Panel colors in KDE 4.2.2

[Antonio Augusto (Mancha)]

Hello Myriam,

All my ponctuations and questions here are by no means offensive or
sarcartisc. If they sound like that I'm sorry for that, and please
read them again trying to get this tone sorted out :)

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 10:35, Myriam Schweingruber <myriam at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 14:40, marc <gmane at auxbuss.com> wrote:
>> Antonio Augusto (Mancha) said:
>>
>>> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 01:08, Jerry Lapham <rjlapham at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> How do you change panel colors - both background and text?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> For what i know you can't change panel options. For whatever reason they
>>> had, KDE devs thought it was very smart to not allow users to customize
>>> these things. Only the theme has control on how these things look.
>>> Silly, if you ask me.
>
> That is not silly, it's due to the architecture of plasma: do you know
> that you need as much as 9 layers for a SVG icon? See?

No I  didn't know that. But what does the (as much as) 9 layers for a
icon has to do with the color of the panel?

> Everybody can submit themes to kde-looks.org, BTW, so that is not in
> the sole hands of the Oxygen and Plasma devs. It just makes no sense
> for the average user to change isolated items in a theme, as it would
> break the overall picture. I can already hear the outcries like "my
> Panel is broken!!! Stupid developers!!!" from the usual suspects...

Actually, by not been able to change the panel color my overall
picture is broken :)
See, I don't use compositing, and I'm using the Oxygen theme. I've
choosen a bluish color scheme to go with my oxygen, so my window title
is blue but the panel is black.

This doesn't means that the color scheme I've choose for Oxygen is
broken, this means that I, as the user, have to endure whatever the
Oxygen designer thought was the best combination he could come with.
And this applies not only to Oxygen but to ANY theme I can get my
hands on.
This happens because the color of the panel is defined by theme itself
and not by the color scheme I'm using.
So, by not being able to change the panel color, the "overall picture"
is broken.

> Please, people, all this can be found in the various pages through
> Google, as well as on the kde.org websites. So instead of accusing
> developers of silliness and throwing out wild guesses about the whys
> and hows, a bit of reading and documenting would not hurt...
>
> That's how Free Software works, everybody can contribute to his/her
> abilities, just don't expect miracles and keep your comments
> constructive, especially if you do not know the behinds of the scene.

With all this in mind this, IMHO, is a feature that is lacking. Maybe
it will be there in a future relase and so I'll shut up about this
(hope so).

I know this behavior is related on how plasma was designed, and I'm
not bashing developers, and I'm not saying they are stupid or
anything. Maybe this was done this way in order to archive a greater
objective, I really don't know.

I love KDE4 and Kubuntu, but allowing an user to change the color
scheme EXCEPT for the color of the panel (even thou I know that is not
just the panel that get affected by this), is, a feature that is
lacking in KDE4.


> Also, unlike the proprietary software scene where users are kept in
> ignorance deliberately, in the Linux world there is everything
> available, but of course one has to read and learn a little..

I admire the way Open Source does things, thats why I use it, and,
being a developer myself, I'm willing to take a look at how things
were done under the hood, and, if possible, propose changes to this
subject, when I've more free time in my hands.

> Regards, Myriam.

To you too :)

> PS. What about reading the CoC every once in a while before posting?
It must be time for me to re-read it again...
Oh well...