I always use the Windows Classic theme for all my Windows versions, and let Opera adjust to it with the Windows Original setting. And it's doing a perfect job at that.

@veggen:

I did the same! I liked Opera's default skin so much that I changed XP's theme to match it, and like you used the Microsoft Zune theme. It's also provides a bit of fresh air to XP whilst I wait for Windows 7, I am NOT gonna touch Vista..

I'm pretty much looking forward for your work!

Welcome Jon Hicks! Congrats on your first post on the desktop blog. I filled out the form. 

The Operating System should not define the look/feel and usability of an application. That doesn't mean you can't put certain buttons and functions in expected places... but it also doesn't mean you become a nazi and everything looks like a gray pos on the Mac system.

I think you will have to strike a balance, are you improving the look and feel of Opera, while preserving basic O.S. integration...if so collect $200.00 otherwise....back to the drawing board.

Welcome Jon Hicks!

I submitted my thoughts on the UI. I prefer native look and feel to the operating system and I don't currently feel like Opera fits in natively to anything other than Mac maybe. Linux skins are impossible to find that are kept up or designed really well.

I'd like to see a skin/theme contest for Opera community users to get involved with to encourage them to make quality skins/themes for Unix/Linux distributions which are not getting any attention at all from the UI team. Only Mac and Windows have gotten attention so far. It's understandable, since there are so many distributions, but they need to be developed some how.

I still feel like the "one theme for all" idea with the buttons and icons is not a game winner. That is part of the reason why I don't think Opera even really integrates well in XP or Vista.

And why on Earth in the Windows Skin still being packaged with Unix/Linux builds? At least develop a generic Unix/Linux skin and package that instead.

If you like to see what most users including me would like just take a look at Google Chrome and the Office 2007 Suite.

Atm I'm using Windows XP but will switch to something newer in the next 12months I guess. Opera just look like a normal Windows app and thats not bad but it feels as theres a lot of space wasted via the menu bar. Here is where something like what MS Office use will be good.

Think Opera 10 must ditch the native OS look for Windows and create cross platfrom interface. Maybe keep the general layout but just change the location of the close/minimize/max button for Mac.

Minimal look is fine for me.
Something like the rewind & fastforward buttons just confuse the average user.. so that will have to go. The rewind but can be integrated in the url editbox(mouse hover will hightlight the part of the url)

Also like the way ie8 shows their URL's (shows the website like winamp.com in black and the rest in light gray)

Will post a mockup of what I have in mind since I also design UI's for the fun (http://cpro.skinconsortium.com) and then post a link to the picture sometime in the next week.

But to sum up, Opera deserve to be used by more people. Only thing that's lacking atm is a great userinterface that easy to use for novice users.

Welcome to Opera, Mr. Hicks

Apps should of course integrate with the native OS, but they should also retain their individual character & identity as an App.

Apps should integrate natively for function & uniformity (ie. menus, features & operation) while retaining their individual identity & appearance (ie. colors, icons, toolbars & design schemes) across all platforms.

Ultimately, users should be given the OPTION to select btwn native OS integration and Opera’s own design. This would settle it for everyone.

In any case, PLEASE do not cheapen or degrade the look & feel of Opera with childish cartoon icons, hideous flamboyant colors, or a fat clunky design.

Opera’s appearance & identity conveys beauty, elegance, class, speed & simplicity. Opera is sharp & sleek, like an Italian sports car – please keep with this design philosophy.

Firefox...sorry but Firefox's ability to customize the toolbars is far superior to all other browsers. Granted they have really been screwing things up (they got rid of the Go button which I click numerous times a day saying it was "clutter" but then stuck a bookmark button in it's place where I bookmark a page once every two or three weeks tops?) Additionally in their nightly builds the New Tab button is now statically placed at the far right side of my screen (I have a 24 inch screen that I view everything at 1920x1200) so needless to say it's very obnoxious. It negates the one of the fundamental points of Firefox's existence: customizable GUI!

That being said I'd like to have History, Info, and Transfers buttons available at the top of Opera instead of having to press F4 and then still have to click a second time to view the information I need.

Additionally what Opera TRULY needs as far as the GUI is concerned is the ability to ***MERGE TOOLBARS*** as well as ***VERTICAL PLACEMENT***.

Here is how I have setup my toolbars in Firefox...
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1327/firefoxguijo2.gif

Some people like simple but I'm a power user and I need all the tools I use available with minimal thought. If I have to click twice to common items then it's bad design.

In example the #1 reason I hate Vista is because Windows Explorer no longer has Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete buttons. I'm constantly organizing files (Cut, [Forward-Thumb button] (Alt+TAB), Paste) and I press three buttons to manually move any given file. Vista's horrid GUI takes a minimal thought-load action requiring three steps and bulks it up to roughly nine steps!

1.) Click organize menu.
2.) Move mouse over Cut button.
3.) Release mouse button.
4.) Nothing happens, forced to click mouse button.
5.) Alt+Tab (via forward mouse button thanks to macro).
6.) Click organize menu.
7.) Move mouse over Cut button.
8.) Release mouse button.
9.) Nothing happens, forced to click mouse button.

That's horrible design. *Hopefully* you folks will implement a truly customizable GUI for Opera 10. ;-)

I tried to help, so I filled out the survey.
Generaly I am among the people who don't think everything should blend in with the OS, so I like having it look the same on Win and Lin platforms. Sometimes I change the skin. But I never really used the native one, except for testing purposes.

I wish you much luck in you future work

"If you like to see what most users including me would like just take a look at Google Chrome and the Office 2007 Suite."

-- While some of the ideas of these designs are fine, they are both far from perfect. The worst nightmare is that you can't change their colors. The fact that there's no "olive" coloring seems very strange to me.


@juangiordana:
"I like the google chrome approach: the browser UI is less important than the content itself."

Well, such an approach is for sure good, although Chrome is by no means an example of this! It is actually the opposite: the interface of Chrome is very noticeable due to the bright blue color used and the fact that it doesn't adhere to system's settings. Many people have OS widgets in different shades of grey (myself included -- grey with slight addiction of brown) and this blue interface doesn't match at all.

I don't care if the browser UI matches the OS at all. It's an application on its own, and I use whatever skin I feel like using at the time.

I think you're going to have at least 2 opposing axis from these comments.

App consistant
across platforms --------- App consistent with platform it's on

and

Browser UI important ------ Web Page Important


One thing I personally like Opera because I can currently jump onto an OS I don't know well (Xandros on EeePC, Mac OSX) and still use a browser (Opera) that works the same as on Windows XP. I do like the browser following OS conventions for the title bar, menus, and close/minimize buttons, but for the internal menus, I like knowing that Tools -> Options or Bookmarks etc is going to be in the same place on multiple platforms. If I have to re-learn the browser on every platform anyway, I'll be far more likely to just use whatever is default on my lesser used platforms (and it doesn't help me or people I know switch off of Windows either).

As to Browser UI vs Web Page, the page is important, but I think the browser UI is about equal. If I didn't care about the browser functionaility, then any modern browser would work the same and I probably wouldn't use Opera. Actually, the ONLY reason I keep using Opera is features like the Info Panel, fast back/forward, speed dial etc... All the browser chrome. Opera isn't currently the fastest renderer, isn't anywhere near the top in javascript, isn't the most compatible with pages, but the browser functions and UI that exposes those functions still makes me far more productive. Turn the UI into a Safari clone, and I might as well move to Firefox or IE... I think you lose the thing still keeping users on Opera.

I selected "I don't think it matters either way" but I would prefer if it said "Both are equally important".

Opera needs to be able look like a native application on all OSes, but it also needs to have a skin that to create a uniquely Opera look.

At the moment, the "Windows Native" doesn't look right, and "Opera Standard" doesn't look recognisably "Opera". Which means Opera always feels alien no matter which skin you choose.

I started work on my own Opera-looking/Opera-inspired skin which I prefer to use despite not being complete - http://microugly.deviantart.com/art/O-face-preview-90422110

My wish is to combine each skin with the native skin (here windows_skin.zip). Not only the standard one. Every time i updating Opera, i have to copy my classic_skin.zip to standard_skin.zip. Annoying!

Welcome on board Jon!

I'm very excited that you are on board and focus on taking the UI forward.

I use Opera 9.62 on Win XP and was pleasantly surprised that Opera looked the same when I tried it in Ubuntu. The recent updated skin was exciting, but I think there is room for improvement.

Less is more! I prefer a minimalist to noisy UI and think both Chrome and Safari looks better than Firefox and IE. Opera sits in the middle, sleek, but a tad bit noisy. It has a square look and could do with a softer and perhaps more subtle feel. I prefer the Windows Native to the Opera Standard skin.

Right, off to the survey!

Welcome to the Desktop Team, I've already answered your survey.

It is very important to match at essential points. Fortunatelly we have skins (I realize it is imposible to match all Operating systems or distributions). I take always my first time from installing Opera to get a good-looking skin, at Win or Linux but I use differents GTK themes or WindowBlinds themes.

I would like to spot skins from Opera skins menu, without entering my profile at opera_web.

Fullscreen mode could be more complete.

I can't help but to give in my two cents.

Hick, as I wrote in the form you provided, "same integration" is not the same as "same behavior" and also not the same as "same looks".

Integration means that it should detect if the environment has multiple workspaces and provide a consistent behavior if it does. It also means that if there are global hotkeys defined in the DE, the user should have the option of using them. An antiexample: just imagine if Opera provided its own cursors regardless of what the host environment have set, it would feel like an alien application.

Opera should integrate 100% to the environment, so the workflow does not frustrate the user, but the user should keep any looks he prefers.

However, why not give the user a choice of pulling --or not-- behavioral parameters from the host environment and see what happens?

I would say that the current state of the Opera theme is pretty awful - it doesn't use any native chrome for the browser frame whatsoever, which means that it always looks out of place, whatever platform it's used on.

It doesn't follow system themes or colours, nor does it use stock icons at all. You can install different themes, but these aren't really any better - they don't mirror any changes made to the system themes either. The menu's are particularly heinous, especially on Linux/Gnome. See above about Qt.

The current standard Opera theme is the same cross-platform and seems to make an effort to look different to every existing platform, possibly so it's 'neutral' (although it smells like Vista to me). I understand why this is done, but don't agree with it. It's the java/swing argument: "We look equally hideous on all platforms, so the experience is consistent. Isn't that nice?" Well, no actually, it's not.

Most users only use a given piece of software on one platform, so only care about that. Almost no users _ever_ use a given piece of software _at the same time_ on multiple platforms, so I would argue that making the experience better for the version that people are using _right now_, is more important that making them all look the same.

Incidentally, being a web developer, I _do_ use multiple browsers on multiple platforms at the same time (using Virtual Machines) and I have no problem whatsoever with them looking native/different. In fact it's much better that they are different, as this provides a simple visual platform affordance.

The Firefox people did a lot of work in the 3.0 development cycle on this and ended up with a very good (and very popular) solution - native themes for each platform, which follow the users system theme. It works really well. I assume that you're familiar with Alex Faaborg: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/ - if not, this is a good place to start.

Failing that, it would be very nice to see Opera make builds of just the rendering engine available on all their supported platforms, and then just let people build their own UI's. IE and Mozilla both do this and this has enabled stuff like Maxthon, Camino, Galleon, Epiphany etc...

congrats. took the survey, hope it can make Opera even better.

Welcome Jon,

I also like the google chrome approach: the browser UI is less important than the content itself.
For me the new Opera standard theme is not a bad looking skin but I feel Opera needs something that stands out from the other browsers
and I feel the standard theme is too dark for Windows XP.
I think with the Google Chrome approach while it looks a lot
different to other browsers it still sort of fits the XP look.

Look forward to seeing your designs in the future.

cheers
blinkybill

It doesn't follow system themes or colours, nor does it use stock icons at all. You can install different themes, but these aren't really any better - they don't mirror any changes made to the system themes either.

I think when Hicks asks "How much does Opera feel like native application" he meant when you are using the "Windows Native" theme, not the "Opera Standard" theme. When I'm using Windows Native Opera definitely changes as I change my Win XP skin.

I dislike the new black theme and prefer the classic one.
The black theme may look nice at the first glance, but it's not just about the look. The look has some significant impact on performance and I don't mean the performance of the application but the performance of the user.

1.
In UI-design you should never make features distinct by just one feature.
Contrary to the Opera classic skin, the Panel-Icons in the new skin differ only in shape, not in color. This makes one need more attention to find the right choice for your intended action. It may not be a big difference, but for me it is easier to spot "something blue" (the widgets-icon) among different colored options, than "something which is shaped like a gear wheel" among numerous grey options. Having distinct colors _and_ shape is especially valuable, if all choices are of the same size.
I would estimate that having the same color and size for all icons will slow down the user by half to one second per click, maybe even more for the elder users. You should really consider comparing that in your next usablitity-tests.

So for me one of the biggest mistake on Operas new skin was to make every icon the same color.

2.
The next thing on the new skin, where I thought "what were they thinking?", is the size of the close-button on the tabs.
These got very small and even though I'm quite accurate with the mouse, I feel they are unnecesarily hard to click on. It is especially bad for the older ones who have a bad eye-hand-coordination (gross motor skills) or users who run high resolutions on their desktops, because they like a lot of screen-estate. Since the trashcan is always there to get a closed tab back, there is no need to intentionally make "accidentally closing the tab" harder to use. I know that double-clicking the tab will close it also, but those who close tabs like this are not the ones for whom the close-button was made.

3. The black skin makes the gaps between tabs hard to spot. When you want to use a program fast, you need to distinguish the spots you can click on very quickly. When you're being fast you're usually not accurate. The new black skin has nearly no gap between the tabs. They do not seem to be "seperate". On the periphery of your visual field, it looks like a bar with some text and red spots on it, not like seperated tabs. If you want users, especially the older ones, which don't see that good anymore - but also all the others out there, to use an interface quickly, you must give them visual guidance. Seperating the black tabs with a thin line only may look sleek and polished, but it lacks the guidance for the eye which you need to use the interface quick and intuitively. You need to see _immediately_ where to point your mouse.
The classic Opera skin is a lot better in this respect.

There are numerous little annoyances like this in the new black skin, which makes me believe that it was actually made by a graphics-designer, rather than a proper interaction-designer.

Now please let me say something to a suggestion I read earlier in this thread from my point of view:

The user "Filip007" suggested a "roulette style" menu and I strongly oppose that for usablity-sake. I first up: I do think it is nice to think of "new ideas", but I guess it is very important to think about the consequences of a design first, before bringing it up. So here is my rant against it:
Such kinds of menus may be very compact, which is a fine thing if you have a massive space-problem, which you don't have in Opera, but they are very hard to learn. The problem with these menus is, that the setup of the icons/actions always changes, so it is hard to remember the position of an icon, because at the same position you can find multiple icons. Which icon is visible at a time depends on the context. So to remember the position of an icon you also must remember the circumstances under which the icon is made visible (another option has to be chosen first to make it visible). And this is what you have to learn for just bringing up the action and invoking it!
For using the browser you need to always keep in mind which context is chosen, else you cannot shoot your mouse "blindly" into the icon's direction and click it. So you need to pay a hell of an attention to quickly use an interface like this (fatiguing), you will also find that while your pointing your mouse to the supposed position of the icon, you recognize it's not the one you were heading for, so you need to find and point to the one that you need to click on to bring that icon up and then head for the desired action again. That's a whole lot of workload for the user:
1. point to the the suspected postition of your action
2. recognise it's the wrong one (or the right one, depends on the context).
3. if 2 was wrong, remember the mapping of the desired option
4. head towards the icon that brings up the icon you need and click it
5. recognize it was the right choice
6. find and head towards the intended icon and click that.

I hope that makes it made very clear why these "roulette"-Menus are not only hard to learn but also complicated and slow to use and thus why Filip007's suggestion would be the wrong way for a browser.

When dealing with user interfaces it is very valuable to keep in mind that the user maps positions, colors and shapes to actions.

To slow a user down you must make icons appear always appear at another coordinates (like the trashcan in Apples Dock, "personalized menus" in Windows' Start-Menu or some MS_Office versions), or if the coordinates keep the same always make something else appear there ("roulette menus"). To slow a user down you make icons the same size and the same color (Opera 9's black skin) or you make them the same shape and size but only different in color or position only (Mac OS Xs minimize/restore/close buttons). To slow down a user you make seperate clickable areas appear as one (Bang & Olufsens sensor keys behind plain black glass, or the tabs on Opera 9s black skin).

The user needs visual guidance, so make very different actions look very different and make icons for similar actions look less different.
Look at the navigation icons for "forward" and "fast forward" in the classic skin: They have familiar shape and color, but still differ in both, while the "reload" button and the "home" buttons have entirely different shape and color. This is excellent!
The black Opera skin has fortunately kept the color differences and the shape of the pictures itself has kept roughly the same, but all icons are now surrounded by uniform square border of the same size, making them look more similar and the pictures itself got smaller. Again that makes me think that the classic Opera skin was carefully designed for "good usability" while the black skin was just designed to "look good".

So if you ask me what to improve in Opera: Focus the design of the UI onto usability again instead of the looks.

Regards,
-Wanja-

By the way: The Skin I like most besides the Opera classic skin is the "BeoOS"-Skin by Lars Kleinschmidt. It is not as good as the Opera classic skin, but it is a bit better than the black theme in my opinion.

Shouldn't you guys use Opera UI Feedback to put your feedback?

eek1: I was to post my feedback there, but I thought my text was an inappropriate answer to the question "How native does Opera look on your OS?".

Anyway I guess you're right so I will post a copy there.

Regards,
-Wanja-

I'm actually tempted to lie on that form, because I use Opera mostly for Windows, but would have used it for Mac too at home if it just followed the OS X user interface guidelines and look & feel. But if I say "I use it mostly for Windows", I can only see you guys getting just a tiny bit more inclined to prioritize Windows. ;-)

Folks - please make sure you use the form to leave detailed responses. I do read the comments, but it makes it easier to get an overview if it's all in the survey!

Also do remember, that you can't please everyone - and that's where skins come in!

Originally posted by pjn123:

Think Opera 10 must ditch the native OS look for Windows and create cross platfrom interface.

The new standard skin is actually not a native Windows skin.

@haavard - I was talking about the Windows frame used.

I hope for something in line with Office07 + Chrome with loads of colorthemes so that everyone can be happy

I made The Tango CL skin so that my browser would merge in with the rest of my desktop.

Unfortunately it's a futile attempt because a desktops looks are dynamic via theming in the toolkit and the icon set. My skin is static and I had to make a major redesign this year because simply the default look of Gnome had changed since I had first uploaded my skin. It's a moving target and despite my best efforts the "Quick" system limits the degree of faithfully cloning of the native look A LOT.

My skin is quite popular, like most of the skins in the "OS Integration" category. But i really would prefer not having to make it.

Skinning apps is for teenagers.

I wish it did a utility that allows you to change of skins in a very easy. Opera would be more customizable, and that would be appreciated by many users.

@Pedrogo: he didn't ask for feature requests. He asked for UI feedback. Stay on topic

It's already extremely easy to switch skins. It's one click to download, and you can switch between them in real-time in the appearance dialog.

I have extreme difficulties with the expression "native look and feel" when it comes to Windows. Looking at several Windows applications, I can see several inconsistant designs, all made by Microsoft and all serving their purposes.

The most native Windows look and feel would be, to mimic the Windows explorer (Not Internet Explorer!) because that is the most basic application to me.

Do I want that?

Absolutely not!

I'd prefer an Office 2007 like design and behaviour, that changes the apperance appropriate to the function just needed.

BTW: Do we need the application title bar when using tabs with titles? To me it looks like unused space...

brixomatic,
I agree – user performance (program efficiency) is a crucial factor in any software program

to summarize your long post:
- make icons distinct and easily identifiable from each other (don’t make icons the same size or color, but not wild either)
- maintain consistent icon positions (don’t make icons change positions in different screen contexts)
- make separate clickable areas distinct & easily differentiated (don’t make them appear connected as one)

the BeOS icons are too cartoon-like & wild and do not fit with Opera's more classy & conservative image
I prefer a sleek & sexy design - imacos (great icons, I lightened up the dark metal finish and added deep purple color)

Well I love the "classic" opera 7, 8 and 9 skin, pretty much perfect.

Please please refresh the Opera icon!! Its wayyy overdue.

Mr Hicks,

I read this review
Opera 9.5 New Skin Review
http://www.favbrowser.com/opera-95-new-skin-review/
and I agree completely with it. The new Opera standard skin (Opera 9.5) was/is just too dark.

One comment particularly hit me in that beforementioned review:

"
Instead of opening a new tab, mom typed an address on the same one. Why? Because she couldn't find anything in the left corner (where new tab icon always was). Had to show tiny plus button in the right.
"

The position of the "open a new tab" button-icon on the right is just plain counter-intuitive. It is anti-intuitive. Seamonkey browser and Konqueror browser probably have the best (most intuitive look) "open a new tab" button-icon and it is more appropriately positioned at the left-most side of the tab bar.
Unless you are using a rtl language (Hebrew, Arabic), we all read from left to right and it seems normal, natural to position the "open a new tab" button-icon on the left, not on the right.

Regarding the dark interface of Opera 9.5, it's not just dark but the icons are sometimes also difficult to decipher, to figure out. In the beforementioned review, it is written this:
"tabs icon looks like an iPhone": exactly my thought too!

Regarding the bookmark icon, a star, regardless of its color (gray or yellow), is not by itself intuitive, suggestive of what it does/describes. A bookmark is best for the bookmark icon! ubuntu_human-1_1 skin uses a bookmark for its bookmark icon.

Regards, Gérard

Black icons are not very sexy in our web 2.0 gradientish era

The position of the "open new tab" button is a matter of habbits. For instance I like to double click on the empty area of the tabs bar, and in that context, the button is in the right position. When there is no free space to the right, the button is right there.

And it is easy to customize positions in Opera.

The star icon is a bit questionable. On the other hand you won't mix it up with "Notes" for instance when it is a clear symbol. Not sure about this.

In my personal experience of aesthetic reaction, and in watching others' (e.g., friends') reactions to Opera and to other third-party programmes, the best interface is one which is not garish or boring, be it in contrast with the operating system's substrate UI or on its own. That is, when the functional components of the programme's UI are either simply too-far removed from what would be expected of the OS UI, or otherwise if the aesthetics of the programme's UI clash or are entirely different in style from those of the OS, the programme's UI has failed. In essence, a third-party programme such as Opera need not be entirely native, and ought not to have its own entirely unaffiliated/unfitting structure, but instead ought to, with certainty, have some manner of "familial" identification, as you put it, across platforms, as well as not looking tacky or out-of-place. E.g., Firefox 3's incorporation of native UI elements is not unpleasing to the eye, though it sticks rather too closely to the boring norm of "a box-in-another-box" ; contrarily, Google Chrome, for example, innovates slightly by, e.g., doing away with the standard window border and spicing it up and giving it a different feel with the tabs seeming to be seamlessly integrated into the window (without any arbitrary separation). The current iteration of Opera's UI is, both in organisation and aesthetics, rather garish, somewhat ecclectic, and perhaps not innovative-enough.

Unfortunately for UI designers, what is "better" has two definitions. Better can mean a proven concept based on an understanding of human interaction. Or better can mean taking advantage of what users already know and are trained for.

The latter definition is dynamic, varies from user to user. For example, the "new tab" button would be "better" if it was against the right edge of the window because it never moves and you could almost find it with your eyes closed, making it very accessible. Or it could be better beside the last open tab, even though you would have no chance of finding it with your eyes closed, because that's what IE7 users will know.

Is 'functional' better than 'familiar'?

hmmm...
pardon me.

what's the difference between a "UI" and a "Skin"?

o.O;

victorxstc, please remember that this is not the place for feature requests (this goes for everyone).

And, if I am not mistaken, you have already posted those things in several places. Please do not post feature requests here, and please do not post the same thing over and over again.

Lastly, please do not post e-mail addresses.

@haavard
+1

Besides, most of these comments should be going to the survey, come on people...read.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pKegh8lx4ESmnj0NfiFpHUg

I always thought the Vista-like skin felt home on Vista, with the exception of grey bar.

"what's the difference between a "UI" and a "Skin"?"

- The UI is the interface, and a skin is the part of the interface that you can change. The skin is part of the UI, but not all of it.

Please remember, the question is not "do you like the new skin?", which is very subjective. The question is more theoretical - whether Opera should stand out on it's own or feel at home.

Also - an application can look and/or act native, but it's the former that I'm looking at here.

well mr steed - done the survey.....
you must have something up your sleeve - why no just let us have a peek

i use a old skin for me. neo-1_5.zip is it called and works very fine.

http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=30830335pk8.jpg

http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=94266981te3.jpg

I use kde4 in linux. I find it a bit annoying that the look'n'feel has actually regressed in the latest version as there is only a static qt version available for qt4. Dynamic qt would be a first step for good linux integration.

Another good move for linux (which would be a perfect solution solution) would be to have the QT Native skin work dynamically with the qt theme used by the desktop environment (preferably even adopting the icon theme).