Bug 505341

Summary: Tile colors are very similar for unfocused and minimized windows
Product: [Plasma] Breeze Reporter: Alexander Potashev <aspotashev>
Component: Color schemeAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL    
Severity: wishlist CC: kde, nate, qydwhotmail
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 6.3.4   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Fedora RPMs   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: screenshot ru_RU

Description Alexander Potashev 2025-06-08 11:22:25 UTC 
SUMMARY
Tile colors are very similar for unfocused and minimized windows.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Use Breeze Dark theme.
2. Open some windows.
3. Minimize one.
4. Take focus away from the other.

OBSERVED RESULT
Tile color for minimized window is #3b3e42.
Tile color for unfocused window is #494c50.
The different is hard to tell.

EXPECTED RESULT
Make the color for different or change the UI to give other hints that a window is minimized, or make the colors easily configurable in the Task Manager configuration dialog.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.14.0
Qt Version: 6.8.2
Kernel Version: 6.13.11-200.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
Memory: 15.4 ГиБ of RAM
Graphics Processor 1: Intel® HD Graphics 530
Graphics Processor 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 David Edmundson 2025-06-09 13:05:14 UTC 
Note that colours can be changed in the theme by making a custom theme.

>or make the colors easily configurable in the Task Manager configuration dialog.
We're not doing that as that would be two competing sources and it gets too messy and complicated.

I'll move this to Breeze so designers can see it, but ultimately it's an opinion, and we can't match everyone's opinion.
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-06-09 20:46:41 UTC 
We've gone back and forth here several times. Ultimately the lack of an extra bar is the best differentiator of a window being minimized. That's one of the reasons it's there, because there are simply too many states here to reflect everything purely with color without making the colors look garishly different from one another.

So I'm afraid it's intentional for the time being until someone comes up with something demonstrably better in all cases and no worse in any of them.
Comment 3 Alexander Potashev 2025-08-31 11:06:25 UTC 
Created attachment 184603 [details]
screenshot ru_RU

> Ultimately the lack of an extra bar is the best differentiator of a window being minimized.

If the window isn't focused, the extra bar is grey, i.e. has low contrast too.

Is there a UI to change these colors? Having to create a whole new Plasma theme just to change a couple of colors deters me from making any changes.
Comment 4 Nate Graham 2025-09-16 20:48:13 UTC 
The Panel Colorizer widget might help, I dunno, But yes, the style is baked into the Plasma theme, so changing that is the way to customize the appearance here.