KDE is beautiful, even if you never change a thing on your desktop. What makes it even more appealing is all of the customizable visual features. Three areas you should consider spicing up a little are your KDE style/theme, your Plasma Workspace theme, and your icons. The following are just a few of the most popular in each category on KDE-Look.org.
Styles and Themes
In KDE, a style refers to the window color, buttons, scroll bars, progress bars, and similar interactive visual components. Themes include color schemes and more, all in one package. You can set styles in System Settings -> Application Appearance -> Style.
Qtcurve – One of the most highly acclaimed styles, Qtcurve gives you ultimate control over customizable features. The configuration settings are extensive, giving you control over button style, gradients, and even accompanying window manager settings. Many users have created their own Qtcurve presets that you can download and use.
Bespin – Bespin is the technical successor to the famous Baghira style from KDE 3. With rounded buttons, silver gradient backgrounds, and an exotic selection of visual options, it is by far the most stylized of the available KDE styles, and outsiders may not even recognize your desktop as being KDE. Like Qtcurve, Bespin also has a window manager theme to go along with it.
Oxygen Transparent – Plainly put, Oxygen Transparent is the Oxygen style with support for translucent windows applied to it. Normally, only the window decorator can be translucent or transparent, but this features gives you control over the opacity of the entire window. This is best used with the Blur effect, which only works with certain graphics cards.
Plasma Themes
Plasma themes control how your panel, Krunner, and widgets appear. You can change themes in System Settings – Workspace Appearance – Desktop Theme.
Glassified – Slick and smooth, Glassified gives you a clear picture of your desktop, through the looking glass.
Tibanna – This theme is designed to go with Bespin, and unlike most other themes, it will give you an opaque panel and widgets, complete with Bespin gradient backgrounds.
Elegance – Elegance is reminiscent of the earlier black Oxygen theme with a little more class to it. It is very dark and will set a night mood to your workspace.
Ghost – If nothing else, Ghost wins points just for being unique. This will transform your desktop into something completely different. If you can stand the extremely dark theme, it will make your computer desktop look like it came off an alien ship.
Icons
Black and White icons – These black and white icons will go nicely with the new monochrome system tray icons. They will extend the silvery feel of Oxygen.
MIB Ossiengo – Like your icons were dipped in the ocean, these icons have an aqua-like feel to them.
H2O – Add hydrogen to oxygen, and you get the H2O icon set. As the creator describes it, H2O will add color and life to your desktop.
If you want more themes, icons, and styles, you can add browse/search for them directly from within System Settings or go to KDE-Look.org.
Tavis J. Hampton is a freelance writer from Indianapolis. He is an avid user of free and open source software and strongly believes that software and knowledge should be free and accessible to all people. He enjoys reading, writing, teaching, spending time with his family, and playing with gadgets.
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