D16031: [SDDM theme] remove blur and increase UI contrast so that it's not required

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham added a comment.


  Yeah, I understand that it can be hard to visualize changes like these before there are pictures. Thing is, we're in a tough spot, because the current design turns the wallpaper into a soupy mess and generates user complaints. I agree that we shouldn't regress usability, but aesthetics are very important too. What's being proposed here is nothing more than a superior version of what we shipped from Plasma 5.8 - 5.12 (which is what I wanted all along during the 5.13 design changes but didn't get because we ran out of time before we had to ship something due to our very short release cycles).
  
  Conceptually, when you have a contrast problem because the background is variable and the foreground isn't, you can put a window, frame, or artificial background under the foreground, or you can give the foreground an outline or a shadow. The early Plasma 5 login screen put a dark translucent rectangle underneath the foreground elements, which worked just fine <https://i.ytimg.com/vi/03RkTFTg2tM/maxresdefault.jpg>. I think this was actually a great design, because it ensured good contrast for the UI elements and labels, but allowed you to actually see most of the background wallpaper. Fast forward, and the 5.13 and later login screen does something similar by darkening and blurring the whole wallpaper, but it's a big visual regression because it obscures the entire background and makes it look like a swamp; there's practically no point in setting a wallpaper at all for the login screen since you don't see it in real-world workflows (i.e. the 50-second timeout doesn't count). If we reduce the darkness and strength of the blur to try to improve its aesthetics, we worsen the contrast that it generates. In other words, with the current design, we have no freedom of movement: if we improve one thing, it worsens another. Also, we don't actually resolve the user complaints by simple reducing the blur; people want to be able to see the wallpaper.
  
  I think that in terms of visuals and usability, the pre-5.8 theme was just fine and there was no reason to replace it, but I wasn't around back then, so I don't know what concerns were in play at the time. Either way, that ship has sailed and we need to address the legitimate aesthetic concerns with the current login screen. This patch is an attempt to do that without regressing contrast too much (though I admit that some is inevitable), but it's still a linked system where improving one worsens the other. If we're not willing to accept this trade-off, I think we need to seriously consider bringing back a frame or window of some sort that we can put under the foreground, like the pre-5.8 style had. I'm very open to this option--in fact, it's my preferred solution--but the last time I brought it up, people didn't like that idea on the grounds that it was "dated" and "not very modern" (etc). Maybe we should re-open that discussion.

REPOSITORY
  R120 Plasma Workspace

BRANCH
  arcpatch-D16031

REVISION DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/D16031

To: ngraham, #vdg, #plasma, rizzitello
Cc: romangg, davidedmundson, rizzitello, abetts, pstefan, broulik, rikmills, filipf, rooty, plasma-devel, ragreen, Pitel, ZrenBot, lesliezhai, ali-mohamed, jensreuterberg, sebas, apol, mart
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