Changing lock screen's layout

Hello. I’m wondering whether it’s possible to modify the sections of the lock screen, for instance, I saw a SDDM theme that has the credentials form as a side panel whereas on the lock screen it just appears in the middle. Is there any approach to customize it rather than just being able to change the wallpaper? Thanks in advance.

there is a lock screen and there is the SDDM screen.

they are separate.

and they can each be themed separately… so just choose a theme that has the look you desire.

yeah, but I mean I only find wallpapers for the lock screen, not something that changes its layout like what happens with the SDDM themes

This would require editing the qml files for the lockscreen itself, unfortunately.

/usr/share/plasma/shells/org.kde.plasma.desktop/contents/lockscreen/

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Oh, that’s a nice clue, but I looked at that path and unfortunately I don’t have a lockscreen folder or file. Btw, I could find a lockscreen folder inside org.kde.breeze.desktop/contents. I think it’s a good starting point. Thanks

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Yes, the location might be different between Plasma 5 and Plasma 6.

i found the folder in kubuntu 24.04 to be in this location

/usr/share/plasma/look-and-feel/org.kde.breeze.desktop/contents/lockscreen/

there are several .qml files but at first glance it looks like

LockScreenUi.qml has most of the formatting code.

if you don’t want to make changes directly to /usr/share then you can run this command to copy the contents to a ~/.local/share directory and plasma will use that copy instead…which you can modify and break to your hearts content.

kpackagetool5 --install /usr/share[...]

where [...] is the path to the folder you want to copy.

don’t know if there is a plasma6 version of this, but i would assume so.

i prefer to make the mods directly to the /usr/share folder once i know what to change (use the copy to figure it out).

that way you don’t miss out on updates to the .qml that might occur over time… and when updates do occur and it breaks your mod, just go back in an make the change again (keep notes, of course).

let us know what you figure out.

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I forgot to mention that I’m using Plasma 5.27, I was thinking of switching to Plasma 6 though. Anyway, certainly, within that folder there are many qml files related to the lockscreen. I figured out the main section is kind of specified in the MainBlock.qml and the other sections such as the clock are in the LockScreenUI.qml. I was able to move the clock a little bit, but this seems to require learning the properties of each element and I hope this doesn’t involve more files of that folder

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