kde-plasma

Generates KDE Plasma .colors colour schemes for the Plasma desktop and KDE applications. The file format is the standard KDE KConfig-style ini consumed by plasma-apply-colorscheme, KWin, Dolphin, Kate, and every other KDE app. The plugin uses a two-variant trick (TinctDark1 / TinctDark2, and the same for Light) to work around a long-standing Plasma quirk: plasma-apply-colorscheme silently no-ops if you re-apply a scheme that is already active. By emitting two near-identical schemes per theme type and alternating between them on every run, tinct guarantees a visible reload every time.

Installation

Built into tinct — nothing to install separately. tinct generate -o kde-plasma works out of the box. KDE Plasma must already be installed (the plugin checks for ~/.config/kdeglobals or ~/.config/plasmarc and aborts otherwise).

For non-Plasma desktops running KDE / Qt apps, use the qt5 or qt6 plugins instead.

Quick start

tinct generate -i image -p ~/Pictures/wallpaper.jpg -o kde-plasma

Generated files

In single-variant mode (one theme type only):

File	Path	Role
TinctDark1.colors / TinctLight1.colors	~/.local/share/color-schemes/TinctDark1.colors etc.	Variant 1 of the active theme type
TinctDark2.colors / TinctLight2.colors	~/.local/share/color-schemes/TinctDark2.colors etc.	Variant 2 of the active theme type (identical palette, different Name=/ColorScheme= keys)

In dual-theme mode (GenerateDualTheme, when both a primary and an alternate theme are configured), all four files are written: TinctDark1, TinctDark2, TinctLight1, TinctLight2.

The two-variant trick: plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark1 does nothing if TinctDark1 is already the active scheme. By switching to TinctDark2 on the next run (and back again on the run after that), Plasma sees a "different" scheme each time and reloads.

Integration

KDE Plasma auto-discovers .colors files from two locations:

• ~/.local/share/color-schemes/ (per-user) — where this plugin writes.
• /usr/share/color-schemes/ (system-wide) — distro packages.

No manual configuration is required. After the files are written, the plugin invokes plasma-apply-colorscheme to make Plasma activate one of them and writes the active scheme name into ~/.config/kdeglobals under [General] → ColorScheme.

In dual-theme mode the plugin reads ~/.config/kdeglobals [General] ColorScheme (and falls back to [KDE] LookAndFeelPackage) to decide whether the user is currently on a dark or light scheme, and applies the matching variant.

Reload behaviour

Automatic

After writing the files, PostExecute performs three steps:

1. Pick the variant to apply. Read kdeglobals [General] ColorScheme via kreadconfig5. If it's TinctDark1, switch to TinctDark2 (or vice-versa); otherwise, start at variant 1. This is the workaround for plasma-apply-colorscheme not reloading a scheme that's already active.
2. Apply via plasma-apply-colorscheme <ThemeName>. This rewrites kdeglobals and pokes Plasma's configuration daemon. If plasma-apply-colorscheme is missing from $PATH, the step is skipped with a warning telling the user how to apply manually.
3. Trigger a D-Bus reload of KWin and Plasma Shell via the shared KDE D-Bus helper. This ensures the running shell and window manager pick up the new palette immediately rather than on next start.

If a wallpaper was supplied via -p, the plugin also runs plasma-apply-wallpaperimage <path>.

Manual fallback

If plasma-apply-colorscheme is missing or the D-Bus reload fails:

plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark1   # or TinctLight1

If neither variant is currently active and you want a guaranteed reload, run the command twice with different variant numbers:

plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark2
plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark1

For a full-belt-and-braces refresh you can also restart Plasma:

kquitapp5 plasmashell && kstart5 plasmashell    # Plasma 5
kquitapp6 plasmashell && kstart6 plasmashell    # Plasma 6

Uninstall / revert

1. Switch to a stock Plasma colour scheme before deleting the files (otherwise Plasma keeps the cached palette in kdeglobals until you next change it):

   plasma-apply-colorscheme BreezeDark   # or Breeze for light, or any other installed scheme

2. Delete the generated files:

   rm ~/.local/share/color-schemes/TinctDark1.colors \
      ~/.local/share/color-schemes/TinctDark2.colors \
      ~/.local/share/color-schemes/TinctLight1.colors \
      ~/.local/share/color-schemes/TinctLight2.colors

3. Reload — plasma-apply-colorscheme in step 1 already did the reload. If needed, restart Plasma as shown in the Manual fallback above.

4. External state: this plugin does mutate state outside ~/.config/tinct. Specifically:

   • ~/.config/kdeglobals is rewritten by plasma-apply-colorscheme with [General] ColorScheme=TinctDark<N> (and tens of palette entries under [Colors:*] sections). Re-applying a stock scheme in step 1 overwrites these.
   • If -p <wallpaper> was passed, the active Plasma containment's wallpaper config in ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc was updated by plasma-apply-wallpaperimage. Pick a new wallpaper in System Settings → Wallpaper to clear it.

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--kde-plasma.output-dir	~/.local/share/color-schemes	Override the output directory

Colour role mapping

KDE colour schemes have many sections; the table below lists the recurring keys and their tinct roles. Within each section the same row applies unless noted.

Section(s)	Key	Tinct role
Colors:Button, Colors:Header, Colors:Tooltip, Colors:Window	BackgroundNormal	surface
Colors:Button, Colors:Tooltip, Colors:Window	BackgroundAlternate	surfaceVariant
Colors:Header, Colors:Complementary	BackgroundAlternate	surface / background
Colors:View	BackgroundNormal	background
Colors:View	BackgroundAlternate	surface
Colors:Selection	BackgroundNormal / BackgroundAlternate	accent1
(all Colors:*)	DecorationFocus / DecorationHover	accent1 (Colors:Selection.DecorationHover = accent2; Colors:View.DecorationHover = backgroundMuted/surfaceVariant)
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundNormal	foreground (Colors:Selection = onAccent1)
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundActive	foreground (Colors:Window = accent1; Colors:Selection = onAccent1)
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundInactive	outline / border / foregroundMuted (whichever the palette defines first)
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundLink	accent1
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundVisited	accent2
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundNegative	danger (falls back to ANSI red)
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundNeutral	warning (falls back to ANSI yellow)
(all Colors:*)	ForegroundPositive	success (falls back to ANSI green)
ColorEffects:Disabled, ColorEffects:Inactive	Color	surface
WM	activeBackground	surface
WM	inactiveBackground	surfaceVariant
WM	activeForeground / activeBlend	foreground
WM	inactiveForeground / inactiveBlend	outline/border
General	ColorScheme / Name	literal TinctDark<N> / TinctLight<N> (set by Generate, suffixed in generateColorSchemeVariant)

Customising the template

tinct plugins templates dump -o kde-plasma -l ~/.config/tinct/templates/kde-plasma

This creates ~/.config/tinct/templates/kde-plasma/tinct.colors.tmpl. Tinct uses your version in preference to the embedded default.

Note that the variant-suffix post-processing (ColorScheme=TinctDark → TinctDark1/TinctDark2) happens in Go code, not in the template. Your custom template only needs to emit the un-suffixed name; the plugin will append the variant digit.

See the templating reference for the available functions and palette accessors.

Troubleshooting

Plugin skipped: KDE Plasma does not appear to be installed

PreExecute couldn't find either ~/.config/kdeglobals or ~/.config/plasmarc. Either Plasma genuinely isn't installed, or the user hasn't logged into a Plasma session yet (those files are created on first login). Log into Plasma once, log out, and retry.

plasma-apply-colorscheme not found, theme not auto-applied

The plasma-workspace package didn't install plasma-apply-colorscheme (uncommon, but seen on stripped-down Plasma builds). The .colors files were still written successfully; apply them manually with plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark1 or by opening System Settings → Colors and selecting "Tinct Dark 1".

Theme changes don't appear until I open System Settings

This is the bug the two-variant trick exists to work around. If you're still seeing it (e.g. the variant alternation didn't fire because your kdeglobals lists a non-tinct scheme), force the issue by running:

plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark2
plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctDark1

KWin titlebars or Konsole colour scheme didn't update

KWin reads decoration colours from kdeglobals [WM] on D-Bus reload. The plugin's D-Bus reload step should handle this; if it didn't fire (D-Bus unavailable, or dbus.IsAvailable() returned false in CI / nested compositors), log out and back into your session to pick up the change.

Dual-theme mode applied the wrong variant

detectSystemColorScheme reads kdeglobals [General] ColorScheme and looks for the substring dark or light. Custom-named user schemes that don't contain those words confuse the detection — it defaults to TinctDark. Either rename your previous scheme to include Dark/Light, or override with --kde-plasma.theme-type (if exposed) or by manually invoking plasma-apply-colorscheme TinctLight1.

Related plugins

• qt5, qt6 — Qt application theming for non-Plasma desktops, or for Qt apps that don't follow the Plasma colour scheme.
• gtk3, gtk4, libadwaita — theme GTK / libadwaita apps running under Plasma so they match the Plasma colour scheme.