Classic KDE window decorations
 

I have not used linix for a while since the days of KDE 3.5.

I never quite found the newer plasma themes 100% quite right for me.
There used to be a bunch of themes shipped with KDE 3.5 on a fresh install.

I only have the option between Oxygen, breeze and plastik, with plastik being the only "classic" theme i can see.

Where can I find these themes that were found on KDE 3.x (if they still exist)?

Ive browsed on the KDE store, but cant find anything that I remember yet.
I cant remember all the names of them, would probably have to install the likes of debian 4 to figure out what they were.

A web search for "download KDE 3 themes" turned up this site. I did not test it.

You might take a look at the Trinity Desktop. It's respin of KDE v. 3.x.

I played with it once. It worked nicely, but could not woo me away from Fluxbox.

Yes Ive heard of trinity, IDK how much support there is for it.
it appears the themes have been made for KDE4 and up as I can see the likes of redmond available, just dont know what most were called.
I see the likes of this available too, but thought this went by another name?
https://store.kde.org/p/1005535/

Their website, at least, appears to be current.

You can see some of the theme names on screenshots here. Examples include Plastik, Keramik, Platinum, Redmond (referring to a certain Seattle-based company), Sunshine.

I may give Trinity a spin as well. I really enjoyed KDE3, but couldn't become friends with KDE4. I was homeless, desktop-wise, for a while, but then MATE came along, and I've been fairly happy with that since.

There was a time when I didn't care for kde4, but compared to kde5, kde4 is a classic work of art.
Last time I tried kde5, aka, plasma5, the default wallpaper looked like someone barfed in the parking lot and the icons were drawn by a 5 year old with a pencil.
Of course most of the interface can be changed and "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and all that, but after several hours I gave up trying to find a global theme and decorations that I could live with.

Im currently in the same situation, looking back on KDE4 i do like it too, but KDE 5 is not alot different.
I probably miss the oxygen theme the most which is possible to install through a series of packages.

My biggest issue is finding a theme that I like the look of. I dont like breeze at all, and compared to oxygen, breeze looks dull and boring with its flat, grey title bars.

Too many look like windows 10 and im not sure i really like the dark themes much either.
A transparent theme I would like somewhat, similar to aero glass, that way, your wallpaper can sort of make the theme up.

Biggest problem is browsing the store and finding that many themes dont work, or break everything.
A few ive installed come up with some random error, but still work, but some of the elements are missing or dont look right.

KDE really need to have a way to review and test them all, since many dont work properly, also the store has no way to filter out themes for the different versions of KDE, as some say for KDE3.5 for instance.

I think it also complicates things where the creator will post notes saying some themes need some other packages installed and others say they only work on some distros.

This is one of the things that annoys me in linux is how nothing is standardised. Things should be able to work across all distros with no issues.

I use KDE3 and TDE on a few hundred installations, on openSUSE (both), and TDE on Debian, Fedora, Mageia and Ubuntu. On all I'm happy with the default theme, as I was when upstream KDE3 was dropped for KDE4. I have some Plasma 5 installations on Mageia, Fedora and openSUSE, all using Plastik. Breeze is a truly pathetic default theme regardless of environment.

Definitely agree so very much with this. Breeze has some attractive sub-themes, but the standard "Breeze" is one of the least attractive base themes for any DE.

I cant stand breeze either.
If there is any decent themes you recommend I should try, let me know.
I find alot of the ones on the store dont work properly.

Depending on other things such as color scheme, some of my preferred Full plasma themes (look and feel) are (if you are a lover of dark themes, you will not agree with any of my choices, I am generally not a fan of the dark themes):

Amethyst-Light
Blur-Glassy
Sky-Blue

And then just Desktop themes that I like are:
colour breeze
glassified
oxyzone (one of the few dark themes I like)
simply circles colors
sirk

I also have never understood the plasma default wallpaper. I seriously believed it was designed by someone colorblind. I just don't get it. After changing the wallpaper, I usually just make the following changes:

Plasma Style - Oxyzone
Window Decorations - air-oxygen

I also usually move the panel to the top and install either LatteDock or CairoDock and place the dock on the bottom.

Blur glassy looks OK, but I really want something with a nice full coloured icon set.

The rest of those plasma themes look like they are only for KDE4, but will test them anyway.

You might be interested in the ClassikStyles window decoration and application style.

It has an attempt to re-implement a flat version of the the "KDE 1" window decoration that shipped with KDE3. It also has a more up to date "Redmond".

It also includes an Application Style for consistency with MDI applications. It is very customizable with both square (can be nice and large) and circle highlights, can inherit system highlight colours, customizable sizing/spacing and transparency.

Thanks, Ill take a look

Right now, I think ive got it acceptable, but not perfect.

See screenshot

Icon theme is Elementary KDE (rt)

Global theme is KDE-opendesktop

Plasma style is Air


Ive found it really hard to find a matching plasma style.
This is the one thing I dont like about the later versions of KDE - there is no unified theme, there seems to be one that affects only KDE iteslf (plasma) and the global theme for the rest of your apps.
as you can see in the second screenshot, the taskbar does not have the same transparency, the tray icons seem to be mixed up with breeze, etc.

Would be good if there was a plasma theme that incorporated the elementary icon set in it.

Other problems I find is that many icon sets dont actually cover all the icons and some will default to breeze ones on the tray icons, or in control panel some will either be blank or have the same icon everywhere.
On the KDE menu, categories such as games had their own icon for each game category with the default oxygen or breeze theme, but many icon sets just duplicate it.
See third and fourth screenshots.

Not a huge issue, but I have not had the time to try and put a custom icon set together.

If anyone has any suggestions on tweaking this, it would be good.
I kind of like it how ive got it, just need some tweaking, i compare this to the linux version of windows aero