Wanted: theme manager

Matthew Woehlke mw_triad at users.sourceforge.net
Fri Mar 21 18:24:46 CET 2008


Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Wednesday 12 March 2008, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>>> On Wednesday 12 March 2008, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>>>> I'm pretty sure you're not the first to complain about plasma's coloring
>>>> and how it's out-of-place with the rest of the desktop. What probably
>>>> needs to happen (assuming the colors can be changed; if not, this needs
>>>> to be a major priority!)
>>> well, let's try and keep some perspective on the problem.
>> Perspective: it's neither Usable nor Accessible.
> 
> i'm sorry, but i defy you to prove that. if anything we lack an accessibility 
> theme.

...but isn't that the point? (I would say, rather, the default theme 
should be obviously configurable, where by "configurable" I mean 
consists of a sane set of fully-customizable colors. It looks like at 
most four are needed.)

> as for usable, i'm really not sure what you're refering to (unless it's the 
> advanced options in krunner?)

One definition would be "users can make it look like they want, 
especially if they need that to be something different from the 
default", and also that it does not do Evil Things like use a scheme 
foreground and hard-coded background. Now, I don't see anything like 
that happening... but darned if I can find where to change the theme, 
much less set my own colors.

>>> and yes, (b) responds to desktop colour scheme changes.
>>> no the default theme is not colourizable. it might be if we either
>>> replaced it with something else or (b) were improved.
>> Hmm. Ok, so I guess that's what should be worked on, then?
> 
> i really don't know what more you need. other than a full theme that does 
> this. which there already is, on kde-look.org. it's set to appear in 
> extragear at some point as well.

I rather think a color-scheme-following theme should be *default*, not 
hidden in extragear.

>>> this is compounded by the fact that our palettes are treated as if they
>>> are both semantic ("base") and literal ("dark") making it pretty well
>>> impossible to consistently use the palette without working around the
>>> fact that "dark" actually contrasts with "base" but only some of the time
>>> (e.g. often not with "dark" colour schemes).
>> Um... "dark" should *always* contrast with base (ok, not so much for
>> really dark schemes above the invert threshold, but...) though it is not
> 
> that's what i keep saying, but colour scheme authors keep proving me wrong ;) 
> and then i get b.k.o reports. =)

Feel free to point me at some of those, if you'd like me to take a look.

>>> imho it really comes down to us exposing all the implementation details
>>> to the user (widget styles are a type of C++ plugin, colorschemes are
>>> stored in a separate file, window manager styles are another type of C++
>>> plugin and desktop themes are a pack of svgs... so go to four different
>>> places, please!)
>> Yes, you want a theme manager. I take it this rant means that KDE3's
>> wasn't ported? (I never looked, as I'm not big on themes, tending rather
>> to create my own...)
> 
> no, i'm happy that kde3's wasn't ported. it was a mess. i'm suggesting 
> something altogether different.

Hmm, *something* that looks like a theme manager seems to be in 
systemsettings...

-- 
Matthew
I sure hope they never make a hearse out of a Honda Element. I wouldn't 
want to be caught dead in one.



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