Not sure if this is the right place BUT: Minor questions about Plasma

[Beardedgeek72]

SO.
As I have stated before, I love the look of Plasma on other people's computers, but something irks me enough that I stop using it on mine within 48 hours of installing it.

I have been trying to pinpoint what it is and a lot of it boils down to Dolphin and Kwin.
Or rather, certain design choices.

First question: Is there a way of getting rid of the super-annoying color highlights in Dolphin? I mean the blue / green / whatever border colors? I find they really age the look of the DE, makes it look very 90s in it's design.

To be fair I think that's another thing that irks me; I am one of those who LIKE the plain flat sharp design of Windows 10, and quite frankly ALL (except Pantheon, Gnome 3.x and maybe Deepin) Linux DE's simply look dated compared to it. As super-shiny and amazing huge parts of Plasma is, it still give away certain design choices that scream windows Vista at best and Windows 98 at worst when you start to notice them. I mean so does Xfce, but it has never claimed NOT to go for a Windows 98 look by default. And also, to be fair, Xfce has a much better grip of where to put options to make them make sense than Plasma who need someone to come and explain how to make a decent settings menu.

Anyway, second question: I have seen several screenshots of Plasma (Dolphin) where the text is gone by the left panel, just icons. I cannot find that setting anywhere. Nor have I managed to google for it and find it.

And third question: how make a panel transparent? I cannot find that setting anywhere. It most certainly isn't in the Panel Settings, because that would make sense...

Oh and these are my very personal opinions!!

[dalto]

@Beardedgeek72

First question: Is there a way of getting rid of the super-annoying color highlights in Dolphin? I mean the blue / green / whatever border colors? I find they really age the look of the DE, makes it look very 90s in it’s design.

Yes, it all can be customized either in "widget style" or "colors". I am not exactly sure which thing you are referring to but try unchecking "Draw focus indicator in lists" in Application Style->Widget Style->Configure

@Beardedgeek72

Anyway, second question: I have seen several screenshots of Plasma (Dolphin) where the text is gone by the left panel, just icons. I cannot find that setting anywhere . Nor have I managed to google for it and find it.

Dolphin is super customizable and most things can be moved around, can you provide a screenshot of what you want?

@Beardedgeek72

And third question: how make a panel transparent? I cannot find that setting anywhere. It most certainly isn’t in the Panel Settings, because that would make sense…

They continue to refine transparency but last I checked, you needed to edit the theme to make them transparent. Many of us use latte-dock to replace our panels. It offers an absurd amount of panel customization and is seamlessly integrated into plasma.

@Beardedgeek72

To be fair I think that’s another thing that irks me; I am one of those who LIKE the plain flat sharp design of Windows 10, and quite frankly ALL (except Pantheon, Gnome 3.x and maybe Deepin) Linux DE’s simply look dated compared to it. As super-shiny and amazing huge parts of Plasma is, it still give away certain design choices that scream windows Vista at best and Windows 98 at worst when you start to notice them. I mean so does Xfce, but it has never claimed NOT to go for a Windows 98 look by default. And also, to be fair, Xfce has a much better grip of where to put options to make them make sense than Plasma who need someone to come and explain how to make a decent settings menu.

Virtually everything from a look & feel perspective in plasma in customizable. Most/all of the things you are talking about are theming. Try downloading some different themes.

[Beardedgeek72]

Thank you for your help.

I am thinking of installing Plasma on my (soon to be) fourth parallel install, on SuSe. (Going to run Manjaro, MX, Siduction and Suse. Why? Because why not). And white and Blur looks good on a camelion-green background
As for screenshots... As I said I can't find it right now but if you imagine having Dolphin in front of you, and that whole panel to the left with "places" and stuff? It's gone, and instead theres just a row of small monocrome icons.