Plasma Themes (for all plasma devs)

[Jamboarder]

Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> i think 81 is a bit much. Nuno tends to go for the moon on these things, which 
> is good as it keeps stretching us, but we also need to provide some breaks 
> for him sometimes ;) 9 items per edge is 36 ... forget shadows, etc. 36 is 
> still large, but the strategy is:

> we support simpler themes with fewer elements in them by falling back, 
> allowing those who care to to create complex themes full of elements and 
> those who don't to create simpler themes with minimal numbers of elements.

I didn't get the 81element count either.  I agree here.  Not every theme must use four different panel rendering for the different corners.  The complexity is there for those who desire it.   Perhaps what may be helpful is to update techbase more help more easily identify simple versus more complex theming facilities.  I'm happy to help with that.

> > - more and more prefixes
> 
> this is due, at least in part, to the oddness of trying to get geometry 
> perfect. i honestly haven't seen the need for all of this and am somewhat 
> relying on the artists to give decent direction.

If my input counts for anything: Preserve the ability to create simple themes, easily, while providing a framework for those who want to build more complex themes.

> > And still, there is so much that can not be done with this ever-growing
> > implementation of themes.
> 
> what in particular are you considering?

I don't expect Plasma theming to be Inkscape.  There will be limitations no matter how complex a framework we come up with.  I'm far from convinced that we've exhausted the current mechanism.  If all we had was svgpanel theming, we would not have even exhausted even that.  The vast dificiency right now has more to do with artwork not framework.  Of course there are limitations (combined gradient and tiling comes to mind).  But I'm far from convinced that we've exhausted what can be done artistically within the current limitations yet.  This is not strictly an argument against expanding the framework (since i'm guilty of advocating such expansion), just a reminder for the sake of prudence.

As for coding, I sincerely hope we do not make it a requirement for theme authoring.

peace,
Andrew Lake



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