I have been using KolourPaint for years, and I noticed that recently the color picker has changed, there are some issues that no longer allow me to do some things that I found very useful:
I used to select a color using the color picker tool, adding it to my colors, and then using the color selector to get the hex code of it, this is no longer possible, because the hex code of the currently selected color is no longer visible, and also clicking to add a custom color for some reason always starts from color “#BF4040”, and not from the currently selected color
I used to change slightly the currently selected color to a darker or lighter tone, this is no longer possible because when I use the color selector I cannot start picking a color from the currently selected color
Maybe this one is a bug, but it’s not clear to me why some custom colors have a “missing” icon on them
Hi! Can I ask which packaging method you used to install KolourPaint on Ubuntu? Just checking because I tried out each of the three steps you mentioned above, and they all seemed to work as you’d hope on my device - using KolourPaint 24.12.0, but on Fedora KDE 41. Here’s a screenshot of the Select Color dialog box I’m looking at, for context:
If you could share the contents of your About KolourPaint > Components tab as well, that might be helpful (no screenshot needed, the Copy to Clipboard button there should get that info ready to paste):
I installed it as a snap using the Ubuntu App Center, using the latest/stable channel, version 24.12.0 published on 29/12/2024, I also tried switching channel but nothing has changed
My Components tab does not even have the button to copy to clipboard but it says:
KDE Frameworks
Version 6.6.0 (globe icon) Qt
Version 6.7.2 (built against 6.7.2) (globe icon) The wayland windowing system
The color selector you posted is the one that I had before, the new one I’m seeing just has a very basic grid of colors, without all the right side
Yep, I just double-checked installing the Flatpak, and the color selector was working correctly there as well.
Based on the Frameworks and Qt versions listed your Components tab, I’m guessing there’s some version mismatch between KolourPaint and the underlying components in the Snap packaging currently - give the Flatpak version a try and see if that works correctly for you.
A couple notes:
If you don’t already have Flatpak setup - it’s not by default on Ubuntu - the instructions are here: Ubuntu Flathub Setup | Flathub
If you have the Snap version installed at the same time, you might need to manually choose to launch the Flatpak by running flatpak run org.kde.kolourpaint from a terminal
So, I followed the guide you linked (thanks!), uninstalled the KolourPaint snap, re-installed KolourPaint through Flathub, so now my software is:
KolourPaint: 24.12.1
KDE Frameworks: 6.9.0
Qt: Using 6.8.1 and built against 6.8.1
KDE Flatpak runtime (Wayland)
Build ABI: x86_64-little_endian-lp64
Kernel: linux 6.8.0-51-generic
My interface is now a bit different, and I no longer see the glitch in the color selector icons, but still the color selector is the same as the screenshot I posted up here and does not work well
might be a permissions issues with your distro, install the flatseal to maybe adjust what it has access to… like all of system, or at least all of user space.
This is the GNOME color picker. It’s being used because the GNOME platform plug-in is providing it due to going through Snap outside of Plasma. If you were using Plasma, you’d get the KDE color picker.
I set up an Ubuntu 24.04.1 VM to play around with this, and in its default configuration, even the Flatpak is using the GNOME color picker.
There is probably a much better way to do this, but I did figure out a “hacky” way to make it work, though - if you use the environment variable XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP="kde" with the Flatpak, then it kind of tricks it into thinking it’s running on Plasma, and uses the KDE color picker. The easiest way on GNOME to do that is using the Flatpak application Flatseal:
It’s a little laggy in places, which may be due to the mix-and-match of components going on or because of the VM I was using, but it seemed to be generally functional.
Somebody else may very well have a much better way to make that work, but maybe that will help a bit for now?