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892 points todsacerdoti | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.692s | source
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sirwhinesalot ◴[] No.45289648[source]
We now live in a world where KDE looks nicer, more professional, and more consistent than the latest macOS. I don't know how that happened, and KDE isn't even particularly nice looking, but here we are.

For many years now KDE has focused on polish, bug fixing and "nice-to-have" improvements rather than major redesigns, and it paid off.

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distances ◴[] No.45290300[source]
KDE usability really started improving when the Visual Design Group was launched during the KDE 5 cycle, spearheaded by Jens Reuterberg. There was a real cool atmosphere of designer-developer cooperation which quickly led to very sleek results that persist to this day.

VDG tackled (and tackles) not only design for the desktop itself, but also for KDE applications that had never seen a designer's touch before.

I've been long a KDE user, even through the 4.0 troubles, but also the first to admit that it used to look clunky. Looking at old screenshots is a quick reminder of how far this initiative has taken it.

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abrouwers ◴[] No.45291934[source]
I disagree - I see stuff like this, and I wonder if anyone actually thinks about the UI, or it's just "features thrown at the wall." It takes me a long time to remove buttons, icons, etc. from KDE's default layout. They seem to take too much comfort in "everything is configurable" as a way to ignore sane defaults.

https://discuss-cdn.kde.org/uploads/default/original/2X/b/ba...

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1. jorams ◴[] No.45293010[source]
Your screenshot shows a menu in which features, namely the menu bar, have quite explicitly been removed from the default layout because you are unlikely to use them. You are showing the second tier of a menu structure where they are available if you need them occasionally. If you happen to need them more often you can easily add them to the toolbar.
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2. abrouwers ◴[] No.45293934[source]
It's certainly possible, but to me it feels like a junk drawer without too much thought. In konsole, for example, it buries "use dark color scheme," which I'd assume is a fairly common option.
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3. antalis ◴[] No.45298857[source]
Most people choose a theme for all the windows in the system settings.