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New Widget Style for Kubuntu Feisty

A Kubuntu meeting agenda point by Martin Böhm that has been discussed on 08.01.2007. None of the text below is approved by the Kubuntu team - it reflects the personal views of the author only.

Rationale

The artwork of Kubuntu has evolved a lot from Dapper to Edgy, especially the window decorations, kdm theme and the background. However, the widget style stayed the same. The current widget style is called Plastik.

• The current widget style does not fit in well with the Edgy artwork improvements. In the window decorations and Kicker background, gradients are apparent, whereas in Plastik there aren't any.

• Kubuntu Artwork Specs suggest that every Kubuntu release should have a "fresh visual look" (Artwork/Specs/kubuntu-artwork-desktop). Keeping the widget style the same for more than two releases goes against that principle. Furthermore, the Plastik widget style may be considered not so appealing as it uses none of the common "polishing" elements such as gloss or gradients.

Required Features

There are several factors that (in my opinion) we need to consider when selecting the appropriate widget style.

• The widget style should be fresh - at least in some ways different from Lipstik/Plastik. This is described in detail in section Rationale.

• The widget style should be stable - we lack the manpower to do a lot of modifications to the code. Therefore, the code should not be in an alpha or beta stage. We will not use this widget style for more releases because a completely new widget style will be made for KDE4 (and I guess it will be made the default widget style in Kubuntu).
• The widget style should not be revolutionary - this widget style must be acceptable for the users. Neither should it use any innovative metaphors nor should it be radically inconsistent with the previous Kubuntu widget styles. Revolutionary changes are expected in the KDE4 widget style.

Suggestion

The widget style I suggest is called Polyester and is developed by Marco Martin. Its package in universe is called "kde-style-polyester" and the current version in Kubuntu Feisty is 0.99+1.0rc1-0ubuntu1 (1.0rc1). Recently a 1.0 has been released - we can package that one.

The package description:

• Polyester includes a widget style and a kwin decoration that aim to create a good balance between eye candy and simplicity. It features a high degree of configurability; you can change the color of scrollbars, the button style, and the degree of animation. The widget style is based off of Plastik.

The current appearance: (note that it's the 1.0 version with my own modifications)

In my opinion this widget style fulfills most of the aforementioned requirements. If you think otherwise, please express your opinion at the next Kubuntu meeting ( Kubuntu/Meetings ).

Possible Issues

Possible issues of Polyester are described on the page KubuntuArtwork/PolyesterThemeIssues. As of January/6/2007, there are only GTK2QT engine problems that are not caused by this style but rather by the engine itself. Those problems were also present in Lipstik.

If my suggestion is approved I will gladly work on the remaining Polyester issues noted and filed by the Kubuntu members and the broader Kubuntu community.

Notes

I'm in contact with the author of Polyester and he is actively helping me fix the issues mentioned on the page. That is also a significant plus of Polyester. -- MartinBöhm 2007-01-06 02:15:39