

KDE Ships First Beta of Next Generation Plasma Workspace - Tsiolkovsky
http://dot.kde.org/2014/05/13/plasma-next-beta-ready-testing

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truncate
I always loved how configurable KDE is and prefer it over others. I somehow
always felt more comfortable using KDE than say Unity or Gnome. Its very
stable , fluid and fast now as well. However, there are certain problems that
just don't seem to be addressed much -

1\. Cartoonish or early 2000's looking icons. They simply are not pleasing to
eyes any more.

2\. Lack of UI widget themes. Although there is plethora of colour schemes and
window decorations, which I hardly care about. What I want is complete themes,
with different widgets. Its just Oxygen or Windows 98 kinda themes. GTK has
really strong community in this case.

3\. I don't know how to put this, but most kde apps (except base apps) feel
overloaded. This is common complaint too I guess. I'm not asking that they
should do what GNOME is doing, but there must be something that can be done.
When I use Windows, many apps still have a lot of functions but still manage
to look better. I think some of this can be addressed by building a better
widget set - (better tabs, toolbars with smaller icons and less whitespace
overall)

Overall my complaint is 90% about how it looks.

~~~
Spittie
1\. I don't really like Oxygen too, I always just install KFaenza. The design
team is working on a new icon set for KDE5 too
([http://wheeldesign.blogspot.it/2014/02/monday-
report-4.html](http://wheeldesign.blogspot.it/2014/02/monday-report-4.html)).

2\. I agree too, but you have a third and fourth option, QtCurve and Bespin.
Personally I'm quite happy with the Aeri theme ([http://kde-
look.org/content/show.php/Aeri+?content=162303](http://kde-
look.org/content/show.php/Aeri+?content=162303)). Screen:
[http://81.4.126.121/i/1400094470.png](http://81.4.126.121/i/1400094470.png)

The design team is working on a new widget theme too, I think it's going to
look kinda similar to Aeri (from what I gather on the forum, at least).
There's also Fusion, which is the Qt5 default theme and it's really nice.

3\. I agree as well, some applications are just confusing and overwhelming out
of the box. You don't even have to look at 3rd party applications, Amarok and
Gwenview are a good example and are base applications. Thankfully usually it's
possible to hide away most of the stuff (This is how I've configured them,
[http://81.4.126.121/i/1400094841.png](http://81.4.126.121/i/1400094841.png)
and
[http://81.4.126.121/i/1400094897.png](http://81.4.126.121/i/1400094897.png),
I like to think that I've got a "clean" effect).

But, to be honest, I'd rather have applications that have tons of features and
shove them in my face than oversimplified applications that have no
settings/features.

~~~
truncate
I use QtCurve. Will give try to others you mentioned. I like Qt5 theme too,
however never tried hard enough to see how to enable it as my KDE widget set
(don't see it in system settings). Can you tell how?

I'm generally happy with base apps. Its just the other apps like Kopete, Kmail
etc. Though its been very long, so there must be good improvement there.

~~~
Spittie
Fusion is Qt5 only for now, so you won't find it by default.

There is a port to Qt4 which works fine, you can get it here:
[https://code.google.com/p/fusion-qt4/](https://code.google.com/p/fusion-qt4/)
(only source, so you have to compile it).

------
mikevm
The black font over the grey window. The buttons with the cartoon icons. The
hideous tray icons. Sheer ugliness.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Unity 7 is the most polished looking
Linux desktop.

~~~
samyxp17
Pretty hard to believe that this is the best that the KDE Visual Design Team -
[http://vdesign.kde.org/index.html](http://vdesign.kde.org/index.html) could
come up with. Are they even trying hard enough ? This is 2014, the post PC era
and they are delivering something that looks like windows 95. UX innovation ==
O. Boring, lame.

Window 8 was clearly a mess but at least Microsoft is trying something.

~~~
Spittie
Ignore everything that's not the wallpaper or the taskbar, those are the only
items that got touched by the KDE VDT for now. The Windows are still using the
old Oxygen theme.

You can see some of the work going on in the widget/decorator theme in some
blog posts of the VDT: [http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se/2014/05/monday-
report-14-lazy...](http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se/2014/05/monday-
report-14-lazyit-edition.html) [http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se/2014/04/monday-
report-12-amaz...](http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se/2014/04/monday-
report-12-amazement.html) [http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se/2014/04/monday-
report-11-go-t...](http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se/2014/04/monday-report-11-go-
time.html)

~~~
pestaa
Do they have an ETA on these upgrades? Seems I can't find it in these reports.

~~~
Spittie
No ETA, as far as I know. I think the plan is to ship it with the second
release of KDE5, but it's information gathered from the forum, not official
words.

------
Htsthbjig
Linux needs professional designers as it needs programmers. It remembers me to
Enligtenment old themes, a genius programmer but horrible designer, the theme
the KDE people are displaying is hideous, not consistence at all. The people
that designed this thing has no training in visual arts whatsoever.

I have to agree that Unity looks better than this.

Where is Everaldo when we need him?

------
y0ghur7_xxx
I'm using KDE 4.13, and I really love it. I think it's the most usable and
polished Linux desktop out there. Downloading the beta now.

Thanks KDE Team. I love you.

------
johng
Does anyone else still wish that some of the OS's would look more like BeOS
did/does?

~~~
qbrass
[https://www.haiku-
os.org/community/forum/so_i_got_bored_whil...](https://www.haiku-
os.org/community/forum/so_i_got_bored_while_waiting_haiku_mature)

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azinman2
Oi vey.

I love how the settings has a quit and help, somehow different from the ? and
X in the upper right?

And they have a design team now? Has any of their work gone into that
screenshot?

I don't mean to be so dismissive of OSS work, but at this point why even
bother building such a non-competitive product stuck in time? If you can't do
any better, just copy. There are so many talented graphic designers out there
that even if the UX blows, at least it could look pretty.

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msoad
I want to switch to Linux as my primary desktop but they are not appealing to
me. Specially if you're a OSX user, you need a really good desktop environment
to convince yourself.

Why all Linux desktops still look like Windows 98? Is it too hard to remove
all those shadows and make the UI a bit lighter?

~~~
ohm
There's Elementaryos [http://elementaryos.org/](http://elementaryos.org/)

Crunchbang if you like minimal desktop
[http://crunchbang.org/](http://crunchbang.org/)

~~~
nileshtrivedi
Why are these entire operating systems instead of simply themes for
GNOME/KDE/XFCE/Unity?

Edit: Never mind. I checked the links.

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johnwalker
I like the new look. What is the icon in the bottom-right and top-left for?

~~~
qbrass
It's probably the options menu for that element. KDE4 used a crescent shaped
thing.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/KDE_4.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/KDE_4.png)

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DrinkWater
I dont know if it is just me, but it looks really outdated.

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reaand
sorry to say, but it still looks ugly. get half of a visual designer guys....

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adrianlmm
There are so many things wrong in that screenshot, but since is work in
progress, I'll hold any critic till the final versión.

------
kolev
Feels like '95 again.

