The original purpose was to create a new set of icons but expanded to include a new theme, which included a new cursor, widget and window theme, and sounds. It represents a break with the cartoonish look of previous K Desktop Environment 3 graphics and iconsets, adopting a more photo-realistic style. One of the overall goals of Oxygen was to provide a nice looking desktop that did not distract the user, so the icons and themes use a desaturated color palette. The name Oxygen came from a joke between the developers that they wanted to ”bring a breath of fresh air to the desktop”.
Vertical gradients and use of transparency in Plasma theme when using composite effects, blue tint without compositing. KWin decoration looks more 3-dimensional.
4.3
A new bright Plasma theme, Air, becomes default.
4.4
Usability work, like animations for the widget theme.[4] New and reworked icons – mostly for toolbars.[5] Window decoration no longer embossed.
4.5
Monochrome icons for Air and Oxygen Plasma themes.
4.6–4.7
The icon set gets reworked file type icons.[6] Reworked folder icons.[7]
On December 21, 2011 (2011-12-21) the Oxygen Font sub-project was announced.[9] The first release – version 0.1 – was done a month later.[10] The 0.2 release from April 25, 2012 (2012-04-25) included refinements and added a monospace font.[8]
Standardization
The Oxygen Project aims to offer standard icons, guidelines and a style guide. It builds on the freedesktop.org Standard Icon Naming Specification and Standard Icon Theme, allowing consistency across applications. There is an ongoing effort for supporting these specifications in different desktops, and by different icon sets and themes, such as the Tango Desktop Project.
