Hi!
It's been five months since the the Consistency goal began. In the past two blogposts I talked about the things we achieved; now, I'd like to share the general status of the goal: what is working, what is not working, and how you could help. Let's dive into the tasks in the workboard:
There are some phabricator tasks which are quite small but are missing that little push to finish them. An example could be this task regarding creating a human interface guideline regarding panels: uniform margins, paddings, visual appearance, etc. It is a fairly easy task: it does not require to have coding skills, but rather the ability to analyse what is already there, the tray mockups, and write down how things should be. Making sure that all plasmoids follow this guideline is not required; that would come next. (If you are someone like Manueljlin, the skilled author of these amazing mockups, this should be especially easy).
Click on the image to see more mockups.
Another fairly easy task could be this one: KDE Neon uses Calamares as the installer, but currently it's not quite consistent with the KDE style. It is possible to change that with well documented branding files, that you can read about here, which also contains a stylesheet.qss file you can mess with (see here) and then applying it as described here. So, it should be a matter of editing a bit of branding.desc and writing a bunch of CSS, all of which is quite documented; if that wasn't enough, there's also a developer who already helped to explain how these things work, and they would probably answer to questions as well if you were to have any problem.
A less-easy-but-easy task is this one. Currently, buttons and labels in search boxes are inconsistent through apps. This should be easy to fix, as it's a matter of picking the one that you feel is clearest and copypaste (thoughfully) the code in the other applications. Of course it's not as simple as that, but it's mostly only changing the position and labels of some Qt widgets that you should be able to easily find in the application listed in the task.
P.S.: ...Oh, apparently, this actually requires contributing to Qt. See this task for reference.
Another easy one: there is this task called "Large category icons should all be colorful" which is blocked by some missing icons, namely: colorful presentation icon, colorful annotation icon, colorful sync/synchronization icon. Feeling artistic today? Pitch in and try to propose something! Anything is better than nothing.
There is an incredible number of tasks that we just need to talk about, meaning that the previous discussion got stuck and never got to a precise idea of what we can send to developers. This is a bit of a pity, since the Consistency chat is always quite silent. We need to talk more. Let's see the main unfinished discussions:
Unification of Latte dock and Plasma panels: this is a very difficult discussion as some are strongly against it, some are fine with the status quo, and some are for it. I did try to find a solution that could work for everybody, but the discussion kind of got stuck on waiting for Plasma feedback. Please, take a look to the task and comment your opinions there or feel free to bring it up in the Consistency chat. Plasma people, I'm looking at you!
Consider using a vertical Icons-Only Task Manager populated with apps, and a thickened panel: another difficult discussion. My impression is that there's not a strong consensus for thickening the panel, while moving to a Icons-Only Task Manager might be more accepted. What do you think about it? Well, click here, read the task, and please write your opinion! Meanwhile, let's all have a look to Nate's desktop:
View navigation through sidebar: ok, this might be a weird one. You can see the task here, where the consensus seemed to be the usage of big icons for some places and a list for other places. Then, I discovered about Maui navigation and after some discussion in the Consistency chat it seemed like a viable option, especially since the same look could be achieved in any app using toolbar buttons centered by a dynamic spaces. For that reason, that kind of navigation got into my Consistency mockups:
But that clashes with the work that's going on with Kirigami, which does not have that top view navigation thingy.
On the other hand, we could ask Maui to upstream that vertical navigation. But it seems like the sidebar one is more used in other Kiri applications as well:
So what? I don't know. Please throw your opinion on the task or in the Consistency chat as well. But wait, it does not end here. Sidebar navigation should also be discussed. In the task there wasn't really any clear consensus, but after a bit of discussion in the Consistency chat this type of navigation seemed to be the most liked:
Is this the best option? How feasible is it? Does it adapt well to all use cases? I honestly don't know. Pitch in and tell us your opinion!
Next one: loading look and feel. There's not much to say here, except that we totally need to discuss this task a bit more, so please click here and mention how things could be implemented to make sure that loading is consistent throughout Plasma.
Last one, I swear, is this task that I personally feel like it's incredibly important. Currently, Kirigami is a great framework that could make applications that use it much more consistent. The problem is that it seems to have some bad defaults that applications decide to override, ending up with some messy inconsistency between them. Not great. What we aim to do in that task is to define changes that should be made to default Kirigami and then enforce those defaults. Quick example: for navigation, it makes total sense to use a collapsable sidebar, as the Emoji selector does. In fact, on the desktop, it could make sense to always use a collapsable sidebar rather than the Overlay which does not work really well outside of mobile. But then, KAlgebra mobile uses the sidebar mode instead, which is inconsistent, Kirigami Gallery uses the Overlay, Calindori instead spawns a popup, Kamoso uses Overaly, and so on. Such a mess, isn't it? Then, as Nate says, the header image could be automatically hidden on desktop, the sidebar should use the view color by default, and so on. What do you think? Did you find Kirigami inconsistencies? How do you think those could be improved? Please come in the task and tell us your opinion.
There are many tasks waiting for developers to pitch in and implement or help implement. The above discussion regarding Kirigami, sidebars and navigation certanly need experienced developers to tell what is feasable and what is not. Particularly, I'm looking for somebody who would be able to change the QStyle for panels and somehow change their default navigation method (tabs at the bottom). There are many many tasks that are waiting to see that sorted out.
Then what? Kirigami again. Given the great Consistency + modern + touch benefits of Kirigami, we are looking to bring some applications to it without losing features. This is not easy at all. Calindori could eventually replace KOrganizer, but a lot is missing from it to be able to do so in the short or even medium term, so it definitively needs help. Perhaps the PIM people could help to bring some KOrganizer features to Calindori? Or could it be that Calindori's future is to be a less-feature-rich calendar for touchscreen devices? Give us your opinion here. A possibly easier task is KAlgebra, which you have seen above and could become a Kirigami app, but it's still missing some things. These are smaller things, so you might able to help us yourself to implement those. Anyway, feel free to take a look to that task.
Then, there's the task to make System Settings a bit better. Recently, many KCM were re-written to be more consistent, often using Kirigami elements, which is great since they are more touch-friendly as well. There is still a lot to do - if you are a developer, please give a look to the task and see if there's anything that you can do. Personally, I think that a way forward is porting KCM to be as default-Kirigami as possible, and that would bring many benefits of settings organization. Also, some pages simply need a rewrite.
We are also looking for devs experienced with Qstyle that are able to replace framed views with one pixel separator lines. You can see the task here. It should be a major visual improvement for improving the Breeze style.
Another incredibly important task is unifying the icon/folder views. This is very technical, aiming at making the same kpart and using it for Dolphin's main View, Gwenview and digiKam's Browse views, Plasma's Folder View, the Open/Save dialogs' main view, and the MauiKit Index app's main view. All of these are currently using different implementations, resulting in a very inconsistent appearance overall. Please look into the task here.
Currently, Noah is still working on the new consistent highlight effect style in the QStyle, which is good. He's also considering a reorganization of colorscheme colors and to use them in a logical manner, probably for Plasma 6 when we should be able to change some under-the-hood stuff.
Carl is still leading the effort on updating older websites to use the new consistent style, which is also very nice.
There is work going on with the KCM rewrite: Ismael is working on the Kwin Rules KCM, and I have to say that it looks so much better now - I can't wait for him to finish the task.
Then there's, well, me. What am I doing? Unfortunately, I don't have much time, so I'm currently focusing on small changes to the Breeze desktop theme, hoping to make it prettier for 5.19. I'm pretty happy with what I've currently achieved - assuming patches will land - and I hope you will be too. Obviously, I'm also taking this occasion to bring some consistency to applets, such as consistent padding and margin, or consistent hover effect in qml. Also, I'm working to bring the ability to change the color scheme of an application to all applications by default in the menu, and then switch Konsole and Gwenview to use Breeze Dark by default, so that they will be consistently dark instead of using mixed light/dark elements. Of course, you will easily be able to switch back to Breeze Light for those applications.
Also, Thiago is working on analyzing keyboard shortcuts and making them more consistent here. I really hope that they will be able to continue their work.
These are a lot of things! If you are interested in the Consistency goal but still have not found out how to help, please hit me up on telegram (@veggero) or in the Consistency channel. Although I think I talked about every single task there, you can take a look to the Consistency workboard. Get in and help KDE become amazing! HaPpY CoNsIsTeNcY!
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