window decoration for dapper final?

[Chris]

Hello everybody,

this might be unnecessary since the current windeco in flight-5 might only
be some placeholder art, but if it actually is intended to be the final
window decoration I’d like to ask you to reconsider.

Here’s a screenshot of what I’m talking about:
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=594&slide=7

The windeco used here has three flaws in my book:
First and foremost it resembles the art used in current builds of the
Windows Vista operating system – without any major benefit coming from this
compared to other windecos available for KDE. Kubuntu should try to
differentiate itself from other OSes where it’s feasible – and having the
same windeco, which is one of those always-there elements on the desktop
look like on a Windows version not even released isn’t the best start in my
opinion.

Then the blue used here is a tad bit too intense I think – it takes away
your focus from the actual content displayed. Have a look at the header on
www.kubuntu.org these are the kinds of blue that should be used throughout
the actual OS artwork, to have that special “kubuntu look” and not just some
mixed bag of blues.
Lastly with the current windeco and colouring the whole contents of the
window seems a bit like it’s just not part of the window. Windeco and
contents (everything coloured grey inside of “that blue box”) don’t seem to
be ‘one’. Not sure if that explains it well
 here’s a shot of a window that
actually feels like one single element:
http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/figures/figure-nautilus-search.png
Nevermind that it’s from another desktop environment ;)

I guess mostly it’s the strongly visible blue border around the flight-5
windows that make them lack some elegance. Maybe the border doesn’t have to
go completely but toning down the blue and trimming the fat line a bit
should help here.

Just to remind you here’s a shot of flight-4 that had the Plastik windeco
with white button elements (imo that’s a lot more elegant than what’s used
in flight-5).
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=583&slide=4
The blue used here is too dull though – the best fit lies somewhere in the
middle between flight-4 and 5.

A note about originality: I think Kubuntu has to differentiate itself from
other OSes like Windows XP, Vista and OS X, not from the few other Linux
distributions that are still using KDE. Kubuntu already is *the* KDE distro
– no need do be different from other KDE distros or vanilla KDE.


Hope my suggestions help a bit here, I'd like Kubuntu to look as sleek and
professional as possible – especially dapper, the ‘enterprise release’.

Regards,

Chris


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