11 ms·

Is lack of horizontal padding part of the KDE aesthetic?

by funkiee 7y ago

mediocrejoker 7y ago
This is the first thing I noticed too. The text is too close to the leftmost border and feels very claustrophobic.
- inetknght 7y ago
  Claustrophobic? That's your opinion. It looks great to me.
  - JadoJodo 7y ago
    Of course it's an opinion; They said it "feels", not "is".
  - lone_haxx0r 7y ago
    > It looks great to me That's exactly why we've seen scientific slide presentations in Comic Sans. It looks great to someone != it's good.
arendtio 7y ago
I am not sure if there really is a lack. I mean, I think I see what you mean, but given the fact that those are notifications, they are probably meant to feel 'thin' to not attract too much attention. Another factor might be that those small, focussed screenshots are just not the appropriate format to show how those notifications would look like in the context of a complete desktop. But in the end, it is also possible that there is an unintended lack of horizontal padding.
inetknght 7y ago
Lack of horizontal padding? What padding do you want? There's clear whitespace between everything. I for one definitely like and want more compact information. I definitely do not like the trend for making information more sparse. Leave that for your blog; business runs on information.
- Crinus 7y ago
  Yeah, i've found GP's comment amusing because from my perspective KDE looks like it wastes too much space on padding.
- TheCoreh 7y ago
  Information density is not hampered by the presence of proper negative space, on the contrary, using the right amount of negative space actually allows for very information dense layouts to still be readable. A good example is a traditional paper phone book
  - inetknght 7y ago
    What you define to be proper is likely not what I define to be proper. It's certainly a context-sensitive opinion. The amount and location depends on what you want to do. Yes, just like a phone book, it needs whitespace. A notification window is not a paper phone book though. A paper phone book typically has a lot less whitespace than we're discussing here, so I'm not even sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing or trying to point something else out.
- notatoad 7y ago
  The most egregious example that stood out to me here is the x-padding between the edge of the notification panel and any text inside the panel is less than the padding between the notification title and the text below it. The problem isn't that they need more padding, it's that their padding makes no sense. If they made a design decision to have tight padding that would be one thing, but they've got a horizontal layout with tight padding in the horizontal direction and wide padding in the vertical. here's a really quick-and-dirty edit to even out the padding around each text block to be equal to the line height, which actually tightens up the total density by correcting the too-high line height in the notification text: https://imgur.com/uVcY6Sw https://imgur.com/uVcY6Sw
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 7y ago
marcosdumay 7y ago
I don't know how to explain. Those look exactly like the KDE notifications I see all the time, but they never looked compressed inside the window on my desktops. Instead, it always bothered me that they were too spacey.
blodstone 7y ago
I agree, the lack of padding is aesthetically bad. It's my opinion however, others may not agree.
TheCoreh 7y ago
I also noticed that, came here to comment precisely the same thing. I think the problem might also be exacerbated by the fact that the padding doesn't seem to be scaled based on DPI. (Unlike line height/icon size) So it looks acceptable on a low resolution display, but super close to the edges on a "Retina" display.
azinman2 7y ago
When looking at all the screenshots, it’s clear that padding and alignment is neither professional (looks amateur), nor consistent. If you’re going to rip off Apple, at least do it to Apple quality! Otherwise it’s a cheap knock off. Before people grip that this is free software, would you be happy if KDE’s core components were poorly written? Free or not, we should take pride in our work and put the bar at high quality.
- modzu 7y ago
  kde: still a cartoon edit: i mean this as the conscious aesthetic, no disrespect is implied
  - azinman2 7y ago
    That notification doesn’t look like a cartoon, nor does it demonstrate a sophisticated aesthetic.
- outworlder 7y ago
  > When looking at all the screenshots, it’s clear that padding and alignment is neither professional (looks amateur), nor consistent. You know, the thing about an open-source project is that you can contribute. Since you think you are able to do it better yourself, why don't you fix it?
  - azinman2 7y ago
    Because I don’t use KDE and have other ways I’d rather spend my time.
- eitland 7y ago
  > If you’re going to rip off Apple, at least do it to Apple quality! Otherwise it’s a cheap knock off. KDE isn't similar to Apple at all. Source: have used both for years.
  - azinman2 7y ago
gazsp 7y ago
Designed by developers.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 7y ago
Awful padding and spacing has always been part of the KDE aesthetic. It comes from aggressive use of auto-layout by Qt, I think.
tsss 7y ago
Thank god I'm not the only one who is annoyed by that. I remember 1 or 2 years ago when I first installed KDE I thought I messed up the installation because the padding/margins looked so jarring, I was convinced there was something wrong with the UI theme.

Is lack of horizontal padding part of the KDE aesthetic?

mediocrejoker 7y ago

This is the first thing I noticed too. The text is too close to the leftmost border and feels very claustrophobic.

inetknght 7y ago
Claustrophobic? That's your opinion. It looks great to me.
- JadoJodo 7y ago
  Of course it's an opinion; They said it "feels", not "is".
- lone_haxx0r 7y ago
  > It looks great to me That's exactly why we've seen scientific slide presentations in Comic Sans. It looks great to someone != it's good.

arendtio 7y ago

I am not sure if there really is a lack. I mean, I think I see what you mean, but given the fact that those are notifications, they are probably meant to feel 'thin' to not attract too much attention. Another factor might be that those small, focussed screenshots are just not the appropriate format to show how those notifications would look like in the context of a complete desktop. But in the end, it is also possible that there is an unintended lack of horizontal padding.

inetknght 7y ago

Lack of horizontal padding? What padding do you want? There's clear whitespace between everything. I for one definitely like and want more compact information. I definitely do not like the trend for making information more sparse. Leave that for your blog; business runs on information.

Crinus 7y ago
Yeah, i've found GP's comment amusing because from my perspective KDE looks like it wastes too much space on padding.
TheCoreh 7y ago
Information density is not hampered by the presence of proper negative space, on the contrary, using the right amount of negative space actually allows for very information dense layouts to still be readable. A good example is a traditional paper phone book
- inetknght 7y ago
  What you define to be proper is likely not what I define to be proper. It's certainly a context-sensitive opinion. The amount and location depends on what you want to do. Yes, just like a phone book, it needs whitespace. A notification window is not a paper phone book though. A paper phone book typically has a lot less whitespace than we're discussing here, so I'm not even sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing or trying to point something else out.
notatoad 7y ago
The most egregious example that stood out to me here is the x-padding between the edge of the notification panel and any text inside the panel is less than the padding between the notification title and the text below it. The problem isn't that they need more padding, it's that their padding makes no sense. If they made a design decision to have tight padding that would be one thing, but they've got a horizontal layout with tight padding in the horizontal direction and wide padding in the vertical. here's a really quick-and-dirty edit to even out the padding around each text block to be equal to the line height, which actually tightens up the total density by correcting the too-high line height in the notification text: https://imgur.com/uVcY6Sw https://imgur.com/uVcY6Sw
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 7y ago

marcosdumay 7y ago

I don't know how to explain. Those look exactly like the KDE notifications I see all the time, but they never looked compressed inside the window on my desktops. Instead, it always bothered me that they were too spacey.

blodstone 7y ago

I agree, the lack of padding is aesthetically bad. It's my opinion however, others may not agree.

TheCoreh 7y ago

I also noticed that, came here to comment precisely the same thing. I think the problem might also be exacerbated by the fact that the padding doesn't seem to be scaled based on DPI. (Unlike line height/icon size) So it looks acceptable on a low resolution display, but super close to the edges on a "Retina" display.

azinman2 7y ago

When looking at all the screenshots, it’s clear that padding and alignment is neither professional (looks amateur), nor consistent. If you’re going to rip off Apple, at least do it to Apple quality! Otherwise it’s a cheap knock off. Before people grip that this is free software, would you be happy if KDE’s core components were poorly written? Free or not, we should take pride in our work and put the bar at high quality.

modzu 7y ago
kde: still a cartoon edit: i mean this as the conscious aesthetic, no disrespect is implied
- azinman2 7y ago
  That notification doesn’t look like a cartoon, nor does it demonstrate a sophisticated aesthetic.
outworlder 7y ago
> When looking at all the screenshots, it’s clear that padding and alignment is neither professional (looks amateur), nor consistent. You know, the thing about an open-source project is that you can contribute. Since you think you are able to do it better yourself, why don't you fix it?
- azinman2 7y ago
  Because I don’t use KDE and have other ways I’d rather spend my time.
eitland 7y ago
> If you’re going to rip off Apple, at least do it to Apple quality! Otherwise it’s a cheap knock off. KDE isn't similar to Apple at all. Source: have used both for years.
- azinman2 7y ago

gazsp 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 7y ago

Awful padding and spacing has always been part of the KDE aesthetic. It comes from aggressive use of auto-layout by Qt, I think.

tsss 7y ago

Thank god I'm not the only one who is annoyed by that. I remember 1 or 2 years ago when I first installed KDE I thought I messed up the installation because the padding/margins looked so jarring, I was convinced there was something wrong with the UI theme.