Arch Linux

Cheeto

Member

Registered: 2022-09-11

Posts: 64

[SOLVED] Help theming qt apps in gnome?

I read through https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unifor … figuration and am trying to use kvantum just because it has a short learning curve and a big support community.

If I'm understanding the wiki right, then it lines up with what guides around the web say, which is to set the theme in kvantum (in my case, KvGnomeDark) then setting the environment variable QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=kvantum. The wiki just says to "issue" that, but I don't know what that means, so I'm guessing it's what the other guides mean when they say to add the following line to ~/.profile

export QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=kvantum

So I've set the theme (and confirmed that it's set by checking ~/.config/Kvantum/kvantum.kvconfig), then I added the above line to ~/.profile, but no qt apps are themed, even after rebooting and opening them once, then closing and reopening.

What am I doing wrong?

The specific apps in question are Variety and pamac-manager. I eventually plan to possibly use some other qt apps (dolphin, kate, konsole), and it's not clear whether they're qt5 or qt6 or if I'll have to do anything different for them. Gonna hit the sack now, I'll follow up on this in the morning.

Last edited by Cheeto (2022-12-21 18:42:47)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,128

Re: [SOLVED] Help theming qt apps in gnome?

Whether .profile is parsed depends on how you are logging in, check whether the variable exists with e.g.

printenv QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE

if you are using a display manager, the "canonical" place is ~/.xprofile instead if you are loading up a wayland session potentially some others are parsed, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Environment_variables for the potential options.

Cheeto

Member

Registered: 2022-09-11

Posts: 64

Re: [SOLVED] Help theming qt apps in gnome?

Whether .profile is parsed depends on how you are logging in, check whether the variable exists with e.g.

printenv QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE

if you are using a display manager, the "canonical" place is ~/.xprofile instead if you are loading up a wayland session potentially some others are parsed, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Environment_variables for the potential options.

It's Wayland.

>> printenv QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE
# returns nothing

>> echo $QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE
# returns a blank line

I had read that arch wiki link before posting. A couple times. It's going waaaaay over my head but I'll check it out again. Soon chatGPT will be able to translate it, then I wonder how much use these forums will have .

In fact, going over it now--and this is just a newbie interpretation so be gentle--it appears that I may be able to add the line from my OP into the file /etc/profile. I guess it can't hurt to try, so I'll do that, log out and back in, then check the variable with those commands above and report back.

EDIT ======================================
Ok I did the above and now it returns kvantum as expected after a logout/login. However, apps like variety and pamac-manager are still their default light theme despite KvGnomeDark being set in kvantum.

EDIT ======================================
OK So...

=> kvantum shows the active theme is KvGnomeDark, and it changed it's own appearance in response to setting it.
=> the contents of ~/.config/Kvantum/kvantum.kvconfig are

[General]
theme=KvGnomeDark

=> I created ~/.profile and added the following line

export QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=kvantum

(that didn't appear to actually do anything to the variable though, so I'm going to delete it since I added it)

=> I added the following line to /etc/profile

export QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE=kvantum

=> as shown above, printenv QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE now finally does return

kvantum

EDIT ======================================
SOLVED (kinda)! So pamac-manager and variety, when downloaded in gnome, are apparently not qt apps, despite not following the system theme. Downloaded Konsole and it follows the theme as expected (it looks like gnome 42 or maybe earlier, but it's good enough for now, it's not blinding). Big oof, but that's how you learn and hopefully this thread can be of help to someone in the future.

I still need to figure out how to make these apps share the dark theme of the rest of the system.

EDIT ======================================
To theme the non-compliant GTK apps, I had to download gnome-tweaks and gnome-themes-extra, then in gnome-tweaks go to appearance and set legacy applications to Adwaita-dark.
So now all qt and gtk apps should have at least some dark mode enabled.

Last edited by Cheeto (2022-12-21 19:38:28)