Hi, Now I got a bit used to Plasma on 20.04, I am trying to do some customisation. Would be nice to have some help understanding it.

I am trying to add blur + transparency to Application Launcher Menu and default bottom Panel. I currently use the Breeze Light theme. I would like the modification to work as a new theme. It is mainly because I will be able to switch back to default Breeze Light if necessary. Thanks.

PS : I have created an image for Blur using GIMP to use if necessary

Have you looked at the fairly large selection of transparent/translucent and breeze-based Plasma Styles, using the Get New Plasma Styles tool, in System Settings?

Yes @claydoh . I am using one of them right now

But it will be nice to know how to do it, at least those 2 elements I mentioned. I think that will be more than enough for me since I really like the Breeze theme and would try a bit of transparency. Thanks.

You can compare the default breeze theme files to, say, the breeze-transparent ones (or the theme you like) and see the differences.

default theme files are in /usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/

downloaded ones are ~/.local/share/plasma/desktoptheme/

Thanks. I used the panel-background.svg in widgets and tweaked the Panel to my liking. It looks nice now.

But whatever I try on dialogs > background.svg , the App Launcher Menu remains as is. It is transparent a bit, no matter we tweaked the opacity in SVG as 30 % or set as 60 % same transparency, no matter what. I even used the background.svg file from another theme which sets App Launcher Menu transparency effectively. But nothing changes and the menu hangs on with very slight transparency, say 10 %.

Are you editing the theme while you are using it? Not sure if the s works without reloading Plasma

Easier to create a copy of the the theme, rename it, and work on it that way. Then you can switch to it in System Settings to see what changes do.

A bit somewhat useful info:
https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tu ... sma5/Theme



disclaimer: I don't know much of anything about theming, vector graphics and related tools like Inkscape confuse the heck out of me.

I copied the Breeze light theme and renamed it. I then tried to modify the SVGs to get the desired effects on Panel and Menu. For Panel, it works, as I mentioned, not working with menu as it should be.

No, I was not editing it live. I switch to another Plasma theme, edit and switch back to see the new changes.

Which platform is better to ask about theming ? I was hoping that Plasma theming would have some support here.

Found out that we need to fix Contrast and Blur in

desktoptheme > metadata.desktop of the theme in question.

grahm wrote:Which platform is better to ask about theming ? I was hoping that Plasma theming would have some support here.

The problem is not so much the platform as the people actually volunteering to give user support. I am another volunteer who knows very little about theme customization, and I haven't seen much feedback from people who would know (e.g. the ones bragging talking on Reddit about their themes).

I somehow got what I was looking for. Shared here as well.

Never used social media much. But I think there is a chance we get some help there as well.