Bug 487213 - Allow the wallpaper colour to adhere to the current theme
Summary: Allow the wallpaper colour to adhere to the current theme
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Color wallpaper plugin (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.0.4
Platform: Fedora RPMs Linux
: LO wishlist
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2024-05-18 23:39 UTC by Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell
Modified: 2025-08-01 21:26 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
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Description Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-05-18 23:39:38 UTC
SUMMARY

When using a coloured wallpaper, I want it to adhere to the colour preferences of my system theme (for me, either Breeze Dark or Breeze Light). However, this means that twice a day, when I change from Dark to Light or vice versa, I must go into `kcm_colors` and choose the background theme's hexadecimal colour representation, then duplicate that into the Color Wallpaper's color picker.

On AOSP, I use https://github.com/cvzi/darkmodewallpaper/blob/aa44f98e84c28d657a0edd9e1c62c7287d16c6ab/README.md#-darkmodelivewallpaper to fix this. Although https://github.com/oskarsh/Yin-Yang/blob/03bfb2f25a85bef48cc9e1ff1a73cd3c2056376b/README.md#-yin-yang exists for my use case I'm requesting here, it's not packaged in any distribution's package managers, and I consider it an unnecessary stop gap for a feature which should be default with the DE.

EXPECTED RESULT

I shouldn't need to - I should be able to choose to have my wallpaper instead adhere to my system theme.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS

Operating System: Fedora Linux 40
KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.2.0
Qt Version: 6.7.0
Kernel Version: 6.8.9-300.fc40.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-Core Processor
Memory: 30.5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 5700
Manufacturer: ASRock
Product Name: X670E Taichi

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

https://github.com/oskarsh/Yin-Yang/blob/03bfb2f25a85bef48cc9e1ff1a73cd3c2056376b/README.md?plain=1#L32 and https://github.com/oskarsh/Yin-Yang/blob/03bfb2f25a85bef48cc9e1ff1a73cd3c2056376b/README.md?plain=1#L23 demonstrate that this is possible.
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2024-08-06 20:58:22 UTC
What color from the color theme would you like to be used?
Comment 2 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-08-07 01:35:51 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
Apologies for the entitled tone of the report.

When I boot into Fedora tomorrow, I'll choose an attribute from the Colours KCM. However, I mean one of the background ones - probably whichever is just darker than the standard window background colour. I think there's one of those.
Comment 3 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-08-07 13:26:27 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
When using `org.kde.breezedark.desktop`, `BackgroundNormal`'s default colour of `#1b1e20` (`27,30,32`) works well. When using the Breeze Light colour scheme, I don't know which is best.
Comment 4 Nate Graham 2024-08-07 18:08:42 UTC
The window background makes some sense here. Seems like a fun feature.
Comment 5 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-08-07 18:53:02 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #4)
Thanks. Depending upon how it's implemented, a hope of mine is that it might make rendering `plasmashell` a little easier on older hardware, since it shan't need to instantiate an image renderer. I noticed when using an older laptop that killing the shell made it run noticeably quicker, and I can only assume it's at least partially because it's always rendering an image.
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2024-08-07 18:56:15 UTC
Did you see any improvements when using a solid color as the wallpaper?

If we implement this, it would be because the feature stands alone, not as an explicit way to reduce resource consumption. Performance issues need to be investigated on their own.
Comment 7 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-08-07 19:15:06 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #6)
Apologies. That's what I meant – when it was using the solid colour preference. I shouldn't have commented on the middle of a parish council meeting. Hide the comment as off-topic if you can.
Comment 8 Nate Graham 2024-08-12 02:18:21 UTC
I feel like this will make more sense once we have an automatic day/night color scheme switcher feature. Until then, when using this feature it will only change when you manually switch color schemes yourself, making it substantially less useful because most people don't do that regularly.

Not objecting to it, but I it's low priority until then.
Comment 9 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2024-08-12 12:26:16 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #8)
I agree.
Comment 10 postix 2025-05-03 17:07:22 UTC
I could imagine that https://github.com/zzag/plasma5-wallpapers-dynamic could be coupled with this proposal in some way.
Comment 11 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2025-05-03 17:46:34 UTC
(In reply to postix from comment #10)

> https://github.com/zzag/plasma5-wallpapers-dynamic could be coupled with this proposal

There are loads of equivalents to that, like `github.com/oskarsh/Yin-Yang`. I'd say suggest this at their issue tracker, and see what they say.

The most native way to achieve this that I've ascertained thus far is to install `github.com/luisbocanegra/plasma-smart-video-wallpaper-reborn`, then never set any media as the wallpaper. The sole, minor disadvantage is the muted error message informing the user that they have no media set.
Comment 12 postix 2025-05-03 18:27:29 UTC
(In reply to Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell from comment #11)
> The most native way to achieve this ...

Well, I forgot to mention, the dynamic wallpaper engine is planned to become part of Plasma:

https://blog.david-redondo.de/kde/2025/05/02/plasma-graz.html
> Vlad presented his very impressive Dynamic Wallpaper Engine and how we could upstream parts of it to Plasma proper
Comment 13 Roke Julian Lockhart Beedell 2025-05-03 18:35:23 UTC
(In reply to postix from comment #12)

I've read that, but that sentence phrasal is very non-committal, so I'll believe it when I see it. I think there's not much point in acting upon predictions not at least tracked in an Invent or BZ issue.