So in T10218 and T10219 Nate's proposing shipping the plasma-workspace-wallpapers package by default. Aside from agreeing with him in thinking this would be a good decision, I'd also like to propose that we improve this package. In this post I analyze the existing wallpapers, set goals for new ones and suggest some thematic guidelines. Because I don't want to presume grand expertise, I'd also like to hear what everyone else thinks, and discuss things in this task first!
A summary of the current state\Arguments for making the change:
- our current choice of wallpapers doesn't indicate an existence of a plan for providing various favorite wallpaper themes
- JPEG/PNG quality is inconsistent, some wallpapers are better than others
- aesthetic quality is inconsistent, some wallpapers are better than others
- design-wise on the whole current wallpapers are good, but could be even better
- other DEs such as Deepin, Gnome or Elementary are beating us
- we haven't had any change in a while (roughly 3 years)
Which goals should we set?
- provide wallpapers of satisfactory JPEG/PNG quality -> preferably up to 4K resolutions, but minimally aim for top notch quality on 1080p screens
- provide a varied thematic choice
- provide wallpapers of great aesthetic quality
- strive to offer a mixture of dark and light wallpapers
Analyis of existing wallpapers:
- type: light
- a super charming wallpaper, but at the same time you could fault it for not pointing to the level of professionalism you'd want to show with our default selection... however, I'd like to hear what others think
- suggestion: removal, but see what others think
- type: light
- it suffers from both an overuse of a gradient map (meaning that the image is too artifically colored) and from graininess
- suggestion: removal
- type: both dark and light
- well executed, clean, but at the same time users might not find it too interesting?
- suggestion: remove if something better is found
- type: light
- a very well executed wallpaper, although thematically it might not be too interesting to a great number of users
- suggestion: not sure
- type: dark
- the quintiseential soothing wallpaper
- maybe needs a little bit of clean-up work to remove noise, but may also just not be HQ enough
- suggestion: remove if something better is found
- type: more light than dark
- this a really, really nice wallpaper with great colors, unfortunately the PNG quality unfortunatly doesn't even satisfy in 1080p (the sky in particular is fairly low quality) :(
- suggestion: removal
- type: light
- really nice, I have nothing to criticize
- suggestion: keep it
- type: light
- same as "Autumn Girl", extremely cute, but design-wise it seems outdated (mostly because it overuses gradients)
- suggestion: removal (or revamp?)
- type: in between dark and light
- a well executed photo but might not be too interesting for our users? Especially since they might want something else out of cityscape wallpapers.
- suggestion: not sure
- type: more dark than light
- a nice wallapaper
- suggestion: keep it
- type: darkish
- PNG quality doesn't seem 100%, wallpaper is too contrasted
- suggestion: removal
- type: light
- nice abstract wallpaper, but we may simply replace it with some of Ken's best Plasma wallpapers
- suggestion: removal
- type: darkish
- PNG quality is really lackluster with this one (focus on the branches to spot this) + way too much contrast
- suggestion: removal
Thematic categories to consider for new wallpapers and their post-removal state:
Abstract
- state: well-covered
- retain the default Plasma wallpaper
- re-add the Elarun wallpaper
- add some of the best Plasma 5 wallpapers -> T9817 and D17780 are already covering this
A e s t h e t i c
- state: missing
- think pink sunsets, neon lights, Miami Vice colors and cyberpunk -> it's a cool and popular visual genre
- it doesn't have to be over the top, one old Plasma wallpaper already more or less did the job
Animals
- state: missing (!)
- I'm more of a cat person, but can we please get these puppers into KDE? :D
Beach
- state: missing
Cityscape
- state: missing after removing "Grey"
Forest
- state: missing after removal of "Forest"
Macro
- state: covered
- retain the autumn leaves wallpaper (possibly Colorful cups and Grey?)
Mountains
- state: missing
Sky
- state: covered
- retain the "Kite in the Sky" wallpaper
Universe
- state: missing
Water
- state: missing, but is covered if "Darkest Hour" is kept
Proposed sub-tasks\Dilemmas:
- Evaluate current wallpapers via a user survey? -> alternatively we can just use our internal judgement, which I think is legitimate
- Assign the task to someone -> @rooty and I would be thrilled to do this :)
- Make a final decision on which wallpapers to remove
- Find new wallpapers -> using e.g free wallpapers from Pexelz/Unsplash or making a call for artists? -> the former would probably mean better wallpapers, while the latter would make people in the community really happy -> I'm more in favor of using free, already available wallpapers because we'd want something top notch if we're shipping the package by default
- Submit a patch!