How can I get a smaller show desktop button for KDE?

[FatDroid]

How do?

This is as the title says really. I have KDE Plasma and I want to change the peak at desktop button to something smaller. I've noticed that with the few themes and stuff I've tried, its always a large button and I'd like to it be a bit smaller. I like the more subtle corner button that Windows 10/11 has and I'd be far happier with something around that size if at all possible.

I've done my Googling, yet I'm not able to find anything that will work on this version of Plasma. There was one on the KDE store but after installing it, it gave me a message saying something along the lines of it is not supported on Plasma 6.


There's a screenshot attached to show exactly what it is I mean. The button thingy is circled.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

You can't make it smaller but you can ask KDE devs for such option or feature.

 

[MikeWalsh]

You can't make it smaller but you can ask KDE devs for such option or feature.

You mean to tell me that you can't either locate - or create - a smaller resolution icon, then put it in the appropriate place in the system and "call" it? 'Cos that's what I would do...

I'm sure most members here have no conception of the sheer amount of work that goes into getting my desktops to look precisely how I want them to. It's the tiny details that usually take the most sorting out!

Linux is, after all, supposed to be about making the system "your" system.....and looking & working just how YOU want it to. You shouldn't need to have to ask somebody else to supply stuff FOR you.

This is why I've always believed you should use stuff that's at a level of "difficulty" where you CAN alter / change / modify things yourself, without too much effort. The fact that so many people complain about stuff from the KDE Project tells me the code is complex.....and not really MEANT to be touched by those not in the "inner circle".

And that's why you'll never catch me using KDE/Plasma. I want stuff that I CAN work on / alter / change / modify myself.....should the need arise.

Perhaps I have a odd way of looking at things..!


Mike.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@MikeWalsh
KDE is customizable, but when it comes to such thing the only way you can modify it if you want to do it yourself is to modify source code.
Me being KDE user I'm pretty sure you can't customize this specific case.
If somebody can prove me wrong that's fine.

But I get your point that we should be able to customize everything.
Does your DE allow you to do this? which 1 are you using?

 

[KGIII]

You mean to tell me that you can't either locate - or create - a smaller resolution icon, then put it in the appropriate place in the system and "call" it? 'Cos that's what I would do...

I'd almost commented that same thing, sort of. (I don't do much customization.)

But, I skipped it because I can't really help them with that. I don't know enough about KDE to know where the correct files are.

 

[KGIII]

KDE is customizable, but when it comes to such thing the only way you can modify it if you want to do it yourself is to modify source code.

If it's an image in a directory somewhere, could you just replace that image with your own image that's named the same thing?

I did some looking and those theme files would be in:

/usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/

Or, you installed them yourself:

~/. local/share/plasma/desktoptheme/

I cheaped and looked that information up. I have no KDE experience.

But, it seems pretty basic. Find the image in the theme directory, rename it, name your image what that file was named, and move it to the correct directory. The system would think that file is correct.

You'd then have to log out or (most likely) reboot.

So long as the image is named the same thing, the system shouldn't know any difference.

I'm sure I'm missing something, though I've done this with other DEs in the past.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@KGIII
I'm sure you can change the icon, but this is unlikely to make it different size, DE might as well resize it to fit if you put smaller icon.

 

[FatDroid]

You can't make it smaller but you can ask KDE devs for such option or feature.

I can actually do it, thats the bit that is the most annoying but it means switching my entire theme set to something else and I have finally found this one and I am happy with it, aside from that button being big enough to engulf my entire cursor that is. Somebody else has commented saying I may be able to find a different image and rename it in the image file, reboot and it MAY work so I am tempted to give that a go.
Although, as has been pointed out in this thread, KDE is highly customisable but that is one thing that isnt. To me that seems very backwards that a DE with so many user optiond based around appearance doesnt let you change an icons size or appearance in a certian theme.

 

[FatDroid]

If it's an image in a directory somewhere, could you just replace that image with your own image that's named the same thing?

I did some looking and those theme files would be in:

/usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/

Or, you installed them yourself:

~/. local/share/plasma/desktoptheme/

I cheaped and looked that information up. I have no KDE experience.

But, it seems pretty basic. Find the image in the theme directory, rename it, name your image what that file was named, and move it to the correct directory. The system would think that file is correct.

You'd then have to log out or (most likely) reboot.

So long as the image is named the same thing, the system shouldn't know any difference.

I'm sure I'm missing something, though I've done this with other DEs in the past.

This is something I need to try ASAP, because I can see this being a very valid way to solve the issue. I had actually thought of it, but with it being part of a themed set of stuff, I thought there may be some underlying dependency I know nothing about and changing it would break it. Ive already done this before, changing something and it turned out to break something completely unrelated. Thank the Lords for system snapshots haha

 

[KGIII]

This is something I need to try ASAP, because I can see this being a very valid way to solve the issue. I had actually thought of it, but with it being part of a themed set of stuff, I thought there may be some underlying dependency I know nothing about and changing it would break it. Ive already done this before, changing something and it turned out to break something completely unrelated. Thank the Lords for system snapshots haha

If this is accurate:

@KGIII
I'm sure you can change the icon, but this is unlikely to make it different size, DE might as well resize it to fit if you put smaller icon.

Then the size is determined in the code itself and this won't work.

If it is hard coded in the source, that's just silly.