New Post (Ricing KDE)

content/posts/ricing-plasma/index.md

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+---
+title: "Ricing KDE Plasma"
+date: 2024-07-29
+draft: false
+description: "An introduntory guide to ricing KDE Plasma"
+tags: ["Plasma", "Ricing", "KDE", "KDE Plasma", "Guide", "Linux"]
+---
+### Intro
+
+Before we begin, here's brief intro as to why I care about ricing.
+
+In case you didn't know it, I began my **Linux** journey with **KDE Plasma** because of the freedom of customization. I love ricing my setups. I hated that **macOS** & **Windows** did not allow this.
+
+And if you want to see what I have managed to do, well, hop on over to my **Layan** rice's **Githup** repository, you will get blown away.
+
+{{< github repo="xerolinux/xero-layan-git" >}}
+
+### A bit of understanding
+
+Ricing can be a bit invloved. At least if you are like me, and care about consistency. It's not about just slapping a desktop theme and calling it a day. That's just lazy. Please don't do that.
+
+![Rice](https://i.imgur.com/irOECxY.jpeg)
+
+**KDE Plasma** is ricing a beast, no doubt about that. That's one of its biggest selling points. So it's normal when I say, it can be very, very intricate. You can rice everything in it.
+
+We need to also know what library the system uses. **KDE** uses a library called **Qt**, pronounced like *cute*. But you might encounter apps that use the **GTK2/3/4** library, typically ones created for **Gnome** or **XFCE**. But fear not, most themes come with elements that address those apps.
+
+> Keep in mind though, to successfully theme **GTK4** or, as it's called now **LibAdwaita**, we need to make sure the necessary *Hacks* are included in the theme we have chosen, simply because, as we all know, **Gnome** devs despise the whole idea of theming for whatever reason.
+
+So it will be up to you, the user, to find all theme elements required for a complete and consistent look. Whay do I say this you may ask? Well, quite simply because, and it saddens me to say this, very few themes come complete, allowing such consistency. But it can be done.
+
+With that out of the way, let's get to it shall we ?
+
+### KDE Plasma pieces
+
+As I said earlier in the post, **KDE Plasma** is made of many elements that can be themes or riced. So here, I will be explaining what they are and the tools we need to theme them.
+
+{{< alert icon="fire" cardColor="#e63946" iconColor="#1d3557" textColor="#f1faee" >}}
+**Friendly Advice :** Never install themes from any repos or the **AUR**. Always grab them from source, after you have inspected the code. For your own sanity. And make sure they are compatible with **Plasma 6**.
+{{< /alert >}}
+
+Please read the above warning, ignoring it will result in nothing but headaches. Trust me, I made that mistake and wasted more time than I can count trying to solve the resulting issues.
+
+- **Kvantum Manager**
+
+First, we will need and app that I highly recommend to have on hand, called **Kvantum**. I consider it an essantial tool for every ricer out there.
+
+{{< github repo="tsujan/Kvantum" >}}
+
+This will take care of the awesome window blur and transparency effects for all **Qt** based apps. It will not work on anything else, keep that in mind.
+
+- **SDDM Login Manager**
+
+Another element **KDE Plasma** uses, is [**SDDM**](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SDDM) for its **Display Manager/Login**. It too can be themed.
+
+- **Grub Bootloader**
+
+Now, I can already hear you say that this is unrelated to **KDE Plasma**, to which I will say, yes I agree. Also, not everyone will be using [**Grub**](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB). Also true.
+
+But for the sake of completeness, I do like to theme it as well.
+
+- **Konsole Terminal Emulator**
+
+[**Konsole**](https://konsole.kde.org/) is the *Terminal Emulator* that **Plasma** ships. I know most of you switch to **Alacritty** or even **Kitty**. But I prefer to stick with what ships with the DE I use.
+
+That too can be themed.
+
+### The more complete the better
+
+Now that we have an understanding of the various elements that make for a more complete experience, here's what themes we choose need to have before using them.
+
+Not all of them contain all the elements. Sadly there are some out there that are incomplete making it harder to get a cohesive look. So I would avoid those if I were you.
+
+Once we have found a noce theme, we need to make sure it applies to the following parts of **Plasma** :
+
+- **Colors** : Resposible for accent and window colors.
+- **Application Style** : Theme specific Kvantum style.
+- **Plasma Style** : Light/Dark window style.
+- **Window Decorations** : The top window minimize/close/maximize bar.
+- **Cursors** : Cursor theme (Optional)
+- **Icons** : A fitting icon theme. (Optional)
+- **SDDM** : Login theme.
+
+That's it really. In case you do not find a theme that contains all these elements, it's not a huge issue, you can always hunt a theme for each one that fits the **Global Theme**. It's hard to find one I know, but who knows you might get lucky lol.
+
+### Applying our themes
+
+Once you have downloaded your chosen theme and theme elents from their sources (Github/Gitlab), follow their respective guides to install them, then head on over to the **KDE Settings** to apply them.
+
+For **Kvantum**, just launch it, select the theme from the drop down and hit apply. Then select it as the **Application Style**.
+
+As for **Konsole**, launch it, make sure you have moved its theme file into `~/.local/share/konsole/` folder, right click inside its window, select *create new profile* from the context menu, give it a name, one that you recognize, on the left click on *appearance*, select your theme, if you want to enable transparency with blur, click on edit, this is where you do that. Confirm, done.
+
+Now I will not talk about **Grub** here since all themes for it will come with their own instructions and/or install scripts.
+
+### Panel & Widgets
+
+Oh boy, the reason I will not be talking about those is is simple, it's your rice you do with those as you please. **KDE Plasma** comes with some awesome widgets, use those to get started, if you want more, well, you will find them on the [**KDE Store**](https://store.kde.org).
+
+{{< alert icon="fire" cardColor="#e63946" iconColor="#1d3557" textColor="#f1faee" >}}
+**Warning :** Please make sure they are compatible with **Plasma 6**.
+{{< /alert >}}
+
+As for the panel, position it wherever your heart desires. Top, bottom, left or right. It's all up to you. You can even use it as a Dock.
+
+### Bonus for the G33ks
+
+As a bonus, for all the G33ks out there, I would like to include a nice find. Some of us would love to make our rices reproduce-able without having to apply every element over and over, others just want to have a backup.
+
+That's where this **Github Repo** comes in handy. It shows us what files are affected by the various theme elements. So have at it and enjoy !
+
+{{< github repo="shalva97/kde-configuration-files" >}}
+
+Don't forget about **Konsave** the GUI tool that does exactly that, just in a much simpler way. Article attached below.
+
+{{< article link="/posts/konsave-tool/" >}}
+
+That's all se wrote folks. I hope this has helped you understand more of what ricing **KDE Plasma** is all about.
+
+Cheers !