How to Import KDE Styles and Windows Decorations?

edwin11 · 10-20-2006, 12:05 PM

Hi guys,

i have been using GNOME for quite a while, and have decided to give KDE a go for the moment...

Eh... the problem i have is that i can't find a way to import styles and windows decorations.

OK, if i go to "System Settings" -> "Appearance", i can see the various sections "Colors", "Icons", "Styles", "Windows Decorations", etc...

Under "Colours" and "Icons", there are the respective options to import from a file, but under "Styles" and "Windows Decorations", there is no such option anywhere.

i have downloaded some "Themes / Styles" and "Window Declarations", but can't figure out what to do with them.

Please advise on what i'm doing wrongly here.

TIA and Regards,
Edwin

edwin11 · 10-20-2006, 12:28 PM

This is proving to be quite frustrating... more so by the seeming lack of documentation on this...

i tried to go through the KDE user guide, and look through the section on Appearance and Themes, but it really doesn't say much. Plenty of "... more can be downloaded from http://www.kde-look.org", etc. Yeah... but how do i install them after downloading?

kde-look doesn't have much info on this either.

Argh... i'm feeling kinda stupid now... i'm sure it isn't that hard... i'm sure its just a few steps... but i just can't figure out how. Linus says that GNOME is for idiots... well KDE is leaving me feeling like an idiot... maybe i AM an idiot and should go back to GNOME yah...

Regards,
Edwin

vbisis · 10-21-2006, 01:48 AM

Well actually there should be some documentation with the style/decoration you downloaded.

But anyway, usually they just get installed like an app. So just untar them, ./configure, make, make install

If you run make install as user, the theme will only be installed for your user if you run make install as root it should be installed system wide - though in my experience there are quite a lot of themes who refuse to install as user completely.
After that you should be able to choose the theme in control center.

Depending on the distro you use it might be better to tell the configure script where kde is locateted ( in my case - slackware - it is /opt/kde, the command would be ./configure --prefix=/opt/kde )

Good luck....

reddazz · 10-21-2006, 02:58 AM

You should really use the search function thats available here at LQ. It would have saved you hours of grief.

You have to compile most KDE themes from source. To do that make sure you have the qt and kdelibs devel packages. You would then do something like,

Code:

$./configure --prefix=`kde-config --prefix`
$make
#make install

After that go to Kcontrol -> Appearance & Themes and choose various elements of your theme from the submenus.

Some themes e.g. icon themes, color schemes and theme manager themes (*.kth) are not compiled from source but installed through tools found in the appropriate sections of Kcontrol -> Appearance & Themes.