Here I leave two suggestions on further improving defaults.

First, the "Knifty" window decorations + plastik, though a default would require adding the maximize button, which I just don't use - I just double click the title bar:

http://postimg.com/image/58000/photo-57622.jpg

Admittedly, this kind of light colored scheme may require some darkening to fit most monitor calibrations, since they tipically are too warm and the greys tend to blend together. Either way, just wanted to show Knifty to all, since it is a much cleaner and IMHO better looking decoration that's free from the glitter present in Keramik, Plastik and Crystal.
If you like what you see I can further send screenshots of how inactive windows behave, though it's mostly through a softening of the grey color in the title bar, as also changing the font from black to grey as in the inactive apps are shown in the taskbar.

Below, the background and settings I use for the taskbar, though a default would probably be better with a single row given the limited vertical pixel real estate of laptops of late. 

http://postimg.com/image/58000/photo-57623.jpg

Here, while hovering the taskbar, which only has a slight bug in plastik that hinders the choice of background color for the taskbar if the "For Transparency" setting isn't used:

http://postimg.com/image/58000/photo-57624.jpg

The bug is merely a white pixel on the corners where the background color should be present:

http://postimg.com/image/58000/photo-57625.jpg

The Plastik style can definitely be improved upon and while I personally dislike Polyester, I found Lipstik rather nice, if similar to Plastik.

I have also been experimenting with great success to use a vertical panel on 16:9 and 16:10 screens for easier access to commonly used apps and to host the KMenu button, though this is definitely a power user scenario that needs tweaking and further programming to work really well:

http://postimg.com/image/58000/photo-57626.jpg

My usage of this mode predates Ubuntu's Unity bar and has been liked and adopted by some of my friends from time to time, since otherwise it's screen real estate that's being wasted given that most web pages (for instance) are expected to only need 1024 horizontal pixels to show the full page.

One other (slightly off-topic) suggestion I have is to completely disable sounds on TDE. The fact that the default desktop settings have a bunch of (IMHO) do nothing irritating sounds doesn't seem correct. Even the rest of the desktop (things like IM notifications) would be better if had no sounds associated but a good way of giving visual feedback since most times the desktop computer doesn't have speakers (at work) or are turned off in a laptop in a public environment. I think that a blinking taskbar button is mostly sufficient, which is mostly a present behavior in TDE when you disable popup notification windows.

On the same vein, foregoing ARTS completely in a Linux environment where ALSA currently handles multiple sound sources well for a few years now may be of interest, though I don't know the implications of that. I have mostly been building my desktop without ARTS support and haven't really missed anything, in more than 2 years, since the media players have better ALSA backends already.

Hoping to keep this discussion flowing.

Best regards,
Tiago

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 3:23 AM, Calvin Morrison <mutantturkey@gmail.com> wrote:


On 15 January 2012 22:18, Tiago Marques <tiagomnm@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 7:13 PM, /dev/ammo42 <mickeytintincolle@yahoo.fr> wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:08:17 -0500
Calvin Morrison <mutantturkey@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> For a while I have been pondering the cosmetic and artwork related
> changes we should try and work on for R14. Unlike most projects, we
> are rather nostalgic, so going flat out new won't work for us. A new
> default theme or such is not advisable. Users won't like it. I think
> we should instead focus on creating an improved R14 style. A theme
> consists of: Backgrounds, Color Schemes, Fonts, Icons, Window
> Decorations, Widget Styles, and Screensavers. These don't need
> drastic revision, instead they need careful changes to help reflect
> our goals. Speed simplicity and customization are my top priorities.
>
> What do we need to improve? My vote is this
>
> 1) New backgrounds - Our defaults are out of date and I don't really
> like them, Every new release should see some fresh artwork. Users can
> keep the old one if the prefer it. These need to be pleasant to view
> and also look modern. (not to glossy though).
>
> 2) Improved Window Decorations - I am not a fan of plastic. I am a
> fan of the KDE2 window decoration. Either way we should set about
> making sure the default on is in tip top shape and has max
> configuration. Should we keep plastic as our default deco?
>
> 3) Icons - I think we are OK with these. Some icons may need to be
> looked over in our crystal svg set. I want to maximize visual
> efficiency of our icons. Some may be unclear or hard to see at
> different sizes. This should be lo
I think Crystal Project icons
(http://www.everaldo.com/crystal/?action=preview) could be a good theme
to add. It is designed by Everaldo Coehlo (as is Crystal SVG) and I
think of it as an improved Crystal SVG, without the cartoonish/XPish
look of the latter.

These are quite bad for desktop use, IMHO. Crystal SVG is cartoonish but it's icons have a low amount of detail, which are nice at all sizes and readable, symbolic in a way. Just look at the home and Firefox icons in Crystal Project: way too much bling causes too much "visual noise" in someting that sould be merely symbolic of it's function.

Best regards,
Tiago

I concur.

I think a focus should be on improving and simplifying the icons. I find certain icons to already be to visually distracting. Simple clear icons should be everywhere. Even knetworkmanager for example. The Icons are not bad for it,  but they have an annoying gloss which makes it more difficult to see. Also while connecting a smaller "sub" icon appears within the regular icon. very hard to see. it would be better to have the whole icon showing that it is connecting.

This is just one example I can think of. Basically I want to push clarity over everything else.

Calvin