Submitted by Oxygen is the new icon theme being created for KDE4. Everything started in March 2005 when a bunch of KDE contributors met in Berlin to form the Appeal Project with the goal to promote KDE related projects and to push the open source desktop to another level. Oxygen aims to bring a modern, cool and very usable and consistent icon theme, in SVG format.
I may switch from Nuvola when KDE 4 comes around.
Yup, looks like a good evolution upon the Nuvola theme.
Well, so much for Tango and unified icons on the desktop…
I never actually expected KDE to jump on the Tango bandwagon. But keep in mind that the goal of Tango wasn’t just to create a desktop neutral style (which is still useful, even if KDE doesn’t participate), but also to have a more “common” look to it, so the icons wouldn’t stand out as much in a foreign environment. Since Oxygen is also considerably less crystalized than its predecessor, the two sets should look reasonably close to each other (at least compared to current GNOME style vs. Crystal).
Also thanks to the icon naming standard, most artwork on a Linux desktop should follow the user’s choice anyway in the future.
Also look at http://tango-project.org which is the attempt to make a standard GNOME icon styling and naming. The tango project is more open, better described with information and instructions / samples for users to create tango style icons to maintain a consistant look across linux apps. I think this is a key aspect here and a bit lacking in Oxygen.
Afaik Oxygen will follow the tango namnig scheme, this will hopefully make easier to a) use a kde icon theme on gnome b) use a gnome icon theme on kde and c) maybe even automatically use the kde theme on gnome apps that runs under kde and automatically use the gnome icons on kde apps under gnome.
If everything is gonna be all right this will be truly a great step forward in integration between the desktops.
They look really great IMO!
I like the look of this! It seems a logical evolution from the tired and old Crystal icons, even if it is actually descended from Nuvola.
Re: The Tango Advocates
Many KDE users, such as myself, do not like the look of the tango icons. I’m not saying they are bad, simply that I prefer Nuvola/Crystal/Oxygen. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Tango, but I don’t think the icons would work with the general feel of KDE – at least, my Desktop. I’m happy to see that KDE4 will have a new look that feels like a natural evolution from the current style.
One also has to remember that Oxygen has, for most purposes, just begun/been launched. So, I wouldn’t expect it to have all the information that Tango has.
Consistancy would be good in some ways, but bad in others. I doubt most GNOME users would be big fans of Oxygen, so that would not work for standardizing apps on. But at the same time, KDE users such as myself do not like Tango icons – would it be good to standardize all applications on something quite a few people would dislike? I don’t know – what do you think?
I THINK that KDE has more users than GNOME on the Desktop. Don’t quote me on that, though. An icon theme developed around GNOME would not look great in my K-apps, I would think.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against GNOME, and I do enjoy using it as a DE. It was what I first used when coming to Linux, until I logged in to KDE and was impressed by the relative amount of eye-candy. I used XFCE as my primary window manager for a while. I like all three. I just find myself more productive in KDE.
-Devari
I think one of the reasons why KDE and Gnome look so different is the way icons for them are made. KDE icons usually look like polished glass (which is the reason I stopped using KDE), whereas Gnome icons have almost a matte finish, which is prefered by many for daily work environment (including me), because it’s easier on the eyes. Can’t wait for KDE 4, though
I just also wanted to say that I do think standardized NAMING conventions should definitely exist! Interoperability of icon themes is very important to me, as that is the first step to being able to create a unified experience across applications. I mean, if KDE apps in GNOME could utilize the current GNOME icon theme and GNOME apps in KDE could utilized the current KDE icon theme, that would be great!
-Devari
Well, tango is more a GNOME project. And those icons are ugly. I like more the normal GNOME icons.
I agree with Anonymous (Subject: Great Work!). We don’t need the same iconset for totally different desktop projects. I don’t like the way GNOME icons look outside GNOME. And I think Nuvola looks horrible in GNOME, but it’s beautiful in my KDE desktop.
The need for a standard in naming conventions is ok, but that should be the only thing the tango project mandates.
Edited 2005-11-16 19:39
I think Nuvola looks horrible in GNOME, but it’s beautiful in my KDE desktop
You have strange tastes then, since Nuvola is rendered through SVG in Gnome (so it looks good and polished at any resolution), and is pre-rendered bitmaps in KDE.
Perhaps last time you got that opinion, you still used an old version of librsvg which still was a bit buggy, so the pre-rendered icons where sometimes better, but still.
I think Nuvola looks horrible in GNOME, but it’s beautiful in my KDE desktop
You have strange tastes then, since Nuvola is rendered through SVG in Gnome (so it looks good and polished at any resolution), and is pre-rendered bitmaps in KDE.
Well, I would imagine that there is more to looks, than just the quality of the rendering. Choice of colors as compared to the surrounding desktop might be one candidate. 😉
Well, I would imagine that there is more to looks, than just the quality of the rendering. Choice of colors as compared to the surrounding desktop might be one candidate. 😉
Heh, it’s funny that you say that, it just proves my point even more. Because you see, while in KDE, Nuvola is just an icon theme, it’s actually a full theme in Gnome (controls, window borders, icons, and special rendering engine), which means the surrounding desktop integrates pretty well with my SVG Nuvola icons …
So his tastes are even more questionable …
I won’t say tango is horrible, at least it is much much better than current themes.
http://tango-project.org/Image:Screenshot_GNOME.png
http://tango-project.org/Image:Screenshot_Tango.png
If you check the icons on the site, what makes them nice is the resemblance to oxygen
) I don’t say they are similar – it is just that compared to the current GNOME theme(s), tango is more crystal/nuvola like, and that is what makes it OK.
Not Excellent, but not Bad either I think – Oxygen on the other hand…
Obviously I like Oxygen much better, but I realize that I’m biased towards the KDE-look 
And I agree that oxygen would much better integrate into KDE than tango.
An icon naming convention however is a MUST!
Edited 2005-11-16 19:50
I just had a look at the Tango icon set and I don’t think it looks bad at all, I rather like it (and I’m a QT/KDE user). And to be honest, the Oxygen icons don’t do a great deal for me at all, in fact my personal comment is that they’ve gone backwards. In this instance, the Tango icons look a lot better than the Oxygen ones. Just my honest opinion.
I much prefer icon sets such as exquisite or even kneu, which can be downloaded and easily installed.
Dave
Tango is not bad at all – a vast improvement over the standard GNOME theme! But I like my flashy KDE icons. ;o)
Why did Kroc’s post get modded down? It was critical of Oxygen, but I thought it was still a constructive comment! I think the key with Oxygen is that it is still a very new project, and could use input from all sides.
-Devari
I wish there was a way get the whole picture though. A few images of the icons themselves doesn’t really say that much.
As for the unimaginative people prefering Tango, I have three words. Bland, drab and dull. And don’t give me that “the environment should be boring in order not to distract me from work” bull. If you like gray that much why not set your home entirely in it? That way you could, according to your own logic dramatically improve your quality of life by not getting distracted by colorful things from the important things you have there, like books, spouse or whatever.. :p
Well, oxygen is quite good, but once I tried Cezanne theme (http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=16479) I cannot go back to any other theme, as they all look childish and funny compared to Cezanne. It has very good mime type and realistic device icons.
I know it’s different feel for everybody, but that one is my fav. Sad that, it is not maintained for nearly a year
First there was Aqua.
Then came Aero.
And now Oxygen?
Note that Tango is not just an icon set, it is also a standard for icon naming. There is a good chance that desktops will improve their coordination in sharing icon names, so people have no problem using their favorite icons on any of the desktops. In that sense, Tango is not competition for Oxygen, and vice versa.
And hey, who would want only a single icon set, right?
if you’re on Ubuntu (it’s in Universe). IMHO it’s gorgeous.
I cannot see it is even better than Nuvola.
And worse than Crystal Clear.
We’ve already seen Apple’s icon set and now Vista. Oxygen obviously cannot catch up with these. Note that Apple’s icons are already years old.
The big 48×48 icons may be sexy, but it’s the small 16×16 icons that are more important and harder to do well. There’s not enough focus on those.
what many people dont know is that oxygen will be the frist fully svg theme, a theme that will truly interact with the user, that will interact with its screen position, that has a completly new way of sayng what an icon is, and that will make the most use of the new svg capabilities of qt 4.1.
So it is just not an icon theme it is that but it is so much more.
People should really try to understand things before talking about them.
Tango is an icon naming scheme and a standardization effort, NOT an icon theme.
The icons you see on the tango website are simply the first “tango-compliant” theme. Note that neither GNOME nor KDE is “tango-compliant” at the moment, and for this purpose tango releases some scripts that convert the tango icons to the names and formats each DE expects.
In the future (if tango gets enough steam) I expect to see a tango compliant Oxygen icon theme. Why not?
If Everaldo has interest and time there will be a tango compliant Crystal theme, and so on.
The real advantage? That a tango compliant theme WILL work in all the environments that expect a tango theme OR that have a tango conversion script.
Expect autoconversions for Rox, maybe even for windows (why not), and probably for web-apps development.
It is not just the first Tango icon theme, it is the Tango icon theme following the Tango icon style guide. The actual icon theme specification is already provided by freedesktop.org anyway.
Already MIT is going on a project named “Oxygen”. any clash with that ?
I have to agree with one of the posters here about KDE. I like it’s responsiveness over GNOME, but I get tired of the glassy look. I’d love to see a responsive, stable gui with the NeXT Icon look. Matte finish, nice colors…
Looks good. Too bad it’s named after a Women’s fitness mag though.
:/
so you stopped using KDE because of the icon theme …. which you can quite easily change, including downloading new themes from kde-look.org? if you like the GNOME matte style of icons, grab the korilla or bluecurve icons. wouldn’t that have been less effort than switching desktops wholesale? =)
I despise crystal — this looks very nice.