Window and Desktop Switcher moved to Look’n’Feel Package

Today we did an important change in how KWin will distribute its assets in the upcoming 5.2 release. When we started our thoughts about the Look’n’Feel Package and how we want to have meta themes for the complete Plasma workspace we also wanted to have this for the Window and Desktop switcher provided by KWin. So the structure of the Look’n’Feel Package already has all the pieces for including the Window and Desktop Switcher, but it was not used. Now we finally addressed this for the 5.2 release and moved the default switcher into the Look’n’Feel Package and KWin can locate the switchers from the Look’n’Feel Package.

At the same time we want to follow in a better way the “Simple by default, powerful when needed” approach. Our configuration should be simple and thus not offer an overwhelming amount of switchers. But it also should be powerful and thus one can install additional switchers either through GHNS or through your package manager. The result is that all the additional switchers so far shipped with KWin were moved to kdeplasma-addons repository. So all switchers are still available (powerful when needed), just not shown when opening the configuration menu (simple by default).

This also opens the door for including more switchers in the plasma addons repository. So far we had been very reluctant to add more switchers to the KWin repository. There were already too many switchers installed by default and it gives a feeling of we don’t know what we want. By only installing one switcher by default this improves significantly and allows to add high quality switchers with enough differentiation to other switchers to the plasma addons repository.

The change has also some implications for users of non Plasma desktop environments wanting to use KWin as their window manager. By moving the switchers out, KWin removes some of the Plasma dependencies. All switchers provided by KWin are using Plasma components, the default switcher is part of the design concept for Plasma 5 following the same idea as other similar components. Thus KWin had a direct dependency on Plasma with the window switchers. This is now kind of solved by not offering any switcher at all.

My suggestion for desktop environment projects wanting to use KWin is to provide their own default Look’n’Feel package with a Window and Desktop switcher specific for their environment. On the other hand I don’t see a problem with providing a simple fallback theme in KWin. And of course there are still the Desktop Effects for switching between Windows (CoverSwitch and FlipSwitch) installed by default and just need to be enabled.