Panel colors in KDE 4.2.2

[Derek Broughton]

Antonio Augusto (Mancha) wrote:

> 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 doubt true, but it rather skips over everything necessary to actually 
explain _why_ you can't change anything if there's a theme applied.  And 
otoh, maybe if you really need 9 layers, one might suspect that things are 
over-complicated.
> 
> 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...

You've used that argument before, but it's completely counter-linux.  There 
are always situations where a knowledgeable user wants to change a _single_ 
item, and current theming prevents that.  It's not what we're used to, and 
ime it's not what most of us want.  We are Linux users because we want 
_control_.
> 
> 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.

I'm not quite sure what compositing has to do with that, as I have an intel 
graphics driver, so I don't get a choice - there is no compositing, and my 
panel isn't black (it's transparent).
> 
> 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.

Actually, I think _technically_ it doesn't - but in practice perhaps all 
existing themes are like that.

>> 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...

Can ways to override the "silliness" be found?  If not, this is as good a 
place to gripe as anywhere.  Of course, if you actually want action, you're 
going to have to talk to developers, and you won't find them here - but if 
you just want to vent, we've had far less worthwhile vents here!

>> 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..

Oh, please.  If you really want people to read and learn, maybe suggesting 
where exactly they can do that rather than "google" would be more helpful 
than just accusing people of violating the COC.
> 
>> PS. What about reading the CoC every once in a while before posting?

That's insulting, and in itself a clear violation of the COC.  Nothing 
Antonio said was at all disrespectful - he thinks a design decision was 
"silly".  He may be right, he may be wrong, but he's entitled to his 
opinion.
-- 
derek