Hello!

Everytime I want to save a file, like from okular or handbrake, firefox or Kontact the "save file" dialog seems to look very much different.

Shouldn't this dialog use the same fonts, the same symbols and the same colors as my preffered file manager, dolphin that is, as set as preferred application for file managing tasks?

What am I missing?

In dolphin I have 32 pixel symbols in my file lists, though at the left side the favorites are shown with tiny symbols (I checked in systemsettings - every symbol size is set at least to 32 pixel! I really do not know where the small pixels come from ....)

In the "save file" dialog I get huge symbols at the left favorites pane but really smallish tiny symbols (black and white by the way) in the file and folder list to choose from...

In Libreoffice the "save/open file" dialog also uses tiny symbols and a completely different layout and the symbols are kind of little ugly brown lumps...

In Handbrake again there are different symbols used and left, right, everywhere these are tiny... but colorful

Now I understand that some programs are Gtk programs and KDE is still buggy overriding their styles with the ones set in KDE systemsettings for application appearances but when opening an "open/save file dialog" from Kmail the dialog still shows huge symbols in the left pane for favorite places. In the center, that's where to choose the actual file the symbols for files and folders do not match the symbols from Dolphin neither in style nor in size.

Saving and opening files is such a vital part of working that it really slows down productivity when there has to be reorientation with every other dialog and any inconsistency here is really irritating.

How can I clean up this mess?

I tried to make sure that symbols, fonts and colors for GTK applications match the system settings elsewhere. (Though I think this is a really bad and clumsy way of doing things, a modern system should have ONE place to set the look and feel and the system, or the window manager, has to take care of dressing all applications in the same way. I am aware of the technical difficulty but still: this is what the system should do, not the user!)

Any help?

thx, piedro

* You can expect all KDE applications (whether SC4 or KF5) to have the same dialogs (the look might differ if you've different visual styles configured for Qt4 & Qt5, eg. oxygen & breeze)

* plain Qt4 or Qt5 applications (where the application developer does not try to be extra smart) reliably pick the environments dialog - they should look for something in "env | grep -i session", I think KDE_FULL_SESSION is most determining here.
There's a bug in the QWidget/QWindow transition that causes Qt5 applications to not restore the dialogs size, but that's it.

* dolphin has nothing to do with the open/save dialogs, dolphin is NOT used as open/save dialog.

* changing the settings in the dialog of one application can NOT be expected to have impact on the dialogs in other running applications. You'll usually have to restart them to re-read the dialog settings.

* While Qt (and thus KDE) applications invoke the gtk dialogs in a gtk (gnome/xfce) session, gtk does not care about the session and always uses its internal dialogs. If you want the same dialogs in Qt and gtk+ applications you'll have to "fake" XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP etc. to make Qt believe it's running in gnome (and get the gtk+ dialogs everywhere)

* I don't really know about Open/LibreOffice, but there're desktop integration plugins which might or might not include using the desktop specific filedialogs.

luebking wrote:...
* I don't really know about Open/LibreOffice, but there're desktop integration plugins which might or might not include using the desktop specific filedialogs.

The OP's comment that the symbols "are kind of little ugly brown lumps..."; it may be LibreOffice is using it's native Open/Save Dialogs.

From the LibreOffice Menu, check the setting of: Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice -> General -> Open/Save Dialogs -> Use LibreOffice Dialogs

Thx for all that info!

Now I try to sort it out:

How do I know whether I have different styles for Qt4 and Qt5? If I set the symbols "breeze" in systemsettings do they apply to both?
Honestly I do not even know which applications are Qt4 and which are Qt5...

For me Dolphin uses breeze symbols but I cannot size them, and the open/save dialog uses these oversized symbols to the left (the favorite places) which on one hand makes for a very big dialog window, and on the other hand is very inconsistent... is there anyway to change symbol sizes like in dolphin? (Though sizing the breeze symbols seems to have no effect in dolphin either, neither via systemsettings symbol sizes nor via the dolphin views settings...)

For the Libreoffice I will have to search for a kde libreoffice integration thingy as I understand.

For the faking of gnome environment for gtk applications: Do I have to really do that for every application individually and where would I have to set that? In the .desktop files? I am lost here...

thx for your effort,
piedro

@metzman:

thx for your hint. But I tried to use both settings there and the checkbox does not seem to make any differrnce at all...

sad, p.

Also using "SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=kde4 lowriter" as suggested by th Arch Wiki has no effect also (~./bash.rc doesn't exist and if created also has no effect...)

I tried uncommenting the lines in "/etc/profile.d/libreoffice-fresh.sh" and "/etc/profile.d/libreoffice-fresh.csh" which again does nothing...

hmm, p.

piedro wrote:Thx for all that info!
How do I know whether I have different styles for Qt4 and Qt5?

If you've installed oxygen or breeze for Qt4 & Qt5 they'll align.
Also the visual styles are distinct enough to say that by simply looking at them

piedro wrote:Honestly I do not even know which applications are Qt4 and which are Qt5...

Sounds a lot like they're using the same style then

piedro wrote:For me Dolphin uses breeze symbols but I cannot size them

ctrl++ resp. ctrl+-
crtl+mousewheel

aaaaaand you can even have a size slider in the statusbar
(rightclick it)

piedro wrote:and the open/save dialog uses these oversized symbols to the left (the favorite places)

The panel simply uses the configured "small" icon size ("kcmshell5 icons", "advnaced" tab, set the small icon size to sth. sensible)

There might be a problem in the resolution detection? (if you set 16px there and the icons turn 32px and you don't have a 150 dpi screen, the system invalidly believes you have, compare "xdpyinfo | grep resolution")

piedro wrote:For the faking of gnome environment for gtk applications: Do I have to really do that for every application individually and where would I have to set that?

To set environment variables for the entire session, "kwrite ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/fake_gnome.sh"

Code: Select all

unset KDE_FULL_SESSION
export DESKTOP_SESSION=gnome
unset KDE_SESSION_VERSION
export XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP=gnome
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=gnome


it's important that the script is executable:
chmod +x ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/fake_gnome.sh

NOTICE
This will make Qt (and others) use the gtk+ style and generally behave more gnomish.
Every application will (falsely!) believe to run under gnome.
Doing this is not somehow supported, if you encouter weird bugs, get rid of those adjustments and try whether the bug persists.

In case that didn't get clear:
this will NOT impact the gtk+ filedialogs in making them KDE ones, but vv. ie. all KDE applications will use the <lots of swearing here> gtk+ file dialogs.
There is no way to make gtk+ use KDE filedialogs.

Sounds a lot like they're using the same style then

At least something I am doing right! ..

The dolphin stuff still doesn't work as expected, sadly...:

- When I size the icons down they suddenly switch to breeze icons, but when I size them up again they obviously use the respective oxygen icons.. well, at least these scale ...

- the icons in the left "places" panel stay at the smallest size, changing any icon size via the "icon" system settings weirdly enough doesn't change any icons in this panel at all when using the standard "breeze" icon set. I also tried "breeze-dark", "oxygen" and "adwaita" - no effect at all...
(the sizes in the main tool panel does work but in this left "places" side panel every icon stays at the 16px or 22px size (don't know exactly) which is way too small for me - I am having issues with my eyesight...), I tried to set all icons sizes including the small icons to the highest possible value... still no... btw: in Kmail this is the same - the icons for mail folder do not scale at all...

- also the resolution is 82px x 82px, to ensure readability I have set the dpi value for fonts to 144 which sizes the fonts just right for me... this even gets respected by all main applications (some minor bugs with hardcoded dialog sizes or fields for entering text though which makes the calligra suite instead of using libreoffice impossible...)

Thx a lot for your detailed explanation about how to fake gnome but this sound like getting in even more trouble... I will have to pick a quiet weekend to give it a test run but at the moment it seems a bit too much workaround madness for a smooth experience... though I have to say: the lacking of configurability for gnome stuff really is annoying...

So I probably have to set up a clean test user and redo the KDE design setup step by step. It's a bit disappointing that the the new KDE 5 doesn't work as well in these regards (at least not yet) as the older KDE 4...

So thx again, if you have any further idea regarding the lack of scaleability for the standard icons as set in system settings I'd be happy to hear it,
piedro

piedro wrote:When I size the icons down they suddenly switch to breeze icons, but when I size them up again they obviously use the respective oxygen icons

That bug still exists? https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=256856

piedro wrote:the icons in the left "places" panel stay at the smallest size

For dolphin? Size is configurable from the rightclick menu (do not click into empty space)
(https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=301959)

piedro wrote:also the resolution is 82px x 82px, to ensure readability I have set the dpi value for fonts to 144

Don't. This is begging for trouble. Just pick bigger fonts.

piedro wrote:Thx a lot for your detailed explanation about how to fake gnome but this sound like getting in even more trouble...

Yes, is (and in return you only gain those horrible things gtk+ calls filedialogs, this is a topic since a decade or more)

piedro wrote:It's a bit disappointing that the the new KDE 5 doesn't work as well in these regards (at least not yet) as the older KDE 4...

Actually nothing presented in this thread is related to KDE5
Your dolphin is still Qt4 and gtk/libreoffice is completely unrelated.

Alright then...

The bug in dolphin seems to still exist.

The icon size in the panel changes when I rightclick on one of the items, thank you very much...

Assigning bigger fonts instead of upping DPI is, well, also a bit buggy because MANY applications in my experience have some fixed screen space for boxes and or entry fields, not to speak of non native applications that give me even more trouble, like wine apps (I know I can to some extent create bigger fonts here also but it's a lot of fiddling) or steam (you have to manually theme the UI, Java stuff runs into trouble and also many applications still have some hardcoded fonts as labels (the status bar in libreoffice to give an example...), every Website has to be changed regarding zoom levels and/or I have to replace all webfonts in every browser... but maybe things got better and I have to give it another shot...

Good to know that it is not plasma 5 and/or KDE 5 that's causing it but I still have to find solutions...

So I guess there is no easy way then. Actually I've been using KDE for a long time now because these issues have been rare, don't know why they come up now.

Anyway thanks a lot for your extensive help, I'll put in a few hours of tuning and hope it sticks.

Have a nice day, piedro