 is not only gearing up for a big technological shift, but is also adding cool new features and improving the user experience](https://cdn.masto.host/floss/media_attachments/files/110/796/930/641/437/135/original/e69c4c710545b583.png){kind=link}
This week in KDE: #Plasma6 is not only gearing up for a big technological shift, but is also adding cool new features and improving the user experience
Look forward to sound themes! Snappier responses! Prettier widgets! More awesome things!
https://pointieststick.com/2023/07/28/this-week-in-kde-sounds-like-plasma-6/
We are talking about CSD, are we not?
There are quite a number of DEs using CSD, and a couple of them even feature a more “traditional” layout with a button panel and left side app menu.
While some folks like it, at this point one of the defining features of Plasma is the fact that it stands out by not using Server Side Decorations, or GTK for that matter.
Besides, CSD is ugly@ChristianWS CSD can just look like the normal Window+Decoration.
My point is however that KDE can use it to at least put something to the CSD, like the app-menu if visible. Different apps would find different purposes for it and there shouldnt be a hard requirement for it, but optional feature to use for the devs.
CSD is just a ugly as you make it to be. In my opinion SSD is nowadays very out of place, vertical wasted space.
Not really following what you mean.
The moment you allow CSD, apps can and will put whatever they want on there, leading to wildly inconsistency in the number of things there.
CSD will always looks weird cause it takes too much vertical space. It will never look as good as a normal Title Bar, which can be controlled by the server.
You also lose draggable space, as now buttons are taking space.
@ChristianWS It’s not the app that does this. Developer do this, they do this because they think it’s good. The KDE does have a nice visual design group (I was once part of it, So I know :P). It would be possible to define a design guide to follow so apps won’t look out of place, while still are able to make use of CSD.
Plasma doesnt need to look like GNOMEs implementation of a CSD. The visuals are a completely different thing. The technology is the important part at first.
Design follows technology and vice-versa. Once you allow devs to use CSD they can and will use that space to put buttons on it, and that inevitably leads to inconsistency between apps, because they will never share the same amount of buttons or be divided by the same amount of panels.
CSD is a Pandora’s box that is best left unopened.
@ChristianWS “Design follows technology and vice-versa.” Thats a hard one. Yes, and also no. Things dont need to be the same to behave the same. Take Firefox and Chrome. They do not look the same, they still behave the same. They share a common design guideline. You need to go to the settings to see the parts that differ.
If KDE provides a good design guideline devs would follow them, because it’s easier and faster to have working patterns instead of putting work into it yourself.
It doesn’t work for CSD cause you either have a very strict guideline to prevent inconsistency, limiting the number and location of buttons. At which point it is so limiting that Developers need add another bar to hold whatever they can’t put on the header bar, rendering the CSD implementation moot.
Or you do like GTK and allow inconsistency. You can’t win with CSD.
And that is not even mentioning if CSD is even a good idea in the first place. Some users deliberately went with Plasma due to the lack of CSD in the first place, those would migrate to LXQT or XFCE.
@ChristianWS I think your idea of inconsistency differs from mine. Havin buttons on different locations in a headerbar doesnt have to be inconsistent across apps. Different layouts can be consistent.
BUT I dont talk about header bars. I do talk about CSD only and they can be whatever a guideline makes them to be. All Qt apps already have a CSD, but they suck and it would be nice if app devs would be allowed to make use of them on the KDE side if they decide that it benefits the app.
I’m genuinely curious: What exactly do you have in mind with CSDs without the use of a Header Bar?
CSD and Header Bars are practically synonymous, and I don’t think I’ve seen, or even heard, about CSDs without the context of a header bar