If you’re not familiar with [pywal16](https://github.com/eylles/pywal16), it extracts the dominant colors from an image and creates a 16 color palette with them (set of 8 colors with a matching set of 8 that are the same colors but slightly darker or brighter depending on your preference, which would work really well for doing light/dark modes). It then also sets that image as your wallpaper unless you explicitly tell it not to. The way it works is by duplicating template files from a separate directory that contain color placeholders, and then replacing those placeholders with the colors in the palette it generates.
What I’ve been doing on my own is creating config files for the Plasma color scheme, Kvantum, and Gradience (pywal comes with a Konsole template already) but not using any actual colors in them, just placeholders, and then using those config files as pywal templates. The generated files go to ~/.cache/wal and you can symlink them from there to wherever they need to go.
The current master branch of pywal16 introduces the ability to have your templates inside of directory structures, meaning you could theoretically make an entire GTK theme without using any actual colors, just placeholders, and then using that entire theme as a template for pywal to create a GTK theme with your specific colors. Once it does that you can just symlink the entire folder of the generated theme to ~/.themes
This functionality is so beyond powerful and I don’t know why it isn’t implemented in more DEs. Yes Plasma already has the “highlight color from wallpaper” option but due to the nature of how pywal works, you could use it for virtually anything as long as someone makes a template for it. It would be really cool to see KDE Plasma implement something like that. Having it triggered by wallpaper changes done through the Plasma settings with virtually zero user intervention would be such an attractive feature. Plasma is already the ultimate ricing DE and this would just take it that much further. Imagine setting your wallpaper and then watching your color scheme, Qt/Kvantum theme, GTK2/3/4 theme, Plasma Style, Window Decorations, etc etc plus whatever you take the time to manually configure yourself all change colors to match the new wallpaper right in front of your eyes (optionally of course, Breeze does look pretty damn good), and even optionally chooses between light/dark mode for you based on the wallpaper and colors.
I’m at a loss how this would work with a kvantum theme. That would require the altering of the svg’s.
But yeah, could be cool. Especially since Oomox has some issues.
I used the premade themes on the github page and modified them a little bit but they don’t look all that appealing IMO. I think they could be improved for sure. Place them in ~/.config/wal/templates/(subdir if you want) and then run wal. After wal runs you can symlink them from ~/.cache/wal/* to ~/.config/Kvantum
Myeah…Personally I only use kvantum with maybe two homemade themes to match one of the only two color schemes I use. But those themes are …um…not really default so to speak. Both in svg as kvconfig. But yeah, I guess it could work for some people.
There are certain things I always like in a dark color , regardless the set colorscheme. Like imageviewers and mediaplayers. If they’re qt, the only way to do that is by running them in kvantum override.
O, and btw. Certain apps, like gwenview wouldn’t cut it just running them in kvantum. To have a full match, the colorscheme has to be included in the config file. So, sure, pywall&co could be cool but sometimes, depending on what you want…
Regardless the coloring you use in Gwenview, if you run it in qt style kvantum, you’ll need the colorscheme in the config. Unless something changed in Gwenview’s settings of course.
Idk man all I can tell you is it works just fine for me. I don’t have my KDE color scheme dialed in yet so it doesn’t look amazing but you can see all the Kvantum elements are working great.
What I was trying to say…You can run gwenview in a kvantum theme. But if you change your overall colorscheme to, say, a light one, and you didn’t add the colorscheme to the gwenview config file, the look of gwenview will change. There are some other qt apps that will do the same. You can set the app to run QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=Kvantum all you want, if you didn’t add the colorscheme of choice to that app, bits and pieces of it will change to the set colorscheme. In other words, if you want a certain qt app in a specific color at all times, regardless of what the overall desktop color is set to, you have to add the color file. Nice work btw.
I’m cool, thank you. Because what I need is the exact opposite. I don’t want everything to match, as explained. But I guess a lot of people will like it. Maybe you should make it available ?
I see what you’re saying now. Yeah, this definitely wouldn’t be for you if that’s the case. However, pywal is a staple amongst ricers so while this may not necessarily cater to you, it would be highly attractive to a lot of other users.
I totally would but most of this stuff is already available, the only thing I made from the ground up was my Plasma color scheme template. Everything else was just lightly modified and bundled together. I also don’t have the necessary skills or experience to make it anywhere near as tidy or consistent as the devs could of they integrated it into the DE itself.
On top of that, what I did works by theming adw-gtk with Gradience (using pywal to make the gradience theme) and Kvantum to theme Qt. It would be really cool to see a GTK theme that can just be used as a pywal template itself eliminating the need for Gradience, same for Kvantum.
Well, who knows. Maybe you’ll find a way to bundle it all in a downloadable way. I’m sure many would like it.
Some, like me, use different ways. Some, far from default and which even pywall probably couldn’t do.
For example, this isn’t kvantum.
