Changing the KDE4 Plasma Theme

I installed the KDE4 version of Kubuntu 8.04, but i was not really satisfied with the look of the interface and all… I wanted to change the theme but this fuctionality was not really present in the systems settings of Kubuntu.

Default KDE4 Theme

So i tried to google a bit and even when to the chat forum of #kubuntu-kde4. So i asked them how can i install new Plasma Themes. Then a nice guy gave me a link which guided me through the steps of how to change the plasma theme. It was not as easy as in the KDE 3.5.9 version since we got to make the changes manually. So here are the steps to be followed to give your plasma theme a new look:

I will take an example of the theme i downloaded from here.

1. Create a new folder where you are going to store the downloaded plasma themes
   • Go to the folder “~/.kde4/share/apps/”
   • Create a new folder and name it desktoptheme if it does not exist
2. Get a Plasma Theme
   • Go to the site KDE-Look.org and choose a theme to download.
   • Download the tar.gz file to any folder of ur choice (I downloaded the Glassified Theme)
3. Install the downloaded plasma theme
   • Extract the tar.gz file to a folder in the directory “~/.kde4/share/apps/desktoptheme/” (I created a folder called “glassified” since it’s the name of the theme i downloaded ). You will need to create the folder ‘desktoptheme’.
   • Press “Alt+F2″ and type in “kquitapp plasma”. This will exit the plasma theme. We will get it back later after configuring the new theme.
   • Press “Alt+F2″ again and type “kate” to open the text editor.
   • Open the file “plasmarc” found in the folder “~/.kde4/share/config/”
   • Locate the line where it says [Theme] and change “name=default” to “name=[Name of folder u just created]” (In my case “glassified”). In case you do not find the line, just add it to the file ‘plasmarc’
   • Save the changes u made to the file and Exit
   • Press “Alt+F2″ and type in “plasma”. This will bring the new plasma theme

The new Glassified Theme

The new theme gives a really nice look instead of the dull default KDE4 Desktop

 

An  update: 
There is a comment from the author “Tip” in the blog Easier installation of KDE4 themes – a deb package and a repository? which says:

“Have you noticed Right-clicking on desktop>Desktop Settings>New Theme?
Pretty simple plasma theme installation”

I am not pretty sure about it since i have not used Kubuntu for quite some time… but you can still check out if it’s possible… then it will not be difficult to change the plasma themes…

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Applying GTK Themes in Ubuntu 7.10