Wanted: theme manager

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday 21 March 2008, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> >> 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?

which is why i noted we lack an a11y theme, but i really don't like the part 
about usable. maybe i'm a little sensitive to baseless wagging about of the 
term "usability", if so that's only because people do it so often. ;)

> (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.)

no, the default does not need to be colour customizable. that is why we 
provide the ability to *switch themes*. having "must be colourizable" as a 
requirement for the default really removes much of the benefit of such a 
highly themable system.

> > 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,

already possible.

> 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.

this is looking at in the wrong place, though. the point is not to force 
*themes* to do this, which means limiting what's possible with themes, but to 
make the theming system able to easily adapt so that you can change the 
theme. if colour swapping about is important to you, then you pick a colour 
adaptable theme. voila. nobody is limited, everyone gets what they want.

this is why categorizing such things as "Evil Things" really misses the point.

> 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.

colour config -> not available (which is what i said right at the outset, 
right? we don't have a UI for colour config, but we're using a configurable 
system since we're using KColorScheme..)

theme selection -> Configure Desktop

theme customization -> not there yet. ruphy's app to preview themes as you 
work on them is a start.

> >>> 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.

firstly, i don't consider plasma's extragear hidden. we are purposefully 
making it visible in fact.

secondly, i appreciate your opinion. the artist working on this disagreed. i 
don't think it matters one way or the other since you can select a different 
theme rather easily.

> >> 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.

i can't find them atm, but will be sure to do so in the future. essentially, 
all of our dark colour schemes seem to give people problems when painting 
dark() text on a base() background.

> >> 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...

it's a collection of the individual control panels. that's great for tweakers, 
but it provies no coordination whatsoever between style, deco, colour etc.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech
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