Hi,
I use a rather transparent plasma desktop theme. I blur it of course. But can plasma draw white cotton balls behind the text in the application launcher to improve the readability. That would be great. Is there a way to do that?
I hope you understand what i am saying. I don't know the official term for it.

The Plasma 5 can draw what the Qt/qml can draw. Plasma 5 is using qml scripts to draw the plasmoids. Qml wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML .

The user can edit the plasmoids: /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/... A bit better way is to copy the scripts to the user's home and rename the plasmoids(/metadata.desktop and metadata.json). Getting started: https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tu ... ingStarted .

Examples from the KDE Forums:
- Why is Plasma so configurable and Kickoff is not: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=131914#p354303
- My Digital Clock: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=134970&p=361132#p361132

An example - Magick Marker & Kickoff

With the Plasma 5.10.

Slipping a rectangle under the text - Text Background color in QML: https://phanective.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... color-qml/ .

Simply copying the /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.kickoff/ to $HOME/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.kickoff/. The KDE will prefer the user plasmoid over the system plasmoids. A bit better way is to copy the scripts to the user's home and rename the plasmoids. This is only an example so cutting the corners.

Editing the $HOME/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.kickoff/contents/ui/KickoffItem.qml

Editing the 'id: titleElement' and the 'id: subTitleElement':

Slipping rectangle under the title and the subtitle text.

Sample KickoffItem.qml: https://pastebin.com/BxyrY6m6

Saving the KickoffItem.qml and restarting the plasmashell...



Qml colors: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-color.html . The subtitle rectangle has rounded corners:


More of the Qml rectangles: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtquick-rectangle.html

More

There is an option to slip an image under the text if the user wants to use a 'cotton ball' background. More of the Qml images: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtquick-image.html

Thank you so much for your reply. I will look in to that.