plasma, panels, colours

[Marco Martin]

On Friday 07 November 2008, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Friday 07 November 2008, Nuno Pinheiro wrote:
> > A Friday 07 November 2008 02:39:40, Aaron J. Seigo escreveu:
> > > black, however, can be sexy. when it's used as a highlight, as an
> > > anchor or on a feature piece. but as the everything colour ... not
> > > really. there are specific situations where that *can* work, a working
> > > desktop is really not one of them.
> >
> > In the design book "color harmony" by Tina Sutton and Bride M.Whelam
> > "Graphic
> > The color combination of black and white, is clasical and dramatic at the
> > same time- think newspaper headlines, piano keys and tuxedoes, in
> > decoration black and white tiles add a touch of elegance to an hallyay,
> > while in fashion nothing is more cosmopolitan than basic black with
> > perls"....
>
> a desktop is not formal wear like a tuxedo or a little black dress that you
> wear out at night to dinner. it's something you take with you and use to
> work with every day. we're not making a screenshot to look cool in GQ
> magazine, we're making something for people to use.
>
> and in this, dressing it up in ALL BLACK, ALL THE TIME does not say "oh
> look, this is an elegant and snappy dresser" it says "this is depressing
> and doesn't belong with the lightness of the rest of the desktop".

i agree that the current theme is not percieved in a good way, but i'm just 
very hesitant about making the panel a different background color compared to 
other applets, today i tried to mock something but always looked terrible..., 
i would probably be more for an uniform light theme

if the panel has to be of a dufferent color compared to the rest it should 
probably be the panel more or less uniform on a palette similar to the default 
oxygen color scheme, but also the dialog svg should have that color, because 
otherwise extenders would look totally alien

it will look as two totally different themes but at least two coherent 
different themes

another opyion that i tought about is to enable default backgrounds also in 
the panel (having of course another svg for that) so the background of the 
applets would be different from the one of the panel, but not liking it to 
much hmm, scrap that



> maybe you're trying to make a tuxedo, but in the context the panel lives in
> and what it is used for, what we have is a sad goth kid.
>
> > I see a cultural thing, here in portugal the most sold car color is
> > Black, virtualy all car dashboards are black.
>
> car exteriors are a different use case for colour, and i actually included
> pictures of dashboards from luxury cars below that show how black is used
> with not-black in tasteful and sophisticated ways.
>
> > the psicology of color is somthing that interests me alot... and basacly
> > we can use only 3/4 colors :) white black grey and blue.... or anything
> > that is unotaceble as a color....
>
> i agree; but this is not really relevant to the discussion because i'm not
> asking for pink or something here.
>
> > > * contrast, so as to be able to see the elements! one can also phrase
> > > this as "less subtlety".
> > >
> > > as it is, i really, really like the black buttons of the taskbar and
> > > systray and pager and what not. and they look really, really nice when
> > > there is enough contrast to be able to actualy notice them.
> >
> > arron we can give a hint of color with the icons and make a smoth
> > transition using a gloss look on the bg like in base.png, but if we paint
> > the bg of the panell with a difrent color other than black or white it
> > will clash with the overal theming....
>
> ok, let's pretend i agree with you. try something *not black*.
>
> > working with black is prety simple, use alot of it contrast with mainly
> > white then but a small precentage of bright strong colors to live it
> > up...
>
> yeah, i get that it's simple. i too can splash black on black and use white
> text and be done. i'm not after simple, though. and neither should you. we
> should be going for things that look good and which are well received by
> people who will use it.
>
> what i've gently been trying to communicate is that the current
> black-on-black is FAILING at the "well received" bit.
>
> > > i base all this one two things: human psychology on the one hand (which
> > > is pure theory, though well understood and "proven") and market
> > > feedback.
> > >
> > > thankfully, i do not think it requires a full redo of the theme, it
> > > just requires a non-black-block as the panel background.
> >
> > think somthing like base.png
> > http://www.nuno-icons.com/images/test/base.png does that without major
> > clash agaist the remaing of the style.
>
> that doesn't actualy address the issue does it? you can keep throwing more
> black panels at me and i'll just keep saying the same thing back.
>
> > it uses alot of transparency so its mostly color rich depending on your
> > wallpapper
>
> as was already noted, we can't actually rely on translucency.
>
> > > in nearly all of those cars, the dashes use black in very significant
> > > ways. but the entire dash is not black.
> >
> > the most comon color in top of the line cars is black.
>
> so you really looked at all those pictures and your conclusion was "oh
> look, it's all black"? take off your blinders. there's black in there; it's
> even used extensively. but it's not used as
> black-on-black-on-black-with-some-more- black-for-good-measure.
>
> > > i also understand, and accept, that there will be people who love an
> > > all-black approach. i hope that others can understand that our current
> > > default is not working out at the moment, if only because our
> > > downstreams are rejecting it outright (and replacing it with horrific
> > > results).
> >
> > Well if it was just this i would agrea with you... but from what  I have
> > seen (not much) its horrific, brobably you arron will notece mostly the
> > pannel, but its all over they chage mostly everything so they can brand
> > themselfs a bit, example ,,, mandriva uses an mostly all black wallpaper
> > with some rather tacky decorations, then a qt theme that is somthing that
> > looks like keramic for gtk, in shades of palle corporative mandriva blue.
> > then coisethey madea a mish mash of color they use aya couse "its fits
> > the windeco" result, uter mess.
>
> yes, we agree on this. but their results are not relevant. the issue is
> that they are avoiding the black-on-black. the fact that they then replace
> it with something truly horrific only reflects even more poorly on us.
>
> > again i think base.pn can do that.... base png as only one major flaw...
> > "its vistish" not that vista invented this look its been around for
> > aeons...
>
> i honestly don't think that's the problem.
>
> but if we do want to talk vista, it's pretty funny that we'd even want to
> take on a style there that would remind people of the most maligned OS
> released so far in this century.
>
> so .. where to go from here. you can continue to stick to your idea that
> black-on-black is just fine if you wish. you can also humour me and come up
> with a background that isn't a deathly pall of black beneath black. or we
> can agree to disagree, and i'll get someone else to come up with a panel
> background that both works and which lifts the charcoal veil.
>
> shipping 4.2 with another black-on-black panel isn't something i'm content
> with.