How to replace a single KDE icon in a custom theme?

benopp · February 7, 2025, 2:29pm

I have the Papirus Light icon theme installed from KDE store, it’s located in ~/.local/share/icons/Papirus-Light/
The bluetooth icon here is wrong to me, it’s just a folder with a globe icon - both in the vanilla Plasma system tray and the “KDE Control Station” alternative that I use (I also tried Plasma Flex Hub, same thing - here, even the Wifi icon is just a folder).
I’d like to replace the folder icon it with an actual bluetooth logo.

(Sorry I can’t include proper links - please add dots and delete spaces if you want to check out the screenshots/Github source)

imgur com /a/jp5tWwO

In the mentioned location, I have this:

╰─λ ls ~/.local/share/icons/Papirus-Light/
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  8x8 -> ../Papirus/8x8
drwxr-xr-x   - ben 28 Oct  2023  16x16
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  16x16@2x -> 16x16
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  18x18 -> ../Papirus/18x18
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  18x18@2x -> 18x18
drwxr-xr-x   - ben 28 Oct  2023  22x22
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  22x22@2x -> 22x22
drwxr-xr-x   - ben 28 Oct  2023  24x24
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  24x24@2x -> 24x24
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  32x32 -> ../Papirus/32x32
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  32x32@2x -> 32x32
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  42x42 -> ../Papirus/42x42
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  48x48 -> ../Papirus/48x48
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  48x48@2x -> 48x48
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  64x64 -> ../Papirus/64x64
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  64x64@2x -> 64x64
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  84x84 -> ../Papirus/84x84
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  96x96 -> ../Papirus/96x96
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  128x128 -> ../Papirus/128x128
lrwxrwxrwx   - ben 28 Oct  2023  symbolic -> ../Papirus/symbolic
.rw-r--r-- 11k ben 28 Oct  2023  index.theme

In which of these should I replace the icon with a new file? All of them?

The weird thing is, in ~/.local/share/icons/Papirus-Light/22x22/panel/ there is actually a [normal Bluetooth logo](github com /PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-icon-theme/blob/master/Papirus-Light/22x22/panel/bluetooth-active.svg)!

In e.g. /.local/share/icons/Papirus-Light/32x32/devices/ there is [yet another one:]github com /PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-icon-theme/blob/master/Papirus/22x22/devices/bluetooth.svg).
…but clearly neither is being displayed where it should.
Why is none of these actually shown in my panel, but the weird folder icon? How do I fix this?

I did find [this similar issue on the Manjaro forum ](forum manjaro org/t/how-to-change-a-single-icon-within-a-custom-icon-theme/112447/2), but I find what the person did super messy and my case is not just to change the current icon’s color, but to display an entirely different one (and all his efforts to meddle with the placement of files were in vain).

skyfishgoo · February 7, 2025, 5:12pm

i won’t pretend to know how themes work, but what if you were to find the icon you don’t like and rename it as .svgold or something so it no longer registers as an image… what does the theme do for your bluetooth then?

and if that makes a change, then what would happen if you made a copy of the icon you wanted in that location and gave it the same name as the original icon?.. what does the theme do for your bluetooth then?

just spitballing.

dzon · February 7, 2025, 9:10pm

Could you post a link to the exact icon theme on the store because I tried a Papirus light theme but that one inherits from breeze so it shouldn’t even have a papirus bluetooth icon to show.

On a sidenote, there’s a little app to create your own papirus folder colors. By default it inherits from normal Papirus but if you only want the folder stuff you can edit the icon index file.

For example:

benopp · February 11, 2025, 3:19pm

Thanks for the idea. The offending icon is inherited from Papirus (parent theme). I renamed folder-paleorange-network.svg (default folder color) in various locations:
~/.local/share/icons/Papirus/22x22/, ~/.local/share/icons/Papirus/24x24/, 32x32, 64x64 etc., i.e. all the files that have other resolutions pointing to them.
That has the effect of the system tray no longer displaying the folder with the globe icon (an emblem?) on it, but only the globe icon. It appears the icon is composed of the folder icon plus the network emblem. Possibly renaming the emblem icon as well would lead to something, but I filed a bug for this theme instead

benopp · February 13, 2025, 2:52pm

Btw, what’s the name of that little app?

I posted the Github in the first post - it definitely does have Bluetooth icons, just don’t know if that’s just copied from Breeze

dzon · February 13, 2025, 3:04pm

There are a few, but the one I use is an MX one ( deb ). Does come in tar though. https://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/p/papirus-folder-colors/

benopp · February 13, 2025, 3:44pm

Name? My distro is Arch-based

dzon · February 13, 2025, 3:58pm

It’s right there. And like I said, it comes in a tar as well.