Adapt Papirus to KDE Plasma 6

[lhy7889678]

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A MESSAGE FROM MAINTAINERS:

THIS ISSUE COLLECTS ALL KNOWN ISSUES WITH KDE PLASMA 6 WHEN THE PAPIRUS ICON THEME IS APPLIED

BEFORE REPORTING A NEW PROBLEM OR BUG, PLEASE CHECK IF THE PROBLEM IS STILL PRESENT WHEN USING THE LATEST PAPIRUS GIT MASTER

FOR USEFUL BACKGROUND REGARDING SYMBOLIC ICONS IN PLASMA 6, SEE #3595

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT PAPIRUS ICON THEME HAD ALREADY INCLUDED SYMBOLIC ICONS PRIOR TO THE PLASMA 6 RELEASE AND THOSE ICONS NOW SHOW UP IN PLASMA AS UNTHEMEABLE, APPEARING EITHER WHITE OR DARK GREY DEPENDING ON THE APPLIED PAPIRUS VERSION

FEEL FREE TO REPORT SUCH ICONS, BUT ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT CAN ONLY BE FIXED WITH RESTRUCTURING WITHIN PAPIRUS

ORIGINAL MESSAGE INCLUDED BELOW

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KDE Plasma 6 seems to have changed the names of some icons used in the system tray / system settings / etc. As a result, these icons will fall back to the default Breeze icon theme, even though Papirus has adequate icons (with different names) for them.

Here is a list of icons that I have noticed so far:

• brightness-high-symbolic, redshift-status-off-symbolic, redshift-status-on-symbolic, redshift-status-day-symbolic: Used in the brightness controller
• klipper-symbolic: Used in the clipboard manager
• notifications-disabled-symbolic, notification-active-symbolic, notification-inactive-symbolic: Used in the notification manager
• kdeconnect-tray-symbolic: Used by KDE Connect

(everything above could also have their counterparts without "-symbolic")

• network-flightmode-on: Used by the network manager
• input-touchscreen: Used by system settings

Note that this is not an exhaustive list. Maybe we can refer to the new Breeze icon theme repository to find what's not included in Papirus.

[Bingo90]

The removable devices tray icon also shows a colored version, not a monochrome version - not sure this is intended

[stengun]

Relevant post from Nate:
https://pointieststick.com/2023/08/12/how-all-this-icon-stuff-is-going-to-work-in-plasma-6/

[d-avery]

I was about to make this same issue! Papirus is my favorite icon pack. Looking forward to using it with Plasma 6!

[monstorix]

Panel related adaptions was once mentioned by #3595.

[archisman-panigrahi]

Plasma 5

Plasma 6 (please ignore the annotation around the battery. Also the power icon changing to Plasma icon is a bug with that applet, it is not a Plasma issue.)

[dmaliog]

I support we are waiting for Plasma 6! Papirus is the best set!

[morganist]

do we make the symbolic klipper icon to be a generic metal clip icon ( ) used for clipman in xfce, for example? or perhaps a better solution would be to draw a new icon that would be more similar to the one breeze icon theme uses? ( )
also, we have a few klipper icons in various old plasma themes. those could be used too.

[morganist]

Okay guys, I don't think it is possible to have a solution right now. KDE colour scheme icons currently only have sizes up to 24px in Papirus, but the ones that were previously used inside the Plasma themes need to have 32px and 22px sizes. There's no place for symbolic 32px icons at the moment. And even after figuring out where to put them, the necessary scripts for preparing and converting the icons need to be modified. I managed to assemble a quick-and-dirty solution, but I think it is better not to merge it. We need restructuring. I guess I can finally understand what @SmartFinn meant by his harsh reaction to this change in Plasma 6.

[morganist]

I could even start adding some necessary 32px symbolic icons myself, perhaps in the apps folder or in a new folder somewhere, but I'm not experienced in the project structure and script writing, so I'll be waiting for Serhii to say his word.

[monstorix]

I could even start adding some necessary 32px symbolic icons myself, perhaps in the apps folder or in a new folder somewhere

It looks like KDE has done something similar to Breeze Icons 6. In one of Nate Graham's blog posts he said that Plasma 6 will adapt to the way GNOME uses the -symbolic suffix, which may mean that icon makers can put the symbolic icons in all sizes, alongside the coloured ones.

[morganist]

which may mean that icon makers can put the symbolic icons in all sizes, alongside the coloured ones.

@monstorix we could, but as I've said we need some non-trivial restructuring. The situation is dire because symbolic icons which are used in GNOME don't adapt their colour, but the icons with the KDE colourscheme support do. And now they are mixed up. I haven't given it much thought, but it seems like another challenge.

[SmartFinn]

Sorry, I don't have enough time to install KDE on my laptop to see the changes. I suppose that @monstorix @morganist is right, this is required some major changes to Papirus icon theme. KDE may need 22px, and 24px symbolic icons, that we don't support now.

I wrote a script that converts 16px icons into 22px, and 24px, sometime ago. So it shouldn't be a problem. However, we should find the right icon theme structure at first. Another way is creating a fork for Plasma 6.

[monstorix]

Another thing that may affect the works:
KDE VDG team is currently in the process of fully migrating (redrawing) the 22px Breeze icons to 24px, for better cross-compatibility with GTK size. Which may imply that Plasma will finally settle with 24px for standard monochrome/symbolic icons instead of 22px in current 6.0 version.

[SmartFinn]

Honestly, I can't remember any place in GTK where 24px icons are used. GNOME uses 16px in menus, buttons, panel, sidebars, and toolbars. 22px is using for appindicators and tray.

[monstorix]

Well, the GTK compatibility saying is also from Nate. It might not pointed to any specific DEs.

[Bingo90]

Couldn't we just use the icons from the Materia theme? They seem to fit quite well!

[morganist]

Couldn't we just use the icons from the Materia theme? They seem to fit quite well!

The problem is, every icon in materia plasma 5 theme (in all of them, really) has both 32px and 22px shapes inside the file: small icons are used for the panel and the bigger ones appear when you open the systray widget. Papirus has no place for these 32px symbolic icons yet, that's why it's not so simple.

[Bingo90]

Couldn't we just use the icons from the Materia theme? They seem to fit quite well!
The problem is, every icon in materia plasma 5 theme (in all of them, really) has both 32px and 22px shapes inside the file: small icons are used for the panel and the bigger ones appear when you open the systray widget. Papirus has no place for these 32px symbolic icons yet, that's why it's not so simple.

We'd have to do a lot of it manually, I guess, but for icons that we don't have in Papirus, we could just extract the 22px versions and put them in a separate SVG

[morganist]

We'd have to do a lot of it manually, I guess, but for icons that we don't have in Papirus, we could just extract the 22px versions and put them in a separate SVG

That's what i did locally before realising that we need restructuring. I've used plasma theme with materia icons myself.

[morganist]

Honestly, I can't remember any place in GTK where 24px icons are used. GNOME uses 16px in menus, buttons, panel, sidebars, and toolbars. 22px is using for appindicators and tray.

@SmartFinn if understand correctly, the KDE developers are talking about compatibility in a broader context — 22px icons aren't present in GTK at all, are they? That's why they want to get rid of them. As for the 24px icons, I actually wasn't able to find if they are used in any of my installed applications, but they are still in the specification and they are used if the app developer chooses to use them, right?

[SmartFinn]

@morganist

As for the 24px icons, I actually wasn't able to find if they are used in any of my installed applications, but they are still in the specification and they are used if the app developer chooses to use them, right?

The 24px actions icons are often using in GTK-based DE, such as Xfce, in toolbars. However, we're talking about symbolic icons that are mostly 16px. 24px symbolic icons are using in elementaryOS, and in Xfce 4 in few places.

[SmartFinn]

@morganist

Papirus has no place for these 32px symbolic icons yet, that's why it's not so simple.

16px symbolic icons are perfectly scaled to 32px. Rules in index.theme file allow it.

[morganist]

16px symbolic icons are perfectly scaled to 32px. Rules in index.theme file allow it.

@SmartFinn Neat, but there's an issue: all of them need to be adapted, because the icons in the symbolic directory lack KDE colour scheme support. For example, there's a pending merge request with symlinks for power profiles in symbolic directiry, but I've tried it and the icons have a different colour on a panel compared to the icons from the panel directory

[SmartFinn]

@morganist could you try to add these icons without -symbolic suffix. Maybe it's the right way to add Plasma 6 support to Papirus. Like @hexchain did it in #3606 (comment)