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✪ Problem :

Plasma widget ( + ) : Simple to move size, user friendly, easy to install new, desktop and activities independant.
Plasma widget ( - ) : No background 100% tranparency option ( even searching theme , always boxed ), not a lot of widget made for this usage...


Conky : ( + ) : Display many stuff, eyecandy
Conky : ( - ) : Always buggy or broken on KDE, display on all workspace, only script genius make it work with Plasma, reserved to an elite power user.

✪ Question :
Would you want more Plasma widgets eyecandy ?

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< I would , unfortunately I'm not a coder )

If you look at your lua scripts for conky you will see they are not too difficult to edit or customise.
As always you should make a back-up copy of these scripts just in case something goes wrong.

So let's start by taking a look at part of your clock_lua script...

-- Draw hour hand

xh=xc+0.7*clock_r*math.sin(hours_arc)
yh=yc-0.7*clock_r*math.cos(hours_arc)
cairo_move_to(cr,xc,yc)
cairo_line_to(cr,xh,yh)

cairo_set_line_cap(cr,CAIRO_LINE_CAP_ROUND)
cairo_set_line_width(cr,5)
cairo_set_source_rgba(cr,1,1,1,0.7)
cairo_stroke(cr)

-- Draw minute hand

xm=xc+clock_r*math.sin(mins_arc)
ym=yc-clock_r*math.cos(mins_arc)
cairo_move_to(cr,xc,yc)
cairo_line_to(cr,xm,ym)

cairo_set_line_width(cr,3)
cairo_stroke(cr)

The 1,1,1,0.7 are your colour settings for clock hands, r,g,b and opacity setting (between 0-1).
You can change these to the colours and the amount of transparency as you like.
Notice how both the Hour and Minute hands are the same colour? That's because they are set from the same rgba selection.
But, you could have different colours for Hour and Minute hands if you wanted by changing things like this;

-- Draw minute hand

xm=xc+clock_r*math.sin(mins_arc)
ym=yc-clock_r*math.cos(mins_arc)
cairo_move_to(cr,xc,yc)
cairo_line_to(cr,xm,ym)

cairo_set_line_width(cr,3)
cairo_set_source_rgba(cr,0.7,0.3,0.5,0.7)
cairo_stroke(cr)

Adding this line in allows you to set individual colours now for the clock hands.
Hopefully this will encourage you and give you a start knowing that if something goes wrong you always have your back up copy to fall back on.

Regarding plasma-widgets you would need to find a plasma theme that was created just for you with the right shades and level of transparency. Not so easy to do considering there are many parts to the desktop and many wallpaper combinations. But you could customise an existing theme that was close already to what you wanted. As the themes are scalable images you would need to use Inkscape or similar to edit the images just how you want them. Perhaps this sounds difficult but really it's not once you get the hang of it.
Try it! You'll never know if you never give it a go.

pagoda wrote:If you look at your lua scripts for conky you will see .

Thanks for thats a nice and long answer Pagoda, and I really estimate the effort. But I don't look for 'another tweak' , or a 'fix' with this thread (*).
It's a long term discution, for requesting a feature in Plasma, something I could do with click. I don't think the "KDE desktop user" could find himself Lua script know cairo stuff and lua , encoding color etc... So, if your code make the good thing, please submit it to the code of KDE. I would be happy if it work out of the box next version !

( * So, I will not check or try it... Sure, I know everything is possible on a linux base, involving a full afternoon of tweak, retweak, and hack, rehack, re-rehack , but ... I'M NOT A CODER )