Have been running my Manjaro KDE install for nearly 3 years.
Since recent Manjaro updates to Plasma 5.17.4 and Qt 5.14.0, the window border size is very thin (1 pixel).
(I did two updates close together, and I'm not sure which caused this change.)

The border is so thin that I almost can't see it, so in some situations
it's hard to distinguish one window from another when they overlap.
The grabbable size seems to be wider, so resizing is not too hard.

In the kwindecoration GUI the size is set to large (as it always was),
but if I try to change it, the Apply button now goes disabled.
The support Information below shows "borderSize: 4" anyway,
so it's not that the setting is wrong.

"Cannot read property 'borderSize' of null" (just below here)
looks like it might lead to the culprit,
but I don't know enough to follow the trail myself.
AFAIK I haven't done anything that would cause these errors :

Code: Select all

[jh@SSD2 200105 20:43:19 ~]$ kcmshell5 kwindecoration
org.kde.kcoreaddons: Error loading plugin "kcm_kwindecoration" "The shared library was not found."
Plugin search paths are ("/usr/lib/qt/plugins", "/usr/bin")
The environment variable QT_PLUGIN_PATH might be not correctly set
Module 'org.kde.kwin.decoration' does not contain a module identifier directive - it cannot be protected from external registrations.
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/decorations/kwin4_decoration_qml_plastik/contents/ui/main.qml:92: TypeError: Cannot read property 'borderSize' of null
file:///usr/lib/qt/qml/org/kde/kwin/decoration/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/aurorae/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/lib/qt/qml/org/kde/kwin/decoration/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/decorations/kwin4_decoration_qml_plastik/contents/ui/main.qml:92: TypeError: Cannot read property 'borderSize' of null
file:///usr/share/kwin/decorations/kwin4_decoration_qml_plastik/contents/ui/main.qml:92: TypeError: Cannot read property 'borderSize' of null
file:///usr/lib/qt/qml/org/kde/kwin/decoration/MenuButton.qml:22: TypeError: Cannot read property 'closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu' of null
Current theme: plugin "org.kde.kwin.aurorae" and theme "kwin4_decoration_qml_plastik"

[jh@SSD2 200105 20:51:14 ~]$ echo $QT_PLUGIN_PATH
(nothing)


Output of "qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin supportInformation" :

Code: Select all

Version
=======
KWin version: 5.17.4
Qt Version: 5.14.0
Qt compile version: 5.14.0
XCB compile version: 1.13.1

Operation Mode: X11 only

Build Options
=============
KWIN_BUILD_DECORATIONS: yes
KWIN_BUILD_TABBOX: yes
KWIN_BUILD_ACTIVITIES: yes
HAVE_DRM: yes
HAVE_GBM: yes
HAVE_EGL_STREAMS: yes
HAVE_X11_XCB: yes
HAVE_EPOXY_GLX: yes
HAVE_WAYLAND_EGL: yes

X11
===
Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
Vendor Release: 12006000
Protocol Version/Revision: 11/0
SHAPE: yes; Version: 0x11
RANDR: yes; Version: 0x14
DAMAGE: yes; Version: 0x11
Composite: yes; Version: 0x4
RENDER: yes; Version: 0xb
XFIXES: yes; Version: 0x50
SYNC: yes; Version: 0x31
GLX: yes; Version: 0x0

Decoration
==========
Plugin: org.kde.kwin.aurorae
Theme: kwin4_decoration_qml_plastik
Plugin recommends border size: No
Blur: 1
onAllDesktopsAvailable: true
alphaChannelSupported: false
closeOnDoubleClickOnMenu: true
decorationButtonsLeft: 0, 5, 9, 8, 6
decorationButtonsRight: 7, 3, 4
borderSize: 4
gridUnit: 12
font: IBM Plex Sans Text,11,-1,5,53,0,0,0,0,0,Regular
smallSpacing: 3
largeSpacing: 12

Platform
==========
Name: KWin::X11StandalonePlatform

Options
=======
focusPolicy: 0
nextFocusPrefersMouse: false
clickRaise: true
autoRaise: false
autoRaiseInterval: 0
delayFocusInterval: 0
shadeHover: false
shadeHoverInterval: 250
separateScreenFocus: false
placement: 7
focusPolicyIsReasonable: true
borderSnapZone: 0
windowSnapZone: 0
centerSnapZone: 0
snapOnlyWhenOverlapping: false
rollOverDesktops: true
focusStealingPreventionLevel: 2
operationTitlebarDblClick: 5019
operationMaxButtonLeftClick: 5000
operationMaxButtonMiddleClick: 5015
operationMaxButtonRightClick: 5014
commandActiveTitlebar1: 0
commandActiveTitlebar2: 28
commandActiveTitlebar3: 2
commandInactiveTitlebar1: 4
commandInactiveTitlebar2: 28
commandInactiveTitlebar3: 2
commandWindow1: 8
commandWindow2: 4
commandWindow3: 8
commandWindowWheel: 28
commandAll1: 1
commandAll2: 10
commandAll3: 14
keyCmdAllModKey: 16777251
showGeometryTip: true
condensedTitle: false
electricBorderMaximize: false
electricBorderTiling: false
electricBorderCornerRatio: 0.25
borderlessMaximizedWindows: false
killPingTimeout: 5000
hideUtilityWindowsForInactive: false
compositingMode: 1
useCompositing: false
hiddenPreviews: 1
glSmoothScale: 2
xrenderSmoothScale: false
maxFpsInterval: 16666666
refreshRate: 0
vBlankTime: 6000000
glStrictBinding: true
glStrictBindingFollowsDriver: true
glCoreProfile: false
glPreferBufferSwap: 97
glPlatformInterface: 1
windowsBlockCompositing: true

Screen Edges
============
desktopSwitching: false
desktopSwitchingMovingClients: false
cursorPushBackDistance: 1x1
timeThreshold: 150
reActivateThreshold: 350
actionTopLeft: 0
actionTop: 0
actionTopRight: 0
actionRight: 0
actionBottomRight: 0
actionBottom: 0
actionBottomLeft: 0
actionLeft: 0

Screens
=======
Multi-Head: no
Active screen follows mouse:  yes
Number of Screens: 1

Screen 0:
---------
Name: DVI-I-1
Geometry: 0,0,1920x1080
Scale: 1
Refresh Rate: 60


Compositing
===========
Compositing is not active


Which exact Plasma theme are you using? I might be wrong, but using a "Theme: kwin4_decoration_qml_plastik" them in Plasma 5 is not necessarily a good idea...

"Plasma Style" is Breeze Dark.
"Window Decorations" is Plastik.
Plastik is offered in the standard GUI, and it's the one I prefer.

A moment ago I switched to Breeze for window decorations and adjusted the border width.
The width does change, but there is no color in it, except for one pixel on the outer edge.
The "grab zone" (in which the cursor shows that you can move the border) seems to be right.

The following behavior may have changed while I was playing with it.
In that window (Application Style > Window Decorations)
there is a frame around the group of styles you can choose.
The thing to watch is the amount of space between that frame and the window border:
it gets wider when I increase the border size (and vice versa of course).
At first, with Oxygen or Breeze, the window border moved out, but now the inner frame moves in.
At first, with Plastik there was no movement at all, but now it behaves like the others.
(And yesterday I wrote that the Apply button was disabled, but it's not now.)

When I set "no borders", the grab zone is outside the window; with a border, the grab zone is inside it.
The grab zone width shows that setting a wider border does in fact make a wider border.
But color is missing from the border, with all three themes that I tried.
(With Plastik it was the same bright blue that I have in the title bar.
This might be why I chose Plastik; I vaguely recall that the others did not have much color in the border.)

The subject of this thread should be "No color in window border in Plasma 5.17/Qt 5.14".

j77h wrote:The following behavior may have changed while I was playing with it.

On reflection, it did change, my memory is clear.
It changed as I switched from one decoration theme to another,
and at first I thought it was a difference between the themes,
until I tried them all again and found that they had all changed.

Now I have tried KDust as well, the only other decorations theme in the standard choices.
With tiny border, it had no grab zone, but with no border, it did.

And then I found that Plastik has gone back to its original behavior:
it is stuck on one border size, and although i can choose and apply other sizes, it does not move.
I waited a minute in case it was just slow responding, but it hasn't changed.

Breeze and Oxygen seem to behave as intended, but don't have color in the borders.
I clicked the pencil to edit each theme, and only Plastik has the option for colored borders.
It is selected (I must have done that 3 years ago) but it has no effect since recent updates.

Is this problem caused by some local misconfiguration?
Or is it due to a change of policy at KDE?
If the latter, please put visible borders in the category of accessibility,
so that there'll be a political reason to make them available,
and they can be available on many more themes, if not all.

I really need windows to have full color in all borders, otherwise I'm visually lost, I don't know which window is which.
I use this PC for work, not games, and usually have overlapping windows of different applications.

Have just now installed Chrome Aurorae, which has color in the borders.
Would still like to get them back in Plastik, as I prefer other aspects of Plastik.

Maybe I'll have to learn how to make my own theme,
now that I know colored borders are still possible.

Btw, also had strange changeable behavior in Settings : Appearance : Colors.
Don't want to spend more time writing details, as I don't really know what it was doing.