Proposal: Quick Settings Light/Dark toggle should not reset icon theme

Brainstorm
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1

Situation

When using the Quick Settings toggle to switch between Breeze Light and Breeze Dark, Plasma also resets the icon theme back to Breeze.

This feels unnecessary, since most users expect the Light/Dark toggle to affect only the color scheme, not their chosen icon theme.

Reasoning

  • Many users prefer custom icon themes such as Papirus, Tela, etc.
  • Resetting the icon theme every time a user switches to Light or Dark mode is inconvenient.
  • A theme switcher should respect user choices and focus only on adjusting colors.
  • Separating icon themes from color schemes would improve consistency and align with user expectations.

Proposal

The Quick Settings Light/Dark toggle should only change the color scheme, while leaving the selected icon theme untouched.

Screenshot_20250903_093105
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Screenshot_20250903_093122
Screenshot_20250903_0931221920Ɨ1080 144 KB

1 Like
2

Really, the issue is that this just isnā€™t a way to ā€œset device Dark Modeā€ the way a user might expect (and that apps like Firefox may respect); this seems like the ticket given itā€™s visible in the first place a user might look, but itā€™s really not, given what it actually does is activate the default Breeze Light and Breeze Dark Global Themes (which govern a LOT more than just color, as youā€™ve noticedā€“ it also will affect application styles, window decorations, icons, the plasma style, the cursor, the task switcher, and the lock and splash screens.)

The true home of ā€œswapping to Dark Modeā€ is in Appearance > Global Theme > Colors (or at least it was on KDE 5 which Iā€™m stuck using because Kubuntu LTS ^^;), but it has its own caveat, in that applications like Firefox donā€™t seem to recognize ā€œhey, my color scheme is set to Breeze Darkā€ (or, for that matter, Dream-Violet-Dark-Color) as ā€˜Dark Modeā€™, so any website set to follow ā€˜device themeā€™ will default to an eye-blinding Light Mode.

3

If thatā€™s the case and the toggle is really just switching between the Breeze Light and Breeze Dark Global Themes, then I think thatā€™s just bad UX.

  • Itā€™s labeled only as Theme, not Global Theme, which makes it look like a simple Light/Dark toggle.
  • Right below it, thereā€™s already a button for Global Theme under ā€œMore appearance settings,ā€ so it feels redundant and inconsistent.
  • As a user, I expect this toggle to only control Light/Dark mode (color scheme), not to override my entire setup including icons, window decorations, etc.

From a design perspective, this feels misleading because it looks like a quick Light/Dark switch but in reality it behaves like a full Global Theme reset.

4

I think this will be better in 6.5: This Week in Plasma: day/night theme switching - KDE Blogs

5

Not really. Day/night theme switching only use global themes.

So when the theme get changed at night/day it overide the icon theme.

There is a bug report made a while ago that could solve the problem :

6

It works fine if youā€™re only using Breeze, but I think the Quick Settings theme toggle should change only the color scheme. Most users would naturally expect it to behave that way, and those unfamiliar with Global Themes are likely to be confused when it overrides other settings.

Since thereā€™s already a dedicated option in the Appearance settings for changing the Global Theme, it feels redundant for the Quick Settings toggle to also behave as a Global Theme switcher.

7

Yeah, especially a Global Theme switcher with only two optionsā€¦