Im running a fully up to date install of Tumbleweed with the Plasma 5 desktop. Plasma 5 is surprisingly very stable, but I am having one issue. Though I can set my desktop theme to Breeze Dark, the login window and lock screen don’t change to match and are instead stuck on the regular Breeze theme. I’ve tried messing with the settings and clearing my configs, but nothing seems to get the login and lock screens to change to the darker theme. Anyone else seeing this behavior and have any luck getting it straightened out? Thanks.
The lock screen has its own theme settings in “Workspace Behaviour”->“Screen Locker”.
I don’t know whether a “Breeze Dark” theme exists for the locker, unfortunately there is no “Get new themes” button in its settings.
And the theme of the login screen is completely independent to the Plasma5 theme of course, especially the one set for the user. The login screen is a system-wide thing and has no idea about a single user’s settings. And which user’s settings should it use anyway, if there are more than one?
How to set the login screen theme (and which themes are available) would depend on what display manager you use in the first place.
For SDDM you can configure it in Systemsettings5->Startup and Shutdown->Login Screen (SDDM), for KDM you would need to run KDE4’s systemsettings, and so on. But the question is whether there is a “Dark Breeze” theme for your DM of choice. You might have to create one yourself.
Sorry, I can’t help you more, but you might try to ask in the KDE forums as well: http://forum.kde.org/
I did set the theme in the screen locker preferences to Breeze. In fact, the Breeze screenshot in the preferences window shows the dark theme, but when I click the preview option or I actually lock the screen it is the light theme that is associated with the openSUSE lock screen theme. I feel like a setting is being overridden somewhere in this case.
As for the login screen, I set it to the Breeze theme in the SDDM config options. There as well, it shows the dark theme in the preview, but in actuality is still the light theme.
I’ll keep playing with things and see what turns up.
But “Breeze” is not “Breeze Dark”.
Regarding the dark colors in the screen shot: yes, the default openSUSE theme causes also the Breeze screenlocker theme to change. Switch to breeze completely by choosing “Breeze” in “Desktop Appearance” (or whatever it is called)->“Look and Feel” and you should get the standard Breeze screenlocker with a dark background color.
As for the login screen, I set it to the Breeze theme in the SDDM config options. There as well, it shows the dark theme in the preview, but in actuality is still the light theme.
You might also try to install plasma5-workspace-branding-upstream to get rid of openSUSE’s branding.
Then the sddm breeze theme should look like on the screenshot at least.
Getting rid of the openSUSE theming allowed the upstream package to takeover and work correctly. Now my login screen is Breeze Dark, but I can’t get the lock screen to follow suit and go Breeze Dark despite having set the lock screen to use the dark theme. I’ll keep playing with it, but I’m one step closer than I was earlier.
No, it is “Breeze”, not “Breeze Dark”… 
but I can’t get the lock screen to follow suit and go Breeze Dark despite having set the lock screen to use the dark theme.
Well, I can reproduce this somewhat.
If I set “Breeze” in the “Look and Feel” settings, I get the dark “Breeze” lock screen (which is not “Breeze Dark” as already mentioned), even without uninstalling the openSUSE branding.
But if I switch the Plasma theme to “Breeze Dark” then, the lock screen gets light (and the panel as well :). Seems to be either by design or a bug (or maybe “Breeze Dark” is just not complete yet in 5.2.1?). Let’s see how this will look like in 5.2.2 and/or 5.3.0, I’d say…
Btw, if you want to have a dark Plasma theme and a dark lock screen, you might try the “openSUSE” plasma theme. That’s the black one that was default in 12.3 and 13.1 (the light 13.2 default is called “openSUSElight”).
For this you need to install plasma5-workspace-branding-openSUSE again though.
Yes, you’re correct that it only shows “Breeze” as an option on the screen locker page, but it shows the Breeze Dark widget theme in the screen locker preview. Very strange, but probably by 5.3 it will be sorted out.
No, it doesn’t.
But the screen locker uses a dark background in the standard Breeze theme since ever that theme exists. And that has been the case even before “Breeze Dark” has been created.
Very strange, but probably by 5.3 it will be sorted out.
Well, the “interactions” with “Breeze Dark” (i.e. that the screenlocker gets light when you switch to “Breeze Dark”) are a little unexpected at least I’d say.
I have no idea whether this is on purpose or not.
As I already indicated, you might also want to discuss this upstream in the KDE forums (you’d even reach the developers/designers there), or maybe even file bug reports at http://bugs.kde.org/. Although sometimes (especially with artwork) it’s hard to decide whether something is just a strange (but conscious) design decision or a bug…lol!
The screen locker config in system settings absolutely contains a preview thumbnail of the screen locker using the Breeze Dark widgets. When you click the live preview button on the thumbnail it then shows the regular Breeze widgets. Being that it shows the dark theme in that context, I’m think it should switch to it when my other widgets are set to Breeze Dark.
I’m thinking it might just be a bug somewhere in openSUSE because if I recall from when I played with the Kubuntu 15.04 previews, the lock screen widgets changed were dark to match the change in theme. I had a look at the KDE forums the other day and didn’t see anything on this, but I’ll look again and see if anything turns up there.
(Sigh)
Again: This is not “Dark Breeze”. This is how the screen locker looks like with the normal “Breeze” theme (yes, it is dark).
And AFAIK, “Dark Breeze” does not contain different widgets at all anyway. Have a look at /usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/breeze-dark/, there’s only a colors file and a panel background in there (I looked at that now, and it is indeed light gray, so that’s why my panel gets light when switching to “Breeze Dark”…).
But this is just nitpicking anyway…
When you click the live preview button on the thumbnail it then shows the regular Breeze widgets. Being that it shows the dark theme in that context, I’m think it should switch to it when my other widgets are set to Breeze Dark.
Again, the screen locker is dark with the standard Breeze theme, and light with the “Breeze Dark” theme.
The screenshot shows the standard “Breeze” screenlocker, with the “Breeze” widgets.
I’m thinking it might just be a bug somewhere in openSUSE because if I recall from when I played with the Kubuntu 15.04 previews, the lock screen widgets changed were dark to match the change in theme.
I don’t think it’s a bug in openSUSE when it also happens without openSUSE’s branding installed. The “Breeze Dark” desktop theme is actually part of plasma-framework itself, not the branding, which is not at all modifified by openSUSE: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/KDE:Frameworks5/plasma-framework
And openSUSE does not patch/modify Plasma5 either in a way that could cause this AFAIK.
And the screenlocker is dark with the standard “Breeze” theme for as long as I remember. And I did try it before 5.0 has been released, and long before there wasn’t any openSUSE branding which only got added with 5.0.95 in time for/shortly before the openSUSE 13.2 release. (of course there wasn’t a “Breeze Dark” theme yet back then…)
I have to admit though, that I haven’t really investigated in detail how Plasma5’s themes work.
If you do think this is an openSUSE bug, you should file a bug report at openSUSE’s bugzilla (http://bugzilla.opensuse.org/, same username/password as here)
Save your sighs my man. I just ran the latest Kubuntu 15.04 and when setting the widgets to Breeze Dark the lock screen starts using the light Breeze widget color scheme. If it’s just called Breeze in the lock screen settings then that’s fine. So it’s not a bug, it’s apparently designed that way, but it sure confused the hell out of me as is apparent from the above thread.
As you said, the locker changes light when the theme is Breeze Dark and vice versa. I guess my question then is, why? I set Breeze Dark because I think the dark widget theme is better than the light and I wanted it all uniformly dark. I find it a bit odd that it switches to light, but I guess it does that to contrast with the dark panel and other widgets. It’s minor in the grand scheme of things and I feel better now that I know it’s functioning properly even if it’s not 100% to what I was trying to do.
Thanks for all your help, I’m glad I established that I just didn’t understand the default behavior and that it wasn’t a bug that was going to drive me nuts.
Well, I would say this is either a bug, an oversight, or by design. I cannot tell you though, I didn’t design it.
Again, you probably might ask in the KDE forums. As mentioned you even reach the developers/designers there, they should know.