Active window glow

Help
1

Hello,

I want all of the currently active windows to glow on my desktop.

Right now some applications: Discord, Brave, Steam

Example of it working correctly (Dolphin):

Screenshot_20260527_210855
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Incorrectly (Brave):

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2

Are Discord, Brave and Steam Flatpaks?

3

What does glow mean here? When is a window glowing? This is how my Dolphin looks like:

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Is this glowing? No idea.

4

No, they are native system applications.

5

I am talking about the active window border (as visible on the screenshot).

It is called glow in the settings:

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Please keep the snarky tone to yourself next time : )

6

I don’t understand your remark. I was not trying to be snarky at all. I just asked what you mean with a glowing window and gave you my version of Dolphin with the question is this is glowing, just to get more info so maybe I can help you. If that is not appreciated then I stop writing.

7

It’s just the fact that you repeated questions about glow in your post and then ended it with:

I appreciate that you are trying to help, I think just have misunderstood your intentions or was a bit too sensitive, sorry.

8

Did you set the GTK theme?

9

Go to Brave settings => Appearance

Or use this URL in the URL bar

brave://settings/appearance?search=Use%20system%20title%20bar%20and%20borders

Then turn on “Use system title bar and borders”

For Discord, not sure if it can be done natively within Discord, I use Vesktop which is a Discord wrapper where I had the glow working out of the box, cause it’s a wrapper.

Something you could try for all of them is creating Window Rules, example for Steam:

Use same properties for other apps

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But you might get double Window Decorations, meaning the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons and the titlebar.

10

Brave isn’t what you’d call a ‘native’ application - you must use system titlebars and borders to get (wait for it) system titlebar and border effects.

In the end it’s a bit dodgy, which might be why Glow isn’t such a bit thing any more.

I do personally use Klassy for Window Decorations - and to mark active windows you can define your border a lot better; instead of a ‘glow’ (basically a bright shadow) you can also set a more subtle (or WTH even a bright pink) outline if you like :stuck_out_tongue:

11

So, I tried it.

The glow works when I have it set that way but then I’d like to disable the title bar, I see that there is now no option to disable just the titlebar (I was not using titlebars on my previous setup anyway so I’m not certain if there actually were separate).

btw after playing with the options for a bit I noticed that if I disable the border(s) on any window, including the qt applications, the glow disappears… I remember that it was working before, is there any timeline on this bug?

12

I think we’re using different definitions of native then.

I’m not sure about the technicalities but on kwin_x11 I was able to get the glow on any window in the X11 session. I expect it to work the same on wayland.

But I was using my computer this way for the last 10 years… I like this aesthetic and the fact that active window is marked very clearly.

13

Do you mean in the brave settings? I’m using “classic”

14

Not that I know of, but I did find this post mentioning “Chrome’s new ozone backend” which I believe is the reason for it not working anymore.

As it stands there’s probably no way of getting that Glow effect without the system titelars and borders option checked

15

No, in System Settings → Appearance & Style ->Colours & Themes → Application Style

16

For glow use GitHub - matinlotfali/KDE-Rounded-Corners: Rounds the corners of your windows in KDE Plasma 5 and 6 · GitHub for gtk/ client side decoration apps you’ll still have the issue.

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Steam with window rules to add a title bar and a theme that removes the normal buttons will get you there. Discord is the same with window rules and a theme can use betterdiscord to theme it if you want.

I don’t use blink based browsers other then steam so I cant help you with brave or any of them.

17

What’s the difference between using that and Oxygen if they’re gonna have the same problem?

18

They aren’t going to have any problem, it’s Brave without system decorations that’s got the problem.

Don’t blame KDE or Plasma for what Brave does…

Look here, Firefox is fine with Oxygen glow…

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Better in Pink ?

19

Not blaming anyone. Just saying that using Rouded-Corners doesn’t give the Outline/Glow effect for the apps they asked for (Brave, Steam, Discord, etc). Basically “don’t use that tool use this tool, except it doesn’t solve the problem you wanted solved”

Unless I’m wrong?

20

Well I’m always wrong, so who knows… OP did state ‘for ALL active windows’ which is weird, because I can only activate ONE at a time.

When I had the effect on, I preferred the line with a normal shadow to the blurred glow effect though.

Klassy also has the option to define your window corners.

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But sure, the problem is the software not adapting properly to the desktop environment.

  • #1 Bug in KDE: Gnome is still default!

I have ‘Equicord’ and Discord has the glow for me too…

So:

Right now some applications: Discord, Brave, Steam

The problem is with those applications… Discord especially benefits from being purged and replaced with Equibop at the very least… and Brave also could be replaced with a browser run by more honorable developers, 'cos they’re just evil… but otherwise, Chromium browsers have the option to enable system titlebars and restore the Plasma glory.