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List:       kde-announce
Subject:    KDE now supports pixmap gtk themes
From:       Matthias Kalle Dalheimer <kalle () dalheimer ! de>
Date:       2000-07-26 17:00:02
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Hi KDE enthusiasts,

the KDE team (in personas Mosfet and Brad Hughes) has struck again and 
implemented another notable feature: KDE now supports gtk pixmap themes! This 
means that you can use the wealth of gtk pixmap themes on your KDE desktop, 
and even better, these themes will be displayed faster than in native gtk. 

Here's the scoop. For a nicer version with screenshots, please go to 
http://www.kde.org/announcements/k3c-announce.html.

Have fun,

Kalle Dalheimer for the KDE team

-------------------------------------------------------

If you have had the opportunity of using a recent KDE2 beta, you
may know that KDE2 has supported widget themes for quite a while now.
You may have noticed that these themes are fast. Really fast.  And
even those themes using pixmaps and gradients run at a decent speed,
thanks mostly to Qt's excellent theming-engine and our optimized pixmap 
storage and cache mechanism.

n addition to native KDE2 themes, we are pleased to announce that KDE now 
supports GTK pixmap-themes. However, while GTK themes are displayed faster 
and more efficiently than even native GTK itself, we do not recommend using 
this format for creating new themes.  Theme developers should prefer KDE2's 
native widget theming which yields superior results both in terms of quality
and speed. A nice HowTo and some documentation on KDE2 theming is
available at http://www.mosfet.org/themeapi/.


In KDE2, icons are themable as well.  A nice application of this
feature can be seen if you start KDE2 on an 8-bit color display. In
this case, KDE will automatically default to a carefully crafted icon
theme based on a 40-color palette: 216 extra colors are left for the
more color-greedy applications.  Of course, on a true color display,
you would get the hi-color icon theme.

The size of the icons can also be easily changed.  Just right-click
on the toolbar handle, and you'll find a menu with a selection of
various icon sizes.  Or change the icon size in other locations or
globally from the KDE Control Center.  This way you can make optimal
use of your desktop space and monitor.
                                                                              
 
Also notable are the various icon effects. These include levels of
greyscaling, highlighting, colorization, saturation/hue,
semitransparency...  and the ability to customize the behavior and
appearance of the icons in all the various states (MouseOver, default,
disabled) and locations (desktop, toolbars, menus, panel).

In fact, if you are creative enough, you can do such things as make
Konqueror look like Netscape. Or Internet Explorer.  Or make it look like 
something entirely different.

While these are aesthetic features, they can also be quite important
from a usability point of view.  For example, if you are an artist or
graphic designer, you may not want your icons to look too colorful. In
fact, if at all possible, you'd want to work in a color-neutral
environment.  Well, with KDE2, you can switch all your icons to grey
quite easily - and if you want a colorful desktop to impress your
friends, it is just a click away!

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