KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/containments/folderview

[pinheiro]

A Monday 26 May 2008 04:54:36, Aaron J. Seigo escreveu:
> On Sunday 25 May 2008, Marco Martin wrote:
> > On Saturday 24 May 2008, Riccardo Iaconelli wrote:
> > > That's art issue, I don't want to sound harsh... but it's not really
> > > his field. =)
>
> i don't know how to put this kindly. the current artwork in plasma is
> really not that good.
>
> now, you're right that i'm not an artist in that i'm not someone who can
> fire up inkscape and draw something. however, i have an aesthetic sense and
> i've been involved in more than a few corporate projects (both as
> participant as well as in a directorial role).
>
> now, i've been sitting back hoping that someone with some real aesthetic
> sense would actually step up and start playing art director.

Sory this was the joob I tried to have and wen doing it been told to keep my 
opinions to myself, several times. Other times people espect-me to fix design 
wise broken concepts. the "now make it prety atitude".
I must say that most of my experinces in #pasma were rather unplesent, most of 
the time i ended up talking to myself. Or stuck into way worts than  bikeshed 
fights.
So I decided to go the other way, and that way is .... provide design help wen 
requested, 
Until yesterday I never knew you had this problem, yeah an intire plasma deco 
for somthing as static as a folder is a bad idea. 
I promised marco to provide some new ideas into de the descktop darg and drop 
files, visual iteractions, and diferentied folder types to enhance user 
experience. 

>
> because that's really what's needed: someone to provide some visual design
> that can step above the "hm... this one particular widget over here needs
> this particular tweak" mentality and start thinking of the whole.

Thats what I do, ask the developers I worked with in plasma.
That dosent meen every developer is willing to listen, and wen they like the 
way theyr plasmoid looks requesting them to make alterations is not a fun 
joob. 

> it'd be a lot less work than maintianing the current patchwork or art we
> have right now.
>
> it would also require the ability to think about things from an interaction
> perspective. Sebas already covered the interaction implications of this
> particular change. that's the kind of thought that needs to augment the
> aesthetic sensibilities.
>
> > > Plus, we're currently redoing that background...
> >
> > yeah, the new background (at least the last iteration i know of) is very
> > black and very opaque ond loooks really nice also because of that.
>
> great, we're heading further in the direction of ugly. i'm really not sure
> at what point someone thought that using a mostly black screen would be
> something everyone would think is cool. this isn't a turtleneck sweater and
> this isn't a beatnick party.
>
> > for most of the applets, especially those myth much text a theme like
> > glassified that is very transparent is simply a no-no, not enough
> > contrast and well, it looks odd.
>
> with a more translucent background (it's not transparent, btw) one relies
> on the wallpaper more.
>
> but, low and behold, we've been relying on wallpapers for.. how long now?
> right: for ever. to be able to read icon texts.
>
> what *would* be better is if we could have some nice (performant) bluring
> done, but we won't get that in 4.1 due to some odd limitations in Qt.
>
> > i am for a transparent background just for this applet with this
> > http://reviewboard.vidsolbach.de/r/17/
> > (temporary ugly artwork but that's the concept)
>
> this is at least better. i'm still not impressed, so i don't expect users
> to be either, but it gives us something more than transparency.

As I said to marco that needs a plasmoid of its hown, with smal toolbar a way 
to display more than available space items, diferent types of folders for 
difrent types of files, colapsable mode etc etc etc.
No one asked me nothing, and blaiming the deco for that is a bit over the top.
This type of thing need a bit more than a rect plasmoid, and making it 
transparent dosent help all that much.
I meen it must be a litle bit more than just a container for icons right?

I'm gona mock somthing in the folowing days.
 

> > or,  maybe even better using that background for a certain category of
> > applets (let's say big, with more graphics than text) with something like
> > setBackgroundHints(Applet::LightBackground) so the applet class loads
> > another svg
> > how does that sounds?
>
> marginally better.
>
> it all smacks of "throw darts at the solution board and see what we hit"
> though. it also smacks of "yeah, it's an artwork issue, but let's solve it
> with more code."
>
> mostly i'm just very disapointed that this particular change made it into
> the code base. if it isn't out before i leave for my flight tomorrow, i
> will be removing it directly myself.

In the famus words " artistic opinons are like ass holles, every one gots his 
hown and they all stink" including mine and yours aron!

If you don't trust me its fine some years of kde as tought me that prety well, 
that the main reason things are as they are, I will try to help people that 
wont to be helped.
I'm not an art despot, I just want to help!


I work a bit in this issues and the place were i allways have more problems 
implementing designs is in opensource, And what I have understood over the 
years is that I cant impose my visual opinions over the developrs that are 
working for fun, if they dont want to. (see the active inactive bug on 
oxygen).
What we have been tring to do in oxygen is gain the respect of the kde people 
one artwork at the time, wen they respect our work they are more open to our 
opinions. The leavels of distrust over artst opinions is huge here, a bit 
like usability opinons. Think its part of a geek mentality. (some one the 
other day was trying to convince me that beauty should be codable, and he 
alrady had ideas on how to code that :) . ).
  
  

-- 

core oxygen icon designer