Monochrome KDE

ℹ️ About

A dark theme for the KDE Plasma desktop environment inspired by black and white photography.

The complete theme consists of the following components:

• Aurorae Theme
• Konsole Colour Scheme
• Kvantum Theme
• Plasma Colour Scheme
• Plasma Desktop Theme
• Plasma Look and Feel
• Plasma Splash Screen
• SDDM Theme
• Yakuake Skin

💾 Install Instructions

At the time of writing there are no Linux distribution packages available. Install the complete theme manually using git clone or the provided install script. See instructions below. This method works on all Linux distributions.

Individual theme components can also be downloaded from KDE Store/OpenDesktop.org or using Plasma System Settings.

Name	Preview	KDE Store (tar.gz)
Aurorae Theme	🖼️	💾
Konsole Colour Scheme	🖼️	💾
Kvantum Theme	🖼️	💾
Plasma Colour Scheme	🖼️	💾
Plasma Desktop Theme	🖼️	💾
Plasma Look and Feel	🖼️	💾
Plasma Splash Screen	🖼️	💾
SDDM Theme	🖼️	💾
Yakuake Skin	🖼️	💾

Install Script

The installation script will automatically download the latest version from the repository and copy the required files to the default location /usr/share.

Note: Script requires the wget command. Install it using system's package manager if not present.

Install

$ bash install.sh --install

Uninstall

$ bash install.sh --uninstall

Options

Option	Description
-i,--install	Install theme in default location (/usr/share).
-u,--uninstall	Uninstall theme.
-h,--help	Display help message including available options.

💡 Recommendations

For a better visual experience apply the following modifications and settings.

Application Style

Download and install the Kvantum theme engine.

Start Kvantum Manager > Change/Delete Theme > select theme Monochrome > Use this theme.

Window Decorations

Change the default window border size in System Settings > Application Style > Window Decorations > un-check the option Use theme's default window border size > select Tiny from the drop-down > Apply.

Icons

Download and install the Papirus icon theme.

Folder Icon Colour (optional)

The folder colour can be changed using papirus-folders.

$ papirus-folders -C grey

Desktop Effects

Enable Blur in System Settings > Workspace Behaviour > Desktop Effetcs.

Login Screen (SDDM)

Change the login screen theme in System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Login Screen (SDDM) > select theme Monochrome > Apply.

Background

Chooce either a background image or the pre-defined solid colour; #1e1e20

Fonts (optional)

Change default font for SDDM in the /usr/share/sddm/themes/monochrome/theme.conf configuration file.

GTK2/3 Theme (optional)

Build and install the breeze-gtk GTK2/3 theme with the Monochrome KDE colour scheme.

• Install required packages:
  • GTKEngine
  • Sass
  • PythonCairo

Clone the breeze-gtk repository with command below.

$ git clone https://anongit.kde.org/breeze-gtk.git

Execute the breeze-gtk/src/build_theme.sh script with the following command and options.

$ cd breeze-gtk/src/
$ sudo sh build_theme.sh -c Monochrome -t /usr/share/themes/Monochrome

This will build the breeze-gtk theme using colours from Monochrome KDE and install it into the /usr/share/themes/Monochrome directory.

Enable the new GTK theme in System Settings > Application Style > Configure GNOME/GTK Application Style... > select Monochrome for the GTK2 and GTK3 theme > Apply.

Note

Use the -t option to install the GTK2/3 theme in the specified system-wide directory, which requires sudo privileges. If installed in the default location (~/.local/share/themes/) the theme will not work properly. This is because Plasma does not write the include "~/.local/share/themes/Monochrome/gtk-2.0/gtkrc" string to the user's GTK2 configuration file (~/.gtkrc-2.0). A workaround to this problem is to install the GTK2/3 theme in the system-wide theme directory.

Plymouth Boot Splash Screen (optional)

Download and install the Monochrome Plymouth theme.

❤️ Credits

Some graphical elements and artwork in this project is based on other popular themes for the KDE Plasma desktop.

• Breeze Plasma theme by KDE Visual Design Group
• Materia KDE Plasma theme by Papirus Development Team
• Arc KDE Plasma theme by Papirus Development Team
• Papirus icon theme by Papirus Development Team
• Darkine KDE SDDM theme by Rokin

Honorary Mention

Special credits go to Alexey Varfolomeev for his work on Materia KDE which this theme is based on.

📃 Licenses

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See the LICENSE file for more information. Graphical elements and artwork based on other projects are licensed under the following:

• Materia KDE: GPLv3
  • Aurorae Theme: GPLv3
  • Kvantum Theme: GPLv3
  • Plasma Desktop Theme: GPLv3
• Arc KDE: GPLv3
  • Kvantum Theme: GPLv3
  • Plasma Desktop Theme: CCPL:by-sa
  • Plasma Splash Screen: GPLv3
• Papirus Icon Theme: GPLv3
• Breeze: LGPL
• Darkine: GPLv3
  • SDDM Theme: CC-BY-SA

☑️ Todo

A list of features and/or components that will be added in the future.

• Aurorae Theme
• Add GTK2/3 theme based on breeze-gtk.
• Konsole Colour Scheme
  • Change colours to match theme better.
• Kvantum Theme
  • Create alternative theme with more transparency and blur.
• SDDM Theme
  • Change colours to match theme better.
  • Add custom font support.
  • Change font colour in all elements if possible.
• Plasma Colour Scheme
• Plasma Desktop Theme
  • Create a solid theme version.
• Plasma Look and Feel Theme
• Plasma Splash Screen
  • Re-design due to issue with progress bar.
  • Replace busy widget spinner with a working progress bar.
• Plymouth Theme
• Yakuake Skin