Why isn't the configuration to make KDE apps look native default?

Question

why isn't the configuration to make KDE apps look native present in the default setup ?

Answer 1

Mark has answered this question here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/568

" System settings and prefs, however, have long been a cause of friction between Qt and Gtk. Integration with system settings and preferences is critical to the sense of an application “belonging” on the system. It affects the ability to manage that application using the same tools one uses to manage all the other applications, and the sorts of settings-and-preference experience that users can have with the app. This has traditionally been a problem with Qt / KDE applications on Ubuntu, because Gtk apps all use a centrally-manageable preferences store, and KDE apps do things differently."

And is trying to fix it:

"To address this, Canonical is driving the development of dconf bindings for Qt, so that it is possible to write a Qt app that uses the same settings framework as everything else in Ubuntu. We’ve contracted with Ryan Lortie, who obviously knows dconf very well, and he’ll work with some folks at Canonical who have been using Qt for custom development work for customers. We’re confident the result will be natural for Qt developers, and a complete expression of dconf’s semantics and style."

Answer 2

The reason for this kind of thing is the desktop environment. When developers make an environment, they want it to look just right for them. This means that applications would be programmed differently for different environments. Currently, most of the apps are made for either gnome, or KDE. The gnome ones default to one theme, the KDE ones default to another. If the program does not recognize that it is in a different environment, or the different environment does not adapt to the program, there will be design flaws. With Gnome, all applications default to either the Redmond theme or the Raleigh theme. In KDE, it will fall back to whatever it can find. If the program has dependencies in it that involve the Plasma Workspace, then it will probably incorporate the Oxygen widget theme. Otherwise, it will look much like you just installed Wine and are running a simple windowed app from there.

Answer 3

As far as I know (and understand), this happens because KDE apps are by default designed to be installed in a Kubuntu environment. For this reason, they are of course packaged to use a QT (thus KDE) theme by default, as opposed to the QT-GTK+ theme.

Maybe in the future, the application will be able to detect which environment it is running on at the time and automatically choose a theme to suit.