One of the big visual changes just happened in KDE 4, the

transition of kdelibs to the Oxygen Icon set. This transition is

still in progress, and it includes a massive icon naming scheme

change that affects thousands of files. But, the Oxygen artwork

project much is more than just an icon set, it's a unified way to do

artwork for KDE 4. SVG an essential part of Oxygen, so many

applications that are now capable of SVG display are also using

Oxygen styled artwork. Read on for more...

Please keep in mind that the artwork I am showing today is a

work in progress, but shows things that have already made

their way into KDE's SVN as the new default. Oxygen will be the

default art scheme throughout KDE 4, but many of the elements can

still use some tweaking. If you have constructive feedback on any

of the artwork demonstrated today, the Oxygen team would be happy to

hear about it in the comments. :)

Back on the first of January, I wrote an article showing some SVG

widgets making their way into KDE, thanks in part to Qt's new SVG

capabilities. Some of the artwork shown in that article was

placeholders that were produced by the Oxygen team. Since then,

there have been improvements to much of those graphics, but the

really big visual change that just happened is the inclusion of the

new Oxygen Iconset into the KDE libraries as the new defaults.

Oxygen is a far reaching project, and extends well beyond icons.

They have a sort of unofficial tagline: "a breath of fresh air for

your desktop", which encompasses the look and feel of the whole KDE

environment. They are a team of developers and artists that are

dedicated to making things look beautiful. And not just shiny

effects either, they are ensuring that KDE has a unified, easy to

recognize interface. For example, icons that end up in toolbars all

have the same shadows below them to give them a consistent look.

Colour palettes have been created for the artwork to ensure that

icons don't clash with one another, and yet are still easily

recognizable. All of the icon sources are SVG files create using

Inkscape (and other SVG capable programs), and having the sources

available makes it easier to make simple tweaks to the SVG files.

We also now have an official icon naming scheme for KDE 4.

Previous versions of KDE grew the naming scheme organically as KDE

evolved, so it was somewhat random in many places. The Oxygen team

was responsible for developing parts of this naming scheme, but they

did so as part of freedesktop.org so that there is less confusion

about icon schemes between Gnome and KDE (and other environments) in

the future.

So, rather than just talk about Oxygen, I have some screenshots

to show the icons in action.

Below is a screenshot of Dolphin showing Oxygen icons, and a shot

of Konqueror (from KDE 3.5.6) showing the same folder. Many of

these mimetypes also have previews available for them, when previews

are enabled.

You'll notice in the Dolphin shot that there are still a few old

icons sticking around, even though the Oxygen iconset includes

replacements to those icons. One of the biggest changes that

happens are part of the Oxygen transition is that many icons got

renamed. Old code may be referring to the old icon names, rather

than the newly corrected Oxygen names -- when the crystal SVG icons

are removed from kdelibs, it will become more apparent which names

are affected. For those who like the old icons better, they will

also get renamed, and be offered as an icon-theme within the KDE

artwork package.

As the Oxygen Icons have now been made the default, you will be

seeing them in all future articles in the Road to KDE 4 series, and

should get a better appreciation of how complete this artwork is.

Of course some icons still have room for tweaking, which is easy

thanks to using SVG sources. I'm not providing the screenshots of

the whole iconset in this article as you can find them in websvn or by

building KDE 4 yourself. The next snapshots of KDE 4 will of course include the new icons as they are now considered the default.

But, like I said, Oxygen isn't just about the icons. There are a

lot of other places within KDE where the Oxygen artwork is popping

up. Here is a shot of KDE 4's new logout dialog.

One of the biggest advantages to using Oxygen artwork in various

locations throughout KDE is that it is (mostly) resolution

independent. Which means, certain applications can be made to scale

to any size you want, and it will still look good. So, for

instance, if you are playing KBounce (from KDE Games), and you want

it to be big or small, it just adjusts the size for you.

So while KDE 4 is not a true, resolution independent desktop, and

this isn't necessarily a goal for KDE at this time, some KDE

components do now operate on a resolution independent basis.

There is another two elements of Oxygen currently in development,

that are not yet complete. These are the Oxygen Widget Style, and

the Oxygen KWin Decoration. These have not yet been made the

defaults for KDE 4 as they are not yet far enough along. But owing

to the fact that it has not yet become the default for KDE, I'll

decline to show it off just yet. Just bear in mind that the Oxygen

Icons and related artwork are just a few elements of the Oxygen

project. The Oxygen team is making a lot of progress on the Style

and Windeco, but this whole project is an enormous amount of

work.

There are also other visual elements of KDE 4 underway that do

not directly involve the Oxygen team, but will work together with

them when required. These are things like KWin's composite branch,

or the Plasma Workspace theming capabilities.

For those that are interested in helping KDE out through

artwork, you should visit #kde-artists on irc.kde.org and get in

contact with some of the artists there. They are quite friendly,

and take constructive feedback from artists and non-artists

alike.

Individual KDE projects are also looking for artists: Recently,

Carsten Niehaus of Kalzium put out a request

for some help producing some kid-friendly icons to represent the

elements of the periodic table in an optional kid-friendly layout.

Anyone up to the task should visit the #kalzium irc channel.

Also, the Amarok project has recently informed me that they are

in need of some artwork for their upcoming 1.4.6 release (for KDE

3.5.x) which doesn't need to be Oxygen styled, as Oxygen is intended

for KDE 4. Join the #amarok irc channel if you're interested, and

talk to 'markey'.

Editorial aside: I'm glad that so many people are showing

interest in KDE 4's development, but please try to provide

constructive feedback to help improve KDE 4. Many of the developers

read the comments on the dot and implement things that users request

if they are well-reasoned. For example, Peter Penz implemented the

Tree View in Dolphin, and Rafael Fernández López made changes to the

Job Progress Manager based on your constructive feedback. Your

feedback is very welcome, but as last week's article has shown, when

the comments get out of hand, it becomes harder to sift through them

for the constructive ones. On the flip side, that article

absolutely demolished the previous dot.kde.org comment records.

Hopefully we can break those records again one day as the interest

in KDE 4 grows. Until next week...