I am fairly new to KDE Plasma (running on Fedora 43), having moved over from Windows.
We all have our own preferences on DE appearance, and there is a sizeable community both on Windows who strongly seek classic WinXP or Win7 like themes, feeling they aid our productivity. The “modern” flat themes common on Linux and in Win10 & Win11 just never worked for me at all, even after a lot of trying. Many others are in the same boat, with the classic DEs being “peak utility” for daily driving.
Unfortunately, the ability to use such themes that had been developed for Plasma was broken with introduction of version 6.5 (at the time I was attracted here having heard that there were great Classic themes for Plasma).
My wish is that in Plasma 6.7 or 6.8 (too late now for 6.6) that the ability to create WinXP- and Win7-like themes be enabled. This should include the ability to set the color, shading and corners independently for EACH of the rows near the top and near the bottom of the screen, independently of each other.
I am willing to help in some way with a project to re-enable that capability, though probably in an advisory way since my programming skills may be insufficient.
This is really, really important to me, and from all I have seen online to many others as well. For me it is not at all “nostalgia,” but visual functionality and its contribution to my workflow. Thanks for your consideration.
It broke what some people had used to create themes that look like WinXP, Win7, etc. Other kinds of themes can still be made. You can read about what happened here, when Plasma 6.5 was issued, if you read through the comments. This theme method was working until then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZun73w_y-A
Ok, I’m not gonna do Youtube for this - I’d look into the Github and work it out there… but quite a few things are made only for one specific snapshot of an OS, and when the base system gets updates, these are broken unless maintained.
Firefox also had multiple updates, and userChrome stuff breaks all the time if it isn’t fixed.
I know I am very negative about this, but lately, with the input of new Linux users who finally gave up on Windows, they ask (demand sometimes) that Windows stuff will be implemented into Linux. This is not only on the KDE forum but also in distro’s forums.
When I started to use Linux there was this golden rule: Linux is NOT Windows. Linux is different, it works differently, it has different stuf. Leave it like that!!!
If you can’t live without your precious Windows then there is only one solution: go back.
Don’t change Linux for all of us who have used it so many years already, I am using it for 18 years, and don’t miss Windows one bit, never done.
In the KDE store (KDE Store) there are Windows look-a-like themes. No idea if they work, I don’t try them cause I don’t want them. There are lots of other themes which also don’t work, they can not extracted, can not be installed, something is wrong. The creators say it’s something in KDE which is wrong and KDE claims it’s the themes which contain code which don’t work. never ending story unfortunately.
How many people have you talked to about this subject? When something like this is asked for, it’s never the author alone, no there are “many others who think alike”. Give numbers and sources where it is written how many people want those themes. Do you have any idea what this will cost, to create something new just for a handful of people? Yes, I take the “many others” with a large grain of salt.
Either use what is in the store and what works, or as you wrote:
create something yourself. Then you can make it 100% identical with the original themes, although I doubt it if the owners of these themes like that so much.
I very much doubt KDE removed the ability to create Windows like theme, why would they even think about that? But, I can be wrong in which case I do apologize.