@ndavis said:
Here's what I think:

• The line should indicate that the app is opened, the window is not minimized and the window is focused (opaque blue) or inactive (opaque gray)
• The background should indicate whether an app is not opened (no BG), minimized or inactive (semi-transparent gray), or focused (semi-transparent blue)

Please note that would require change in how desktop themes are handled, not in the desktop theme itself, as far as I understand it. I'm afraid I don't have the experience to implement what you are saying; this is the best I can offer. Of course, if there is anybody else, it could be a good idea.

This diff is against commit 467d721cc96258b54048c0dd1508d16e03c0cd55, which isn't in git master. Do I actually need that commit for this patch to work?

In D25340#563400, @ndavis wrote:

This diff is against commit 467d721cc96258b54048c0dd1508d16e03c0cd55, which isn't in git master. Do I actually need that commit for this patch to work?

No. My bad. Let me fix.

In D25340#563388, @niccolove wrote:

@ndavis said:
Here's what I think:

• The line should indicate that the app is opened, the window is not minimized and the window is focused (opaque blue) or inactive (opaque gray)
• The background should indicate whether an app is not opened (no BG), minimized or inactive (semi-transparent gray), or focused (semi-transparent blue)

Please note that would require change in how desktop themes are handled, not in the desktop theme itself, as far as I understand it. I'm afraid I don't have the experience to implement what you are saying; this is the best I can offer. Of course, if there is anybody else, it could be a good idea.

It looks like you already did it, but the opacity levels of the inactive bars need to be changed. I noticed that the SVG uses black in inkscape as the base color for the minimized and normal (inactive) modes, but actually uses the text color in Plasmashell. Keep that in mind when adjusting the opacity and the color class should be changed to InactiveText. I haven't actually tested if this value works, but it should. Right now I'm playing around with your patch a bit.

Based on my experience, this should have broken stylesheet support, but apparently not...

<g
   style="fill:#000000;fill-opacity:0.15686275;opacity:0.34"
   transform="matrix(0.96296296,0,0,1,0.18519,41.899999)"
   id="normal-center">
  <rect
     class="ColorScheme-Text"
     style="color:#31363b;fill:#000000;stroke:none;fill-opacity:0.15686275"
     id="rect4957-0-4"
     width="27"
     height="13"
     x="5"
     y="4.0999999" />
</g>

I like the background changes here and I think it makes logical sense to have a progression of changing background colors to indicate the status. However I'm not a huge fan of reducing the active indicator to just 2px. It's now so small that it becomes kind of superfluous. I think it would look better at the current size, and this would be more consistent with the highlight effects that @ndavis is working on, IIRC.

My view is that if we don't like the blue line being so visible, we should remove it entirely rather than making it so small that it feels like it wishes it didn't exist. :) Otherwise we should keep it where it is right now. I don't think there's anything wrong with its current size.

Unfortunately, InactiveText doesn't work and neither does DisabledText. I might need to change whatever library handles stylesheets for plasmashell.

Here's a cleaned up version of the file with the changes Nate and I requested:

• KeepassXC is hovered
• Dolphin has not been opened
• Firefox is focused
• KDevelop is open, but inactive
• KSysGuard is minimized

I wonder if the gray line on the inactive mode should be a little more opaque (up to 35% opacity) or if the background for inactive and minimized should be a little less opaque (down to 15% opacity). reducing the background opacity is probably better.

In D25340#563593, @ndavis wrote:

Here's a cleaned up version of the file with the changes Nate and I requested:

tasks.svg77 KBDownload

Oh sorry, I missed this. I'll use that file.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the change to use the same background color for "open" and "minimized" states and distinguish the two entirely with the presence or absence of a gray line. It feels very subtle, almost too much so. I preferred it when the open and minimized states had a more immediately obvious visual difference.

I don't hate the current state, let me note. It's just not what I expected, and I feel like I would need to get used to it rather than immediately falling in love with it.

Now that we got back the 3px line, I would say that it is recognizable. I like the idea of having the background and reinforcing the idea that line=visible. But it's such a minor change that I would be okay with any option really.

In D25340#563783, @ngraham wrote:

I don't hate the current state, let me note. It's just not what I expected, and I feel like I would need to get used to it rather than immediately falling in love with it.

What could be done to make it better? I noticed the same feeling myself. Decreasing the opacity of the inactive/minimized mode backgrounds did make it felt better though.

Decreasing the opacity of the icon itself? Maybe that could work.

A pet peeve I have with the status quo is that minimized apps/windows have greater visual prominence than other ones, which seems backwards. This patch generally fixes that (especially for the active app/window), but now minimized apps/windows have a state that looks too similar to other ones. We just need to figure out how to make that state look de-emphasized.

In D25340#563908, @ngraham wrote:

Decreasing the opacity of the icon itself? Maybe that could work.

Not the icon, the background.

A pet peeve I have with the status quo is that minimized apps/windows have greater visual prominence than other ones, which seems backwards. This patch generally fixes that (especially for the active app/window), but now minimized apps/windows have a state that looks too similar to other ones. We just need to figure out how to make that state look de-emphasized.

I agree.

In D25340#563913, @ndavis wrote:

15% Inactive BG opacity
10% Minimized BG opacity

Might be too subtle, maybe more opacity would be needed

Might be too subtle, maybe more opacity would be needed

This should have a 13% vs 23% opacity, what do you think?

I can accept this as-is, but I think I'd still prefer the background color of minimized apps/windows to be a bit lighter or more transparent.

In that case, maybe 5% opacity for minimized?

Can we push this forward? I just triaged a bunch of bugs and found that https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=370465 now has five duplicates. There seems to be quite a bit of demand for this.

In D25340#563400, @ndavis wrote:

This diff is against commit 467d721cc96258b54048c0dd1508d16e03c0cd55, which isn't in git master. Do I actually need that commit for this patch to work?

A similar issue still exists, but it does apply against master.

Gave this is a quick spin and it definitely looks like an improvement.

In D25340#573594, @ndavis wrote:

Wait, is a change to tabbar.svg supposed to be in this diff?

Nope, I must have messed up the different arc features. Sorry.

Hmm, I'm not seeing any change, and the difference between open and maximized items is still too subtle IMO:

If the background is a different color/opacity, I can't tell.

In D25340#573654, @ngraham wrote:

Hmm, I'm not seeing any change, and the difference between open and maximized items is still too subtle IMO:

If the background is a different color/opacity, I can't tell.

When changing the SVGs for plasmashell widgets, you have to delete cache. rm -r ~/.cache/plasma*

Oh wait, here's the problem.

It's going to be tedious with manual editing. Maybe there's a way to automate it with awk, but I don't know that tool well enough. This should at least make the deleting part easier: sed --follow-symlinks -i 's/style="opacity:0.05"//' tasks.svg

Do this too while you're at it since I noticed some useless style lines: sed --follow-symlinks -i 's/style=""//' tasks.svg

@niccolove Do you mind if I commandeer this? I know dealing with these kinds of issues can be super annoying and I'm already used to it.

In D25340#573672, @ndavis wrote:

@niccolove Do you mind if I commandeer this? I know dealing with these kinds of issues can be super annoying and I'm already used to it.

Feel free to do that :-)

This feels so close to perfection! But now it feels like the minimized bg is too subtle, maybe. I wonder if 0.08 opacity for minimized tasks might help. Or maybe I'm just torturing this poor patch to death...