Windows Modern — Style Specification

This document describes the visual style, color palette, and layout decisions for the Windows Modern KDE Plasma theme. It serves as a reference for maintaining consistency across all components.

Design Philosophy

The theme targets an authentic Windows 11 look on KDE Plasma 6. Two variants are provided:

Dark (Windows-modern-dark) — Win11 dark mode
Light (Windows-modern-light) — Win11 light mode

Each variant ships matching assets for the plasma desktop theme, aurorae window decoration, Kvantum Qt style, color scheme, and look-and-feel package.

Color Palette

Dark variant

Token	Hex	Usage
Window/panel background	`#202020`	Aurorae window decoration bg
Panel background (opaque)	`#1C1C1C`	Taskbar / panel fill when solid
Acrylic/popup background	`#2C2C2C`	Tooltips, flyouts, applet popups
Surface border (active)	`#3F3F3F`	Window borders, popup borders
Surface border (inactive)	`#2A2A2A`	Inactive window borders
Text (primary)	`#FFFFFF`	Title bar text, popup text, icons
Text (inactive)	`30,30,30 @ 50%`	Inactive title bar text
Highlight/accent	`#4CC2FF`	Focus indicators, links (Win11 SystemAccentColorLight2 — lighter shade for dark mode)
Button hover bg	`#3F3F3F`	Hover states
Button bg	`#2C2C2C`	Button backgrounds
Close hover	`#C42B1C`	Close button hover (Win11 red)
Close pressed	`#9E1B1B`	Close button pressed (Win11 dark red)

Light variant

Token	Hex	Usage
Window/panel background	`#F9F9F9`	Aurorae window decoration bg
Acrylic/popup background	`#F9F9F9`	Tooltips, flyouts, applet popups
View background	`#FFFFFF`	List views, input fields
Surface border (active)	`#E5E5E5`	Window borders, popup borders
Surface border (inactive)	`#D5D5D5`	Inactive window borders
Text (primary)	`#1E1E1E`	Title bar text, popup text, icons
Text (inactive)	`153,153,153`	Inactive title bar text
Highlight/accent	`#0067C0`	Focus indicators, links (Win11 SystemAccentColorDark1 — darker shade for light mode)
Button hover bg	`#E9E9E9`	Hover states
Button bg	`#F3F3F3`	Button backgrounds
Close hover	`#C42B1C`	Close button hover (Win11 red)
Close pressed	`#9E1B1B`	Close button pressed (Win11 dark red)

Color values are sourced from the WinUI 3 (microsoft-ui-xaml) theme resource dictionaries.

Components

Plasma Desktop Theme

Location: plasma/desktoptheme/Windows-modern-{dark,light}/

Based on the Win11OS-dark plasma theme by yeyushengfan258, with all .svgz files expanded to .svg and the following modifications:

Panel background (`widgets/panel-background.svg`)

Dark fill #1C1C1C when opaque (Win11 taskbar color); dialog and popup backgrounds (background.svg) remain #2C2C2C.
No shadow — all shadow-* elements set to opacity:0, shadow-hint-*-margin rects zeroed (width/height = 0).
48px panel height supported (Win11 taskbar height) — the SVG hint margins scale cleanly to the taller panel; the original 30px is also still usable.
Three variants maintained: widgets/, solid/widgets/, translucent/widgets/.
Light variant uses reduced border opacity (0.08 vs 0.3) for visibility on light backgrounds.

Panel layout template (`plasma/layout-templates/org.kde.windowsmodern.panel/`)

A Plasma 6 layout-template package that builds a Win11-style taskbar when selected from Add Panels in the desktop context menu, or applied via kpackagetool6. Installed to ~/.local/share/plasma/layout-templates/ (or /usr/share/ as root) by install.sh.

The contents/layout.js creates:

Bottom panel, 48px tall (resizable after adding; 30-32px also works well), alignment=center, lengthMode=fill, no auto-hide.
Panel docked to screen edge (floating=false). "Applets Only" floating (applets inset, panel docked) cannot be set from a layout script — the floatingApplets PanelView property is not exposed in the Plasma scripting API, and writing it via ConfigFile doesn't work because plasmashell holds config in memory. Users must toggle "Floating → Applets Only" manually in Panel Settings after adding.
Opaque background (panel.opacity="opaque") — no adaptive translucency toggling when windows touch the panel.
Widgets left→right:
1. Left expanding spacer — org.kde.plasma.panelspacer. Pushes the Start + tasks group to the horizontal center of the panel, matching Win11's centered taskbar.
2. Start — org.kde.plasma.kickoff (icon start-here). A custom Windows-logo icon is provided, with both a scalable version and a fixed 48/apps/start-here.svg that draws the logo at 30px so it matches the app-icon size on a 48px panel.
3. Icon-only task manager — org.kde.plasma.icontasks (grouped by app, sits immediately to the right of Start in the centered group)
4. Right expanding spacer — org.kde.plasma.panelspacer. Separates the centered Start + tasks group from the system tray on the far right.
5. System tray — org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray
6. Digital clock — org.kde.windowsmodern.digitalclock (with a fallback to org.kde.plasma.digitalclock). Stacked date below the time, no seconds by default, use24hFormat=1 so it follows the user's locale. The compact view uses compactPadding (default 0.18) so the text height matches the icon-task icon area instead of spanning the full panel. The expanded popup is a dark rounded Windows 11 calendar with month navigation, current-day blue circle, hover highlights, and optional KDE calendar event dots.
7. Show Desktop — org.kde.windowsmodern.showdesktop, a custom forked applet (see below). Renders as a 6px-wide bare sliver with no icon. Click minimizes all windows; click again restores.

The template does not replace an existing panel automatically; users add it via right-click desktop → Add Panels → "Windows Modern Panel".

In addition, each look-and-feel package ships the same layout as contents/layouts/org.kde.plasma.desktop-layout.js (the file name Plasma 6 expects for the default org.kde.plasma.desktop shell). When a user applies the global theme in System Settings → Appearance → Global Theme and chooses to use the desktop layout from the theme, Plasma removes any existing panels and creates the Windows Modern Panel automatically.

Show Desktop applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.showdesktop/`)

A simplified fork of Zren's plasma-applet-win7showdesktop (which itself forks KDE's org.kde.plasma.showdesktop). Stripped to the essentials for the Win11 look:

Thin sliver — Layout.maximumWidth is driven by the size config key (default 6px), overriding the upstream 22px floor.
No icon — the Kirigami.Icon is only visible in edit mode.
Minimize-all — uses MinimizeAllController (toggle minimize on all windows) rather than peek.
Win11 hover indicator — invisible by default. On hover, a 1px vertical line (50% of panel height, centered) fades in at 50% text color alpha. No background fill, no separator line — matches Win11 exactly.
No active indicator — no overlay when windows are minimized.

Removed from the upstream fork: command controller, mousewheel volume, peek-on-hover, openSUSE qdbus detection, Plasma5Support.DataSource.

Config keys (contents/config/main.xml): size (int, default 6), edgeColor (string, empty = theme text color @ 50% alpha for the hover line). Installed to ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/ (or /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/ as root) by install.sh.

Start Menu applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.startmenu/`)

A Win11-style start menu ported from the reference plasmoid com.jeysef.windowsmodernstartmenu. The monolithic 3307-line MenuRepresentation.qml is split into a clean shell (MenuRepresentation.qml) plus independent pages (PinnedPage.qml, AllAppsPage.qml, SearchPage.qml) and shared grid components (see file tree below).

Phase 1 (complete):

PlasmaCore.Dialog with Floating location, positioned relative to the panel button via parent.mapToGlobal.
Search field with rounded corners (radius: smallSpacing*3) and subtle border (12% text color alpha), Segoe UI font.
Left column switches between three states (not a SwipeView): Pinned (favorites vertical list), All Apps (alphabetical vertical list), Search (filter pills + runner results).
Right column with user avatar and a vertical list of system locations (Home, Documents, Pictures, Music, etc.).
Compound bottom bar with a search field on the left and a split "Shut down" button on the right that opens a power-options popup.
AToolButton with rounded corners (radius: smallSpacing), gray border, subtle hover (rgba 0.3).
Config UI: icon picker, icon sizes, display position, right-column visibility, all-apps sort mode.

Phase 2 (pending): pinned folders, all-apps folders, launch-frequency tracking, smart context labels, and a /-prefix command palette. See docs/STARTMENU_PLAN.md for the full plan.

Imports: Modern Qt6 style (no version numbers except org.kde.plasma.private.kicker 0.1 and org.kde.kitemmodels 1.0). KPlugin.Id: org.kde.windowsmodern.startmenu, License GPL-3.0-or-later, Author Jeysef.

Digital Clock applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.digitalclock/`)

A pure-QML fork of the upstream org.kde.plasma.digitalclock, rebranded as org.kde.windowsmodern.digitalclock and redrawn with Windows 11 visuals. It reuses the upstream Plasma clock and calendar backends (org.kde.plasma.clock, org.kde.plasma.private.digitalclock, org.kde.plasma.workspace.calendar) so all KDE functionality is preserved: time/date formatting, time zones, calendar events, week numbers, and calendar plugins.

Win11 refinements over upstream:

Padded compact clock — compactPadding (default 0.18) caps the text height so the clock visually matches the icon-task icon area instead of spanning the full panel height. Works with both Automatic and Manual text display modes.
Theme-aware rounded popup — the popup fill, border and shadow are supplied by the Plasma theme's dialogs/background.svg (#2C2C2C/#F9F9F9 fill with #3F3F3F/#E5E5E5 border), 8px corner radius, sized by expandedWidth (default 320px). Text colors come from the Win11 palette via Win11Palette.
Win11 time header — large seconds-capable time with AM/PM rendered smaller and raised, plus a locale-aware "dddd, MMMM d" date line.
Win11 calendar grid — month/year header with custom chevron buttons, localized day-of-week header, 6-week grid, current day as a solid accent circle (#4CC2FF dark / #0067C0 light), hover/pressed rounded rectangles (#3F3F3F/#E9E9E9), selected day as a subtle rounded rectangle (#2C2C2C/#F3F3F3), and previous/next month days dimmed. Days scale slightly when pressed and colors animate.
Event dots — small colored dots under days that have events from enabled KDE calendar plugins; hovering a day with events shows a tooltip with the event summaries.
Dynamic navigation — mouse wheel over the grid flips months, arrow keys move the selection, Page Up/Down flips months, Home jumps to today, and clicking a day from the previous/next month jumps to that month. Month changes cross-fade.
Time zone list — shown in the popup when multiple time zones are configured.

Removed interactions: pin on middle-click, calendar launch, clipboard time copy, and wheel-to-switch-timezone.

Config keys are the same as upstream plus compactPadding (double) and expandedWidth (int). Build and install with ./install.sh digitalclock.

System Tray applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray/`)

A C++ fork of the upstream Plasma system tray, rebranded as org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray and restyled with Windows 11 visuals. It is a full Plasma::Containment, so child applets (network, volume, battery, clipboard, notifications, etc.) appear and disappear automatically. The QML UI is embedded in the compiled .so; a separate KPackage must not be installed (it causes the dark-rectangle popup bug). See docs/SYSTEMTRAY_ARCHITECTURE.md and plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray/BUILD.md.

Icon Tasks applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.icontasks/`)

A C++ fork of the upstream org.kde.plasma.taskmanager (from plasma-desktop), rebranded as org.kde.windowsmodern.icontasks and restyled with Windows 11 tooltip visuals. The C++ backend is preserved unchanged (jump lists, places, recent docs, app categories, smart launcher badges, audio stream matching). The QML UI is forked from upstream with minimal Win11 refinements:

Always icons-only — iconsOnly hardcoded to true.
Hidden subtext in thumbnail mode — desktop/activity info ("On Desktop 2") is hidden when a window thumbnail is visible (Win11 behavior — it's noise when the preview already shows the window).
Subtle close button — replaces the upstream PlasmaComponents3.ToolButton with a minimal X icon pinned to the far right of the header row. Background is transparent by default and turns Win11 red #C42B1C on hover; pressed is #9E1B1B.
Rounded thumbnail corners — PipeWire thumbnail clipped to 8px rounded corners via OpacityMask (Win11 thumbnails are rounded).

No font is forced — the global Kirigami.Theme.defaultFont is used throughout, matching the rest of the desktop.

The QML UI is embedded in the compiled .so; a separate KPackage must not be installed. Build and install with ./dev.sh or ./install.sh icontasks. See plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.icontasks/BUILD.md.

The panel layout template and look-and-feel layout scripts use org.kde.windowsmodern.icontasks instead of org.kde.plasma.icontasks.

Popups / tooltips

The following files were rewritten as clean 9-patch SVGs with authentic Win11 colors (replacing the original hardcoded light color schemes that caused unreadable white popups on dark theme):

File	Purpose	Corners	Margin hints
`widgets/tooltip.svg`	Hover tooltips	8px radius, 1px Fluent stroke	8px
`dialogs/background.svg`	Dialog/popup backgrounds	7px	8px
`widgets/background.svg`	Applet/widget backgrounds	7px	8px
`widgets/translucentbackground.svg`	Translucent applet popups	7px	8px

All four exist in both widgets/, solid/widgets/, and translucent/widgets/ as needed, with consistent colors.

Tooltips use a subtle 1 px Fluent stroke baked into the 9-patch edge/corner tiles (dark: white #14FFFFFF, light: black #14000000) to avoid the double-border artifact caused by an SVG stroke against the tooltip window edge. The fill matches the acrylic/popup spec for the default and translucent variants (#2C2C2C dark, #F9F9F9 light) while solid fallbacks keep #323130 dark and use #F0F0F0 light. The soft outer drop shadow is 8px deep (matching the 8px corner radius so the shadow curves around the rounded body rather than forming a square frame) at 0.16 dark / 0.14 light opacity for a Win11 elevation penumbra.

Slider (`widgets/slider.svg` + Kvantum)

System-wide slider styling across Plasma applets and Kvantum (Qt apps). The system tray flyout uses the default PlasmaComponents3.Slider, which inherits the themed look.

Element	Dark	Light
Filled track	`ColorScheme-Highlight` = `#4CC2FF` (luminous cyan)	`ColorScheme-Highlight` = `#0067C0` (royal blue)
Unfilled track	`ColorScheme-Text` @ 25% opacity (medium grey)	`ColorScheme-Text` @ 25% opacity (medium-dark grey)
Knob outer ring	`ColorScheme-Background` (dark grey)	`ColorScheme-Background` (white) with `#D5D5D5` border
Knob inner circle	`ColorScheme-Highlight` (cyan)	`ColorScheme-Highlight` (royal blue)
Hover/focus glow	`ColorScheme-Highlight` @ 20-30% opacity	`ColorScheme-Highlight` @ 20-30% opacity

Kvantum — slider_width=4, slider_handle_width=16. The slidercursor-* SVG elements render the two-circle knob (outer ring
- inner accent). Groove elements use solid fills (slider-normal-* for unfilled, slider-toggled-* for filled).
Plasma theme — widgets/slider.svg uses the same two-circle knob design. Both groove and knob use ColorScheme-* CSS classes with fill="currentColor" — the filled track and knob inner circle use ColorScheme-Highlight, the unfilled track uses ColorScheme-Text at 25% opacity, and the knob outer ring uses ColorScheme-Background. This makes the slider automatically follow the per-variant accent without hardcoded hex values.

Switch / toggle (`widgets/switch.svg`)

Renders the on/off toggle switches used in Plasma applet popups (e.g. network, Bluetooth, do-not-disturb). The original asset made the off-state track and thumb the same color as the popup background, so the switch was invisible against popups.

Element	Class	Notes
Off track fill	none (transparent)	Pill outline only
Off track border	`ColorScheme-Text`	1 px stroked outline, `stroke-linecap=round` for seamless joints
On track fill	`ColorScheme-Highlight`	Solid accent from the color scheme
On track border	none	Filled pill, no visible stroke
Knob (both states)	`ColorScheme-Text`	Same color as text — visible on both transparent off-track and accent on-track
Knob border	none	Flat, borderless
Focus/hover ring	`ColorScheme-Highlight`	12 px accent ring around the 10 px knob

Both states share the same outer track size (38 × 16 px hint) and knob.
The off track is a transparent pill outline stroked in ColorScheme-Text — no fill, so the popup background shows through. stroke-linecap=round ensures the 9-patch arc/line joints are seamless.
The on track is a solid accent pill with no border.
The knob uses ColorScheme-Text so it is always visible: white in dark mode (on blue track) and dark in light mode (hole effect on blue track).
The knob is 10 px inside a 16 px handle bounding box, giving 3 px transparent padding on all sides so it never touches the track edge.

Taskbar (`widgets/tasks.svg`)

Rendered by the upstream org.kde.plasma.icontasks applet (the panel layout template uses it). The SVG supplies the hover/focus background visuals:

State	Dark	Light
Hover fill	`#0FFFFFFF` (~6% white)	`#09000000` (~3.5% black)
Hover border	`#08FFFFFF` (~3% white)	`#08000000` (~3% black)
Focus/pressed fill	`#17FFFFFF` (9% white)	`#17000000` (9% black)
Corner radius	4 px	4 px
Border thickness	1 px	1 px

Group expander removed — the group-expander-* groups (white circle with + icon) are emptied. Windows 11 does not show a plus indicator on grouped taskbar buttons.
Inactive app indicator #858585 — the running-indicator strip under normal/minimized task buttons uses solid #858585 at full opacity in both dark and light variants. Active/hover indicators use the per-variant accent (#4CC2FF dark / #0067C0 light).

Note: upstream icontasks is now a compiled C++ plugin, so exact 40×40 px hover-box sizing and a separate mouse-down pressed state can only be controlled from the SVG/theme level. The values above are the closest match using the Plasma desktop theme.

Icons

165 SVG icon files inherited from Win11OS-dark. A few icons (caffeine.svg, microphone.svg, update.svg) have their own embedded color schemes; these are intentional and not modified.

Aurorae Window Decoration

Location: aurorae/windows-modern-{dark,light}-aurorae/

Layout (`*.rc`)

BorderTop=1        BorderBottom=1      BorderLeft=1      BorderRight=1
PaddingTop=0       PaddingBottom=0     PaddingLeft=0     PaddingRight=0
TitleHeight=30     TitleHeightMaximized=30
ButtonWidth=46     ButtonHeight=30     ButtonSpacing=0
TitleEdgeLeft=8    ExplicitButtonSpacer=10

1px borders on all sides, zero padding — window content goes edge-to-edge with only the 1px decoration border.
Title height 30px (authentic Win11 proportions).
BorderSize=Tiny is auto-set in kwinrc by install.sh.

Decoration SVG (`decoration.svg`)

Rewritten with minimal 1px border elements:

Edge elements (top/bottom/left/right) are 1x1px.
Corner elements are 2x2px (1px border + 1px fill overlap).
Active border: #3F3F3F (dark) / #E5E5E5 (light).
Inactive border: #2A2A2A (dark) / #D5D5D5 (light).
Background via currentColor / ColorScheme-Background.

Button SVGs

46x30px buttons, icon centered in a 22x22 area.
Normal state: transparent background (0.003 opacity hit rect).
Hover state: close = #C42B1C red, others = subtle overlay.
Pressed state: #000000 at 0.1 opacity.
Icons: #FFFFFF (dark theme) / #1E1E1E (light theme).
Deactivated: icon at 0.1 opacity.

Kvantum Qt Style

Location: Kvantum/Windows-modern/

SVG-based Qt widget theme. The directory contains the base light theme (Windows-modern.kvconfig / .svg) and its dark variant (Windows-modernDark.kvconfig / .svg). KDE switches between them automatically by using the kvantum and kvantum-dark widget styles. Based on the Fluent Kvantum theme by Vince Liuice (itself derived from KvAdapta by Tsu Jan), with colors remapped to authentic Win11 values. The Fluent base was chosen over the previous KvAdapta/Materia base because it already ships Win11 proportions (check_size=20, progressbar_thickness=10, spread_menuitems=true, attach_active_tab=true, toolbutton_style=0, merge_menubar_with_toolbar=false) and a cleaner SVG element set (flatbutton, tbutton, proper inactive text colors, fuller frame definitions).

Compositing model

Both variants use the translucent model — composite=true, translucent_windows=true, blurring=true, popup_blurring=true. Kvantum handles popup shadows (menu_shadow_depth=5, tooltip_shadow_depth=2, shadowless_popup=false) and acrylic-style blur behind menus/tooltips. The SVG menu-shadow-* and tooltip-shadow-* element trees are intact and render as soft drop shadows via compositing.

`[GeneralColors]` palette

The Fluent neutrals were replaced with authentic Win11 values sourced from WinUI 3. Win11 uses different accent shades per mode: SystemAccentColorLight2 (#4CC2FF) in dark mode and SystemAccentColorDark1 (#0067C0) in light mode — both derived from the base SystemAccentColor (#0078D4). The accent is baked into the SVG indicator elements (checkbox marks, radio dots, progressbar fill, focus rings).

Token	Dark	Light
`window`	`#202020`	`#F9F9F9`
`base` / `alt.base`	`#2C2C2C`	`#FFFFFF` / `#F8F8F8`
`button`	`#2C2C2C`	`#F3F3F3`
`light` (hover)	`#3F3F3F`	`#E9E9E9`
`mid.light`	`#3F3F3F`	`#E9E9E9`
`dark`	`#1F1F1F`	`#E5E5E5`
`highlight` / `link`	`#4CC2FF`	`#0067C0`
`inactive.highlight`	`#4CC2FF74`	`#0067C074`
`text`	`#FFFFFF`	`#1E1E1E`
`disabled.text`	`#5A5A5A`	`#A0A0A0`

Per-section text.*.color values throughout the config follow the same mapping (dark = #FFFFFF, light = #1E1E1E), with #ffffff preserved for pressed/toggled states (white-on-accent) and the per-variant accent (#4CC2FF dark / #0067C0 light) for GroupBox focus labels.

Key `[%General]` behavior

Inherited from Fluent (already Win11-correct):

spread_menuitems=true — menu items span full menu width (Win11).
attach_active_tab=true — active tab attaches to content below.
merge_menubar_with_toolbar=false, toolbutton_style=0.
progressbar_thickness=10, check_size=20 (Win11 proportions).
transient_scrollbar=true (auto-hide scrollbars).
animate_states=false (Fluent disables state animations).
left_tabs=true, combo_as_lineedit=true, combo_menu=true.
x11drag=menubar_and_primary_toolbar.

`[Hacks]`

Inherited from Fluent: transparent_ktitle_label=true, transparent_dolphin_view=true, transparent_pcmanfm_sidepane=true, transparent_pcmanfm_view=true, transparent_menutitle=true, transparent_arrow_button=true, respect_darkness=true (both variants), force_size_grip=true, iconless_pushbutton=false (both variants), single_top_toolbar=true, kcapacitybar_as_progressbar=true.

SVG element fills

The Fluent SVG fills were remapped to Win11 neutrals. The accent was updated to per-variant shades (#4CC2FF dark / #0067C0 light). Key mappings:

Fluent color	Win11 target	Role
`#2B2B2B`	`#2C2C2C`	base/button/control backgrounds
`#333333`	`#2C2C2C` (dark) / `#F9F9F9` (light)	menu body, dock, header
`#3C3C3C`	`#3F3F3F`	header/dock borders
`#dedede`	`#FFFFFF` (dark text/icons)	secondary text, unchecked marks
`#000000`	unchanged	bevel/shadow overlays (translucent)
`#0078D4`	`#4CC2FF` (dark) / `#0067C0` (light)	accent (checkbox/radio marks, progress, focus)
`#202020`	unchanged	window/menubar/titlebar bg (dark)
`#f04a50`	`#C42B1C` (close) / text color (others)	mdi caption-button hover glyphs
`#0078D4` (pressed)	text color	mdi caption-button pressed glyphs
`#b74aff`	unchanged	shadow hint markers (arbitrary)

Shadow elements (menu-shadow-*, tooltip-shadow-*) use gradient fills and #343031/#26272a shells — left intact as they render correctly under compositing.

Color Schemes

Location: color-schemes/WindowsModern{Dark,Light}.colors

KDE color scheme files defining system-wide colors for widgets, selections, tooltips, etc. Rewritten with Win11 values: ColorScheme=WindowsModernDark / WindowsModernLight (the previous McMojave / McMojaveLight leftovers were removed). Dark uses BackgroundNormal=32,32,32 for windows and 44,44,44 for buttons; light uses 249,249,249 / 243,243,243. Selection accent is 76,194,255 (#4CC2FF) in dark and 0,103,192 (#0067C0) in light — matching Win11's SystemAccentColorLight2 and SystemAccentColorDark1 respectively.

Look-and-Feel

Location: plasma/look-and-feel/org.kde.windowsmodern.{dark,light}/

The contents/defaults file wires everything together:

[kwinrc][org.kde.kdecoration2]
library=org.kde.kwin.aurorae
theme=__aurorae__svg__windows-modern-{dark,light}-aurorae

[plasmarc][Theme]
name=Windows-modern-{dark,light}

[kdeglobals][Icons]
Theme=windows-modern

[kdeglobals][General]
ColorScheme=WindowsModern{Dark,Light}

Each package also contains contents/layouts/org.kde.plasma.desktop-layout.js, the Plasma 6 desktop layout script for the default org.kde.plasma.desktop shell. When the global theme is applied and the user opts in to the theme's desktop layout, this script first removes any existing panels and then creates the Windows Modern Panel (see the Panel layout template section above) with the Win11-style centered taskbar, start menu, system tray, clock, and show-desktop sliver.

Session Lock Screen (Meta+L)

Location: plasma/shells/org.kde.windowsmodern.lockscreen/

A Windows 11-style session lock screen. kscreenlocker resolves the lock screen from the current desktop shell package (org.kde.plasma.desktop), so this is installed as a complete user-level overlay of that shell: install-sessionlock.sh symlinks every system contents/ directory back to the system shell except lockscreen, which is replaced with our custom Windows Modern QML. The shell package is always kept complete — an incomplete shell triggers the ugly Qt widget fallback. On uninstall, the entire user shell directory is removed.

Files under contents/lockscreen/:

File	Purpose
`LockScreen.qml`	Root item (kscreenlocker entry point).
`LockScreenUi.qml`	Background, clock, status icons, unlock UI, footer.
`MainBlock.qml`	Password entry block (avatar, username, MDL2 field).
`NoPasswordUnlock.qml`	Direct unlock when no password is set.
`MediaControls.qml`	Idle media playback controls (MPRIS).
`config.qml` / `config.xml`	Config UI + schema (clock, media controls).
`qmldir`	QML module definition.

Design (Win11 dark palette):

Background: KDE-configured wallpaper via WallpaperFader (same as Breeze), with a #000000 @ 0.45 overlay when the unlock UI is visible.
Clock: Centered, upper-middle. Segoe UI DemiBold 96px time, 24px date (#E0E0E0). Visible only when idle; fades out when unlocking.
Status icons: Bottom-right, icon-only (network, volume, battery). Idle only.
Power menu: #2C2C2C fill, #3F3F3F border, #33FFFFFF item hover.
Password field: 1px border, #A0A0A0 idle / #4CC2FF focus (dark accent SystemAccentColorLight2).
Login button: go-next, #A0A0A0 idle / #4CC2FF hover.
Animations: Kirigami.Units.veryLongDuration * 2 (~800ms), InOutQuad easing.

Boot Greeter / Login Screen (Plasma Login Manager)

Location: plasma/look-and-feel/org.kde.windowsmodern.dark/contents/lockscreen/ (theme QML) and third_party/plasma-login-manager/ (patched upstream submodule, KDE invent Plasma/6.6 branch).

The boot greeter (display-manager login screen) is a patched build of plasma-login-manager. The patch (patches/main-cpp.patch) makes the greeter's main.cpp load our Main.qml from the dark look-and-feel's contents/lockscreen/ instead of the bundled qrc resource, trying the system path first then the user path.

File	Purpose
`Main.qml`	Root greeter: blurred wallpaper + dark overlay, clock, login stack, user switcher, footer.
`Login.qml`	Login block: avatar, username, password field, GreeterState sync.
`SessionButton.qml`	Desktop session selector (Wayland/X11).
`KeyboardButton.qml`	Keyboard layout switcher.
`faces/.face.icon`	Default avatar.
`patches/main-cpp.patch`	Patches `main.cpp` to load our `Main.qml`.

The greeter QML reuses the same Win11 dark palette as the session lock screen (clock, power menu, password field colors). The wallpaper defaults to the Windows Modern dark wallpaper installed system-wide (/usr/share/wallpapers/Windows-modern/contents/images_dark/2560x1440.png); install-greeter-live.sh ensures it exists.

Because this replaces the system login manager, it is opt-in and not included in install.sh all:

./install.sh greeter (or scripts/install-greeter.sh) — builds the patched greeter and installs the theme to the user dir for --test mode.
sudo bash scripts/install-greeter-live.sh — installs the patched binary system-wide (backs up /usr/libexec/plasma-login-greeter to .orig, requires typed YES).
./scripts/update-plm.sh [branch] — updates the PLM submodule, reapplies patches, rebuilds.

Revert: sudo bash scripts/uninstall-greeter-system.sh (restores from .orig or reinstalls the distro package).

Icons

Location: icons/windows-modern/ (gitignored — ~145MB)

Curated Windows-11-style icon theme assembled from multiple upstream packs (Eleven, Fluent, Cobalt, Windows-Eleven, Win11, We10X, Fluentwin, Windows-Beuty), restructured to a clean freedesktop layout: <size>/<context>/ fixed tiers (8, 16, 22, 24, 32, 48, 64 + @2x where genuine HiDPI art exists), scalable/<context>/ (16-256px), and symbolic/<context>/ (8-512px monochrome). The original dual-layout duplication (parallel <context>/<size>/ trees with conflicting artwork) was removed along with 23,340 byte-identical @2x copies, cutting the theme from 583MB / 98k SVGs to 145MB / 25k SVGs (7,313 unique names). Orphaned status/weatheralt/ weather icons were migrated to scalable/status/. index.theme rewritten with 88 directory entries and correct Context=Categories (was Applications) labeling. Inherits breeze-dark,hicolor. The icon-theme.cache is rebuilt at install time via gtk-update-icon-cache.

Start-here icon

A custom Windows-logo start menu icon is shipped as scalable/apps/start-here.svg and 48/apps/start-here.svg:

The scalable version is used at most panel heights.
The 48px fixed version draws the logo at exactly 30px (matching icontasks app icons on a 48px panel) instead of scaling the full-canvas logo up to the panel height.
start-here-kde.svg and start-here-kde-plasma.svg are symlinks to start-here.svg in both scalable/apps/ and 48/apps/ so any Plasma fallback icon name uses the same glyph.

Install / Uninstall

Install

Interactive menu (recommended for first install):

./install.sh

Install everything non-interactively:

./install.sh all

Install individual components:

./install.sh themes      # Aurorae, colors, Kvantum, Plasma themes, wallpapers
./install.sh icons       # Icon pack
./install.sh lookfeel    # Global themes
./install.sh layout      # Panel layout template
./install.sh showdesk    # Show Desktop applet
./install.sh startmenu   # Start Menu applet
./install.sh systray     # System Tray applet (C++ — see below)
./install.sh applets     # All three applets

Copies all themes to ~/.local/share/ (user) or /usr/share/ (root), then automatically sets BorderSize=Tiny in kwinrc and reconfigures KWin so window decorations have no extra padding.

System Tray

The System Tray applet is a compiled C++ Plasma::Containment. Install it with:

./install.sh systray

This builds the .so, removes any conflicting KPackage, prunes stale local copies, and restarts plasmashell. Build dependencies are listed in plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray/BUILD.md.

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh all       # Remove everything
./uninstall.sh themes    # Remove theme components
./uninstall.sh icons     # Remove icon pack
./uninstall.sh systray   # Remove system tray plugin
# ... etc.

Removes theme directories and resets BorderSize to Normal.

Repository Structure

windows_modern2/
├── aurorae/
│   ├── windows-modern-dark-aurorae/     # Dark window decoration
│   └── windows-modern-light-aurorae/    # Light window decoration
├── color-schemes/
│   ├── WindowsModernDark.colors
│   └── WindowsModernLight.colors
├── Kvantum/
│   └── Windows-modern/                   # Kvantum Qt style (light + dark variants)
├── icons/
│   └── windows-modern/                   # Curated Win11 icon theme (gitignored)
├── plasma/
│   ├── applets/
│   │   ├── org.kde.windowsmodern.showdesktop/     # Win11 thin-show-desktop sliver
│   │   ├── org.kde.windowsmodern.startmenu/       # Win11 Start Menu
│   │   └── org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray/      # Win11 system tray
│   ├── desktoptheme/
│   │   ├── Windows-modern-dark/         # Dark plasma theme (165 SVGs)
│   │   └── Windows-modern-light/        # Light plasma theme (165 SVGs)
│   ├── layout-templates/
│   │   └── org.kde.windowsmodern.panel/ # Win11 centered taskbar layout
│   ├── look-and-feel/
│   │   ├── org.kde.windowsmodern.dark/  # Dark global theme (+ boot greeter QML)
│   │   └── org.kde.windowsmodern.light/ # Light global theme
│   └── shells/
│       └── org.kde.windowsmodern.lockscreen/ # Session lock (Meta+L) QML
├── third_party/
│   └── plasma-login-manager/             # Patched PLM submodule (boot greeter)
├── wallpaper/
├── docs/
│   └── STYLE.md                         # This file
├── install.sh
├── uninstall.sh
└── README.md

Credits

Plasma desktop theme based on Win11OS-kde by yeyushengfan258 (GPL 3.0).
Win11 color values verified from microsoft-ui-xaml theme resources.
Kvantum theme based on Fluent-kde by vinceliuice.
mjkim0727 — Eleven icon pack.
vinceliuice — Fluent icon pack.
Eisteed — Menu11 - Next start menu plasmoid, used as a reference for the Windows Modern Start Menu (forked from adhec/OnzeMenuKDE).
Zren / Chris Holland — upstream Show Desktop applet (win7showdesktop).
Window decoration, popup SVGs, icon curation, applets, and integration by Jeysef.
Additional icon pack sources are credited in ATTRIBUTION.md.

License

GNU GPL v3

FilesExpand file tree

STYLE.md

Latest commit

History

STYLE.md

File metadata and controls

Windows Modern — Style Specification

Design Philosophy

Color Palette

Dark variant

Light variant

Components

Plasma Desktop Theme

Panel background (widgets/panel-background.svg)

Panel layout template (plasma/layout-templates/org.kde.windowsmodern.panel/)

Show Desktop applet (plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.showdesktop/)

Start Menu applet (plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.startmenu/)

Digital Clock applet (plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.digitalclock/)

System Tray applet (plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray/)

Icon Tasks applet (plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.icontasks/)

Popups / tooltips

Slider (widgets/slider.svg + Kvantum)

Switch / toggle (widgets/switch.svg)

Taskbar (widgets/tasks.svg)

Icons

Aurorae Window Decoration

Layout (*.rc)

Decoration SVG (decoration.svg)

Button SVGs

Kvantum Qt Style

Compositing model

[GeneralColors] palette

Key [%General] behavior

[Hacks]

SVG element fills

Color Schemes

Look-and-Feel

Session Lock Screen (Meta+L)

Boot Greeter / Login Screen (Plasma Login Manager)

Icons

Start-here icon

Install / Uninstall

Install

System Tray

Uninstall

Repository Structure

Credits

License

Panel background (`widgets/panel-background.svg`)

Panel layout template (`plasma/layout-templates/org.kde.windowsmodern.panel/`)

Show Desktop applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.showdesktop/`)

Start Menu applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.startmenu/`)

Digital Clock applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.digitalclock/`)

System Tray applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.systemtray/`)

Icon Tasks applet (`plasma/applets/org.kde.windowsmodern.icontasks/`)

Slider (`widgets/slider.svg` + Kvantum)

Switch / toggle (`widgets/switch.svg`)

Taskbar (`widgets/tasks.svg`)

Layout (`*.rc`)

Decoration SVG (`decoration.svg`)

`[GeneralColors]` palette

Key `[%General]` behavior

`[Hacks]`