It's a river structurally, but the colors are completely random. That's not case with Ice Cold, Volna, or Ken's older work like Canopee for instance. Just not my cup of tea and I don't see it as continuation of what we've had.

It seems the rest of you like it though so go for it.

If time allows it or next time it's also possible to run a quick survey and then the users could pick the wallpaper.

And I mentioned this in the chat already, but I'd nominate @abetts 's wallpaper for future consideration.

https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=313&t=163943

It's clean and tranquil, sporting a color scheme we've not really explored so far.

All right, Flow (light) it is. I'll contact the author and move forward with that. Sorry @filipf, no hard feelings. :)

As for the mountain wallpaper that you like, I like its composition and color palette, but IMO the details need work, especially those very tall triangular polygons at the base of the mountain. I don't like those at all. However if @anditosan wanted to revise this image, I think we could consider it.

People really liked Flow Light. My suggestion is to switch to Flow Dark for 5.20.

Much as it sadly didn't get cameo'd in this task until now, my suggestion would be to take THE ORIGINAL version of Iridescent Shell, aka this: https://postimg.cc/8JgGKw5T

...and darken it a bit and use that as the Plasma 5.20 wallpaper. It seems like VDG members are already giving this wallpaper hearts in the Telegram chat, too, so I don't think I'm the only one with that sort of opinion.

That being said, I much prefer the original over its future variants as the future variants looks like someone took the vibrancy setting for the colours and cranked it up way too much (no offence). If we darken the original variant a bit, I think we have a perfectly suitable Plasma 5.20 wallpaper right here.

I like the idea of Flow Dark or Iridescent Shell. I also would like to plug Milky Way. :)

+1 for Darker Flow in 5.20.

Beach would look good by summer next year.

I kinda prefer Altai, but all the proposals look pretty good.

-1 for Darker Flow. It's so dark that the colours and default light panel visually vibrate, which doesn't look too hot.

I think Iridescent Shell or Kay would look better with the default light panel.

+1 for darker Flow or Milky Way.

Here they both look good with light OR dark Breeze plasma theme.

+1 for Milky Way and -1 for Darker Flow

I honestly think we should reserve Milky Way for Plasma 6 to make it a release that's 'out of this world'. ;)

In T12724#238510, @The-Feren-OS-Dev wrote:

I honestly think we should reserve Milky Way for Plasma 6 to make it a release that's 'out of this world'. ;)

Breeze refresh + Space themed wallpaper? Awesome.

Given how gray Breeze will be it sort of reminds me of the late 00s and early 10s Mac OS X releases.

I'd strongly strongly suggest doing a contest for plasma 6. It would result surely in a new beautiful wallpaper and it would help promotion greatly.

I can see Milky Way being one of the best wallpapers that never gets used. :(

Even though I'm not a fan of Milky Way, I guess we should find compromises, so I'm ok with it being used in 5.19 if it's preferred over darker flow

I'm quite sure that we'll use Milky Way eventually. :)

FWIW I'm personally leaning slightly towards Flow Dark for 5.20. If we're ever going to use it, the time is now. If not Flow Dark, then I'd go for Milky Way.

What about: 5.20 darker flow, 5.21 milky way? That could be a good compromise

I'd be good with that.

How do others feel? I know there were some reservations about Flow Dark. Personally I think it looks great with the new default panel though:

FWIW here's the workflow:

1. Get multiple size versions versions from author (Sandra Smukaste <pewmuffin@gmail.com>)
2. Submit MR for breeze repo to replace the images in Next
3. Submit MR for plasma-workspace-wallpapers add largest size of old wallpaper
4. Submit MR to plasma-workspace with updated screenshots for Breeze Global Theme and SDDM theme

Not a great fan of darker flow, because it doesn't change enough from the last wallpaper and because unlike Flow all the colors are in the middle of the screen and the border are just black.

Also since I was planning to make the Plasma 5.20 announcement, a lot more visual, I can see a lot more opportunity with Milky way to do something fancy.

I'd strongly suggest holding Milky Way from being the default wallpaper until we have a known release that brings about the official Breeze Theme Redesign.

If we had it in any random Plasma release, it'd honestly be a HUGE missed opportunity for the release that debuts the Breeze Redesign. The boldness of such a wallpaper change would SERIOUSLY complement the changes brought about by this huge redesign of Breeze.

That being said: My idea for a proposal right now personally would be:
5.20: Darker Flow
5.21 (if the Breeze Redesign is ready to debut with this Plasma release): Milky Way
5.21 (if the Breeze Redesign isn't ready yet): Iridescent Shell?

I agree that Milky Way would be best saved for the release that gets the Breeze redesign. At this point, that's 5.21 or later (though hopefully 5.21).

I would still sugest to not use darker flow, we already had flow and darker flow has not enough colors. Kai or Iridescent Shell would be a lot better.

Also note that Milky Way doesn't go along with the current proposed skeuomorphism change proposed to breeze.

In T12724#238559, @ngraham wrote:

I'd be good with that.

How do others feel? I know there were some reservations about Flow Dark. Personally I think it looks great with the new default panel though:

Yes, it does look great!

How about we try a point based voting system?

+2 for stuff you strongly support
+1 for stuff you're ok with
-1 for stuff you somewhat oppose
-2 for stuff you strongly oppose

No 0 points. If you're lukewarm on something, pick +1 or -1.

Crystalline: -1
Grand Canyon: -1
Vera: -1
Beach: -2
Flow Dark: +2
Altai: +2
Milky Way: +2
Rainy Morning: +1
Slant: +1
Kay: -1
Iridescent Shell: -1

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: +2
Vera: +1
Beach: -1
Flow Dark: -2
Altai: -1
Milky Way: +2
Rainy Morning: -1
Slant: -1
Iridescent Shell: +1

Crystalline: -2
Grand Canyon: +1
Vera: -1
Beach: -2
Flow Dark: -1
Altai: +2
Milky Way: +1
Rainy Morning: +1
Slant: -2
Kay: +1
Iridescent Shell: +1

Crystalline: -2
Grand Canyon: +1
Vera: +2
Beach: +1
Flow Dark: -2
Altai: -1
Milky Way: -2
Rainy Morning: -1
Slant: -2
Kay: -2 (Kay feels like it belongs more in Material Design IMHO)
Iridescent Shell: +2 (in its originally submitted form, even if it has a slight change of hues for its actual usage, but NOT THE V2s' oversaturation and/or over-flattening of V1)

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: -2
Vera: -2
Beach: +1
Flow Dark: +1
Altai: +1
Milky Way: +2
Rainy Morning: +2
Slant: -1
Kay: -2
Iridescent Shell: +1

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: -2
Vera: -2
Beach: -2
Flow Dark: +2
Altai: +1
Milky Way: +2
Rainy Morning: +1
Slant: -1
Kay: -1
Iridescent Shell: -2

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: +1
Vera: +2
Beach: -2
Flow Dark: -2
Altai: +1
Milky Way: -1
Rainy Morning: +1
Slant: -1
Kay: +2
Iridescent Shell: +2

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: +1
Vera: +2
Beach: -1
Flow Dark: -2
Altai: -1
Milky Way: +2
Rainy Morning: +1
Slant: -1
Kay: +2
Iridescent Shell: +2

Crystalline: -2
Grand Canyon: -2
Vera: -1
Beach: -2
Flow Dark: +1
Altai:+2
Milky Way: -2
Rainy Morning: -1
Slant: +2
Kay: +2
Iridescent Shell: +2

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: +1
Vera: +1
Beach: +1
Flow Dark: -1
Altai: -1
Milky Way: -1
Rainy Morning: -1
Slant: -2
Kay: -2
Iridescent Shell: +2

Crystaline: +2
Grand Canyon: -1
Vera: +1
Beach: +1
Flow Dark: +2
Altai: -2
Milky Way: -1
Rainy morning: -2
Slant: +1
Kay: -2
Shell: +1

Unless I counted wrong, the results currently are:

Given that it's quite hard at this point for any wallpaper to get more votes compared to Shell, I think we can safely say it's the most popular one by far.

Just for fun: FerenOSdev was the most harsh when giving votes (their personal sum is -6), while Carl was the kindest (with 6).
The Shell wallpaper author was contacted.

*runs*

In T12724#238985, @niccolove wrote:

Just for fun: FerenOSdev was the most harsh when giving votes (their personal sum is -6), while Carl was the kindest (with 6).
The Shell wallpaper author was contacted.

And people said I was against everything :)

Interesting Slant was voted so badly. I'd have preferred that, since the color scheme is similar to the old one and it looks a bit like an evolution to me. But design really seems to be subjective :)

Crystaline: +1
Grand Canyon: -1
Vera: +1
Beach: -2
Flow Dark: +1
Altai: +2
Milky Way: -1
Rainy morning: -1
Slant: +1
Kay: -1
Iridescent Shell: +2

Shall we go for a new round of (-2, -1, +1, +2) voting for the next wallpaper?

Personally, I would prefer wallpapers that can also be used as promotional material on our websites and social media posts. The current wallpaper is great in this aspect and the pink/violet gradient was used in many places in kde.org and instagram/twitter posts. Another point is that with Plasma Mobile maturing the wallpaper should also be nice on a vertical layout.

With regard to my previous requirements, I think either Miky Way or Kai would be the best wallpapers.

Milky Way FTW, though I'd be happy with Kay too.

+1*10^279 for Milky Way

My opinions are basically the same as last time, obviously excluding Shell since we're already using that.

Although maybe not needed, I will cast my votes based on the old scheme. I have to say though that I in principle agree with this comment from @niccolove that basically suggests staying somewhat "consistent" ;)

In T12724#221931, @niccolove wrote:

I think we should maintain the Plasma 5 kind of style for the last versions, and I personally feel like these wallpapers do not really fit with the previous ones. Elements I look for generally are:

• Repeated pattern of triangles
• Slightly abstract, but representing a 3D scene
• Generally represent nature
• Point of view from top to bottom, sky is not visible
  
  All these elements, imo, are present in Volna (beach), Ice Cold (antartica), Opal, Cascade, Canopée, Kokkini (it's a beach), Cluster (those were originally clouds). Before 5.10, the style is a bit more astract.

However since this pattern of a somewhat evolutionary change has already been broken pretty badly imho with Iridescent Shell for the past release, I am happy to go with Milky Way which I like very much from an aesthetic standpoint, although it does not really come as an evolution to previous styles but seems to establish just another one (which looks nice, but is not an evolution).

Crystaline: -1
Grand Canyon: +1
Vera: +1
Beach: +1 (would probably have been +2 if a nature scene had been chosen for 5.20)
Flow Dark: -1 (as it is kind of pointless at this state where it was not chosen for 5.20)
Altai: +1
Milky Way: +2
Rainy morning: -1
Slant: +1
Kay: +1

Let's do milky Way. We talked about this for 5.21, time to do it. I'll send an MR soon.

Done! Milky was is now the wallpaper for Plasma 5.21.

Nice! Just a short heads up to a bug I had with the previous wallpaper, as I think it might be caused by the image files themselve and not some code: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=427803. If that is correct, hopefully this time it can be ensured that this bug does not happen.

Does it reproduce with the new wallpaper?

I think we might want to do a wallpaper contest for 5.22, to get a round of new wallpapers. We used most of the best ones collected in previous contests.

In T12724#248646, @niccolove wrote:

I think we might want to do a wallpaper contest for 5.22, to get a round of new wallpapers. We used most of the best ones collected in previous contests.

You sure? We still have good ones left. Altai had just as many votes as Milky Way in the 1st round.

Maybe we should do a new vote including the possibility of a new contest. I'm just not much convinced that Altai fits well in the kde plasma style; even more than Milky Way.

-2 for a new contest. I'm not a fan of Altai but I do like Crystalline, Grand Canyon a Kai.

Let's try to go with another round of voting, then. I'd say let's do as before, but with "new contest" being an option like other wallpapers.

Template:

| Crystalline: | 0
| Grand Canyon: | 0
| Vera: | 0
| Beach: | 0
| Altai: | 0
| Rainy Morning: | 0
| Slant: | 0
| Kay: | 0
| New Contest: | 0

How poll is going:

hope it's not too late, but...

Crystalline: +1
Grand Canyon: +2
Vera: +1
Beach: -1
Altai: -1
Rainy Morning: -1
Slant: -1
Kay: -1
New Contest: +0

In case I am allowed to participate in this voting:

We've got a tie. Ideas?

In case anyone didn't realize, the "New Contest" option is about doing the new contest now.

Can I propose keeping Milky way for another release? It's a nice wallpaper and it wouldn't be the first time we reuse the same wallpaper for multiple releases.

I'd love to see a repo on Gitlab or even another system (so it's easy for those not versed in git) to upload proposed wallpapers. People could tick a box on upload confirming that the license is suitable for KDE to distribute as well and that of course it's their own work.

I'd suggest keeping Milky Way or Rainy Morning

Rainy morning is very nice. FWIW there are alternate color versions of it too:

Autumn Breeze:

North Wind:

it's kind of boring though, especially when compared to previous wallpapers

In T12724#255354, @aronkvh wrote:

I'd suggest keeping Milky Way or Rainy Morning

That would be my preferred choices too, but as in any tastes matter, this is quite subjective.