Recently the KWin highlight window desktop effect was made to be enabled by default in the KDE Plasma Desktop workspace. As I was not a part of the discussion to decide this I do not know the exact reason why it was enabled by default but I would like to voice my opinion that it was the wrong choice.
The highlight window effect is the one that, when you hover over a taskbar item, fades out all windows except the one being hovered over. As this animation affects the entire screen and as it can occur often during normal desktop usage it has a large influence over the entire KDE Plasma Desktop visual identity. The effect is also a major part of the Windows 7 visual identity with the Microsoft equivalent being Aero Peek. I feel that although the effect can be an improvement to usability with some minor changes it should not be a part of the default KDE Plasma Desktop installation as it makes KDE feel less like KDE and more of a blatant Windows clone. Although it could be argued that the same can be said for the new KWin quick tiling and maximization features being a copy of Aero Snap I do not feel that it affects the KDE Plasma Desktop identity in any way and can be more thought of as just being a feature that was inspired by Windows 7 and GNOME (They have had drag-to-screen-top maximization for a while now). I would just like to emphasise that I believe that the effect is not an improvement on usability in its current state either and is more of a distraction than anything else. Having both taskbar thumbnails and the highlight window effect enabled at the same time is redundant; having all windows fade back in sometimes when moving between taskbar items is a major graphical glitch; not having the highlighted windows raised to the top of the window stack partially occludes the window and makes it look messy. Definitely the most annoying part of the effect is how easy it is to activate by accident. Just to summarise: I consider that enabling the KWin highlight window effect by default is the wrong choice and that the change should be reverted before the next KDE SC release. -- Lucas Murray GPG Fingerprint: 0B88 499E 3F5B 1405 D952 258A AD90 B4F5 90B6 3534
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