection of the top corners of the tooltip theme.
Subjective observations:  This was a surprise for me.  This theme was entered towards the end of the contest and judging by the screenshots (and the kde-look rating) the theme looked decent but doesn't really blow me away.  Then I installed and used it.  Uqbar is a very complete, consistent, and carefully put together theme.  It is not a super flashy, eye-candy theme.  It simply looks good and gets out of my way to let me work.  The widget backgrounds are pixel perfect and do not compete with the widget contents for attention (isn't that what a background should do?).  The task item "welts" are a neat touch that work well on the simple, clean panel design.  The analog clock is simply one of the best I've seen so far.  The only thing missing from the clock is a border or shadow to allow it to work well with lighter wallpaper colors.  The dialogs were just a tiny bit too translucent for my taste and the battery theme looks like it belongs to A Pimp Named
 Slickback.  Save for the battery theme though (I really don't think the battery should be themed anyway), of the lot I evaluated, this was the easiest theme to get used to and to use of the lot.  This was a surprise even to me.

Hope this helps,
Andrew (Jamboarder)

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