For example:
$ cd .local/share/plasma/desktoptheme/spectrum-classic-basic/$ ./changeOpacity 40Finally, switch to another plasma theme and back to see the new opacity.
This constructs the original Genome Light theme with the new Spectrum theme.
Installs:
Spectrum Light Aurorae Theme
Spectrum 21 Aurorae Set
Genome Light Color Scheme
Genome Light Classic Plasma Theme
Spectrum Classic Plasma Theme
Spectrum Classic Opaque Plasma Theme
Spectrum Light Icons
Configuration:
The Spectrum themes change color according to the Color Scheme you have equipped.
From System Settings, go to "Colors" to change your Color Scheme. Go to "Plasma Style" to change between Spectrum themes. Plain themes will change color with your Color Scheme.
To adjust transparency of the panel and menus:
Under Workspace: Workspace Behavior > Desktop Effects
"Background contrast" to toggle between 2 levels of transparency.
"Blur" will let you choose the strength of the blur effect as well as noise.
Under Appearance: Application Style > Window Decorations
Switch between the opaque and translucent versions of the window border.
"No Borders" and "No Side Borders" are the recommended window border sizes.
There are a lot of other effects in Desktop Effects to try if you are new to KDE Plasma.
Troubleshooting:
Have you tried turning it off and on again? Sometimes plasma assets will not update and some may still be themed according to something you previously had set. This can usually be fixed by restarting the applications that used the asset (e.g. Dolphin).
To restart plasmashell, open KRunner with "Alt + F2" to execute the following:
plasmashell --replace
Ratings & Comments
17 Comments
10 Just what I was looking for - and more actually. Thank you so much! IMHO the complexity of this great global theme can be a little reduced for ease of use, and installation can be improved. For instance, I needed to go to github repository to get Kvantum themes because installing from "System Settings > Global Theme > Get New Global Themes..." didn't install them. If this is the standard behavior, then it should be added in the Description section. And my preferred combination of Spectrum Light global theme components: - Application Style: kvantum/GenomeLight - Plasma Style: Spectrum Classic HiDPI - Colors: Genome Light (not 21 with darker toolbar) - Window Decorations: Genome L. 21 - Icons: Spectrum Light* * I needed to modify this line only: "Inherits=breeze,hicolor"
My pleasure! Manual installation is standard behavior because Kvantum is not actually part of KDE. Spectrum is somewhat deprecated right now since many things I was waiting on only recently were fixed. I'm glad you like my recommended configuration, it should look less broken when I update it. That's interesting, I figured hicolor would not be an issue. Which applications did not work?
Oh, it seems you're right about hicolor. Apparently it was due to a customization: I had removed timeshift icons from hicolor and used a custom icon instead which I placed in my local breeze icon folder.
10 Fantastic theme! I am looking for something that has the visual consitancy and simplity of Breeze, but is more modern. After trying dozens this is close to perfect. I have Spectrum Light as my theme, and Spectrum Min. Classic as my Plasma style. This combination is actually very similar to Breeze Twilight which is supposed to be released in early 2021. I would strongly recommend submitting some of the theme's properties such as the frosted highlight box to official Breeze, as it's much more elegant than the current light blue box. And also the highlighting in Task Manager (non Icons-only version) is beautiful. My only suggestion for improvement would be some tunablilty of the level of "frostiness" / opacity other than the 2 levels possible using the Desktop Effects toggle.
Wow, thanks, that's just what I was going for! After making the theme, I have an idea of why some things were added/excluded from Breeze. I believe the indicators on the task manager pull too much inspiration from Windows (and actually MacOS) to ever to be included. They are "minimal" because it can be a bit of a downgrade in readability and I think Breeze is much clearer. The Desktop Effects are actually the system-level settings and apply to any theme. I think control of opacity in DEs would be a nice inclusion from KDE. It's possible to change opacity manually by editing the .svg's in a theme's folder in widgets/ ("panel-background", "tooltips") and in dialogs/ ("background"). The other option is enabling background contrast in System Settings and making "enabled=" in the theme's metadata.desktop file equal to true and playing with the 3 values. Both are quite difficult to do, though.
I do have another request. Genome Dark and Genome Light are ok color schemes, but I actually use a custom one which modifies Breeze (dark Titlebar + light Window Backgound). The challenge here is to get a combination of a darkish color and a light color that go well together without straining the eye. Anything too constrasty e.g. black and near-white is not nice to look at. But I find Breeze's blue-gray default a bit boring.
Genome's Dark and Light are fairly similar to Breeze's. "Breeze" sounds like the color scheme you used for your custom scheme. I am not sure which blue-gray you are referring to. Perhaps you could upload your scheme to Color Schemes to show me what you mean?
On my system the preinstalled color schemes are Breeze, Breeze Light, and Breeze Dark. Breeze has a dark titlebar, but otherwise is similar/same as Breeze Light. On my custom scheme I changed the titlebar of Breeze to #394551 (Arsenic), and slightly tweaked the Window background to #f5f5f5 (Whitesmoke). So I was suggesting having 3 schemes: Genome Mix?, Genome Light, and Genome Dark, with Genome Mix having some kind of dark titlebar, but otherwise light.
Thanks for the suggestion. I mostly like "Breeze" as it is and probably would not change it too much, but the added blue you chose for the titlebar does give it a nice 'pop'. I may make a "Spectrum Twilight" theme at one point, but for now I think the pieces to make it are all there, somewhere on the store.
Are you able to create a Spectrum Twilight theme? The reason for asking is that I want to use the Yin & Yang app to switch from "spectrum twilight" during the day to "spectrum dark" at night, but that app can only switch between whole themes, rather than just switching color choices.
I might make it after I release my next theme. It is possible to make Twilight with only 4 line changes. Navigate to "/.local/share/plasma/look-and-feel/" and rename/copy "spectrum-light" to your desired name ("spectrum-twilight"). Then go into the new theme and: Change 2 values in metadata.desktop: For 'Name=' replace its value with "spectrum-twilight" For 'X-KDE-PluginInfo-Name=' replace with "spectrum-twilight" and 2 values in contents/default: name=spectrum-classic-basic -> name=spectrum-classic-dark theme=__aurorae__svg__GenomeLight21 -> theme=__aurorae__svg__GenomeDarkBlurFlat
Great work... Keep it up!
Thanks!
10 10 the best
9 would be even nicer with a fluent kvantum theme
I may make a fluent theme one day, but Spectrum was actually meant to be in the style of Breeze. I recommend looking at the following products if you haven't already. yeyushengfan258 has a number of kvantum themes such as this one: https://www.pling.com/p/1383072/ Luwx has been working on an Application Style theme: https://www.pling.com/p/1414190/
thanks, that's the closest to a Blurred Breeeze theme I've found so far