[Latte Dock] The end of an era (designing a Latte-Dock free alternative dr460nized setup)

[FGD]

First of all, awesome work, very clean implementation with Petsam’s stuff!

@dr460nf1r3

Lemme know what needs tweaking!

Oh yeah, I will certainly! In fact, here they are loll:

• The ISO boots super quick and clean
• Is it missing an icon in the middle of the busy widget or it’s intended?

• Still missing User Switcher widget

• Preview screenshot needs a refresh

• No one has yet commented but I would personally make the bar and dock slightly bigger. They were bigger with Latte, that’s mostly what I’m basing myself onto.
• Missing Window Buttons widget is really annoying loll But we have to wait for them to fix, I know I know
• I know I said that before, I find the panel backgrounds a little too dark. I think to have a better blending with Ghost and other wallpapers you could use 30% opacity in widgets/panel-background.svg and 40% opacity in dialogs/background.svgz.

• I do believe for best blending with any wallpaper a 0% opacity in the above 2 files would work well. Since Blur is turned on for the backgrounds, whenever you change paper the backgrounds will follow its colors. Same for the Dialogs, although you can have those less opaque should you wish to distinguish a little the Dialogs from the rest.

[FGD]

Can't edit my post.

For the 30-40% opacity screenshot (pic #3 in the above post, from top), here's one with the Dialogs open:

[dr460nf1r3]

@FGD

• Is it missing an icon in the middle of the busy widget or it’s intended?

It was missing the icon, I just added it back. Though it might need to be resized I think

@FGD

Still missing User Switcher widget

Not for me Its also explicitly set via Plasma script:

var switcher = panel.addWidget("org.kde.plasma.userswitcher")
switcher.currentConfigGroup = ["General"]
switcher.writeConfig("showFace", true)
switcher.writeConfig("showName", false)
switcher.writeConfig("showTechnicalInfo", true)

@FGD

• No one has yet commented but I would personally make the bar and dock slightly bigger. They were bigger with Latte, that’s mostly what I’m basing myself onto.

Adjusted as well!

@FGD

• I know I said that before, I find the panel backgrounds a little too dark. I think to have a better blending with Ghost and other wallpapers you could use 30% opacity in widgets/panel-background.svg and 40% opacity in dialogs/background.svgz.

You did have the modified files already, right?

@FGD

For the 30-40% opacity screenshot (pic #3 in the above post, from top), here’s one with the Dialogs open:

Thats definitely better, the previous 0% screenshot has it hardly readable

[FGD]

@dr460nf1r3

It was missing the icon, I just added it back. Though it might need to be resized I think

Cool, will check on next ISO release.

@dr460nf1r3

Not for me Its also explicitly set via Plasma script:

Oh that’s an interesting one! It’s not even listed hidden in the Systray for me.
I just took your ISO and booted it of the same VBox you use. I did install the ISO and no USwitch as well.
I’ll take a look tonight (my tonight your night) if it shows with a “1” number besides the widget in the Widgets list when you click ADD WIDGETS. That’d be a start, not sure where else to look, oh maybe journalctl, in case it tries to set it on logon and fails there could be a log…

@dr460nf1r3

You did have the modified files already, right?

Not those from last night yet, they are a better modification of previous uploaded files. I will actualy try a couple %s and upload all test files, with screenshots here to compare so you can pick the opacity % you think look best.

@dr460nf1r3

the previous 0% screenshot has it hardly readable

I agree, that’s cuz I am stupid and took one of the most difficult wallpaper to work with to show the Dialog at 0%. loll But yes, having a slight opacity will blend with MUCH more papers, which is why I will provide a few % options for comparison, as mentioned just above.

[FGD]

User Switcher widget:
Can't find anything in journalctl. Greped for "switcher", "user" and "widget".
I tried with and without VBox 3D acceleration.
Can anyone else boot the ISO and confirm?
It doesn't exist in in the widgets' list:

Oh you just migrated to Dracut.
Oh it pushed your new Firedragon icon in the SDDM splash screen. VERY nice colors!!! I want that on my main machine right now.

As for panel background colors, here are a couple of choices:

10-20% opacity (1 file at 10% and 1 file at 20%):

30-40% opacity:

40-50% opacity:

Pretty sure you won't go with 10-20%, but 30-40% seems really nice and fits on various wallpapers.

I have uploaded these choices in folders here.

[TNE]

How are we feeling about having ksysguard as the default system monitor still? The "new" system monitor we have right now likes to include cache in ram usage and makes Garuda look a lot heavier.

[dr460nf1r3]

@FGD

Oh that’s an interesting one! It’s not even listed hidden in the Systray for me.

@FGD

Can anyone else boot the ISO and confirm?

Actually, you are right! There is no user switcher on the iso builds. Though there is on my production machine which is why it showed up for me wtf. Its like it never existed on KDE?

@FGD

Oh you just migrated to Dracut.

It does indeed contain the soon to be default already

@FGD

Oh it pushed your new Firedragon icon in the SDDM splash screen. VERY nice colors!!! I want that on my main machine right now.

You like it? I wasn’t very sure about how it looked in this context, but it’s good enough I guess

@FGD

Pretty sure you won’t go with 10-20%, but 30-40% seems really nice and fits on various wallpapers.

Yes, 30-40% is perfect! It makes the panel a lot more easy on the eyes IMO. I’ve added it as custom “Dr460nized” Plasma theme - thanks! There is a new test iso here

[dr460nf1r3]

@TNE

How are we feeling about having ksysguard as the default system monitor still? The “new” system monitor we have right now likes to include cache in ram usage and makes Garuda look a lot heavier.

I’m not really a fan of Ksysguard. I would have suggested linking btop but it also shows cache it seems. Is this really an issue? Like we care about stupid reviewers

[FGD]

@dr460nf1r3

Actually, you are right! There is no user switcher on the iso builds.

PHEW! For a day you made me think I was totally crazy.

@dr460nf1r3

Though there is on my production machine which is why it showed up for me wtf. Its like it never existed on KDE?

That’s why I was very surprised in Post #38
I can’t find it also when trying to download the widget from Plasma integrated download feature.
Whoogling and githubing for the widget same thing, can’t find any reference. Only USwitcher which isn’t the same and crashed when I installed it. It’s as if User Switcher has become a ghost…

@dr460nf1r3

You like it? I wasn’t very sure about how it looked in this context, but it’s good enough I guess

Oh yeah it really stands out! It doesn’t stay there very long though lolll, I have to retest it again tonight.

@dr460nf1r3

Yes, 30-40% is perfect! It makes the panel a lot more easy on the eyes IMO. I’ve added it as custom “Dr460nized” Plasma theme - thanks!

That’s also my opinion, I understand the extremes is not what you’re looking for, for many good reasons, so when I saw how 30-40% looked I was pretty sure it would be a great blend. I can try many other variants to that but in the end the changes will be too subtle I believe. Although if I think I come up with something significantly better later on I’ll let you know.

[BluishHumility]

@dr460nf1r3

I would have suggested linking btop but it also shows cache it seems.

I think the way btop shows cache is good though. It kind of breaks it off as a separate value:

“Total” and “Used” are the featured values in the memory window, and “Used” is not counting cache–which I believe is in line with what TNE was suggesting would provide better optics.

Users who understand what cached memory is and would like to see the whole picture can just read the rest of the chart, so everybody wins.

[tbg]

My own personal opinion is that if we're highlighting KDE as the distro's main DE, we should also try as much as possible to utilize the mainstream KDE apps, (unless there is a distinct deficiency with the KDE version).

[TNE]

I must say I personally prefer ksysguard a lot more, it's a mature app that is quite "Windows like", for better or for worse, but it's not my decision to make

[FGD]

Sorry to hijack the 3 guys above.

@dr460nf1r3

@FGD

• No one has yet commented but I would personally make the bar and dock slightly bigger. They were bigger with Latte, that’s mostly what I’m basing myself onto.

Adjusted as well!

It’s not in the 221210 ISO, correct?
Sizes are the same as 221208.

I was thinking something more like 60px on the Dock and 39 on the Top Bar. Again looks more like how it is in the ISOs with Latte. But I think you will find 60px too big and that’s where the unfortunate Plasma-way-of-doing-things limits us, as soon as you increase the Dock from 50px to 52px, you will see a big step up in icon size.

1st shot is your ISO, 2nd shot is with 39px and 60px.

[BluishHumility]

@FGD

Sorry to hijack

I think we were hijacking the thread!

[SGS]

kwinrc keeps the startup shortcut (meta) of Latte Dock, even if you have uninstalled Latte Dock.

The function

---

If you assign the launcher shortcut key to Meta+F1 or Alt+F1, KDE will instead interpret this as assigning it to solely the Meta key.

---

Doesn't work for me.

For me works

kwriteconfig5 --file ~/.config/kwinrc --group ModifierOnlyShortcuts --key Meta "org.kde.plasmashell,/PlasmaShell,org.kde.PlasmaShell,activateLauncherMenu"

KUDOS

[FGD]

Dragon, I don't know if you found something for UserSwitcher, but I found out in the ABOUT page of the widget there is the author's name and email. He's from Germany so that's pretty cool.

Maybe contacting that guy if he responds might yield somewhere?
Just throwing out the idea.

[SGS]

@FGD

Dragon

?
You mean Nico aka dr460nf1r3 ?

[FGD]

Yes. (post must be 10 characters but I only needed 4 lol)

[SGS]

I like it short, too.
This also reduces translation errors by me and from translater apps
Brevity is the spice of life.

In der Kürze liegt die Würze. “deepl” add “of live”.
In brevity lies the spice.

@FGD

(post must be 10 characters but I only needed 4 lol)

I could change it to four if I find the setting again

</off topic>

[SGS]

Yes.