Migrated from 14.04 LTS to 16.04 LTS; now want to make a few tweaks in Plasma

[seascape]

After many hours of work, I have succeeded in migrating from Kubuntu 14.04 LTS to 16.04.1 LTS. I waited a few months to do it in the hopes that any bugs would be squashed. I opted not to perform an operating system upgrade, instead wiping out my root partition and installing from scratch, while keeping my /home partition. It took some work to reinstall applications, fonts, printers, etc. but most of that work is now done and a lot of annoying problems I had with Trusty are simply gone.

I've tweaked Plasma to bring back the Oxygen icons in places, as I like those better, and customized many settings to my liking. However, there's a few more things I'd like to do I can't quite figure out how to do. Suggestions?

1. Improve quality of photos shown as wallpapers
My library of wallpapers consists of a gorgeous set of images, but they're not looking as good under Xenial as they did when I had Trusty. I am only referring to how photos look as wallpapers displayed by Plasma -- photos previewed in Gwenview or other applications look the same as they did before. I have a suspicion that my wallpapers aren't being shown at 100% quality; how do I fix this?

2. Improve quality of user account photo
While I'm on the subject of image quality, my user account image (which I selected) is not being well scaled at all. This seems to be a long-running, recurring problem with KDE. Is there a way to improve scaling quality?

3. Adjust digital clock font size
I want independent, granular control over the font size of my digital clock (I'm aware I can change the sizes of fonts generally from System Settings). I want to alter the size used for displaying the long date and the time. I can change the font weight or italics using the GUI, but not size.

4. Force the Kickoff Application Launcher to show an icon I've picked for a custom submenu.
I've created a new category of applications in my Launcher, but the icon I've chosen (from the list of system icons available) refuses to take, no matter how many times I save my choice, and I see a generic question mark icon instead. How can I fix this?

5. Replace the default background image and generic user account image shown on the login screen
I'm already bored with the image I see when my computer boots up. I'd rather it be something else. I'd prefer a random image from my Wallpapers folder. Barring that, I'd settle for a custom image of my choosing. I don't see where this can be specified. I'd also like to replace the generic user account icon that shows up there with something else.

Thanks for any pointers.

[woodsmoke]

Hi
I'll do this working backwards from 5 up and if someone else wants to chime in FEEL FREE:

Number 5

A) the splash screen.

the option to change it is: all settings / workspace / startup and shutdown / login screen / theme / customize screen.

One is presented with a large "black box" and in the usual understated way of the latest KDE below it is a box with "Background" and the generic metro file image and clicking it shows to choose from "file" or "clear image",

TO GET THAT TO WORK you have to go over and click the theme that is running or one of the themes that are available, when the theme is "highlighted" go to the file thing and pick to choose from file, you will immediately have to sign in to prove that you want to do it. The new image will appear in the little box. Then click apply. However, apply didn't seem to "work" so I'll restart the machine and come back

The above does, indeed work for the splash screen, I used a .bmp so it should use anything, and it was quite clear.

the LOADING screen with the little line going across defaulted back to the orange and green weird thing.

B) For grins and giggles here is how to change the lock screenwhich is not your question:

All settings / desktop behaviour / screen locker /custom background / load file / I rebooted. It displays for the whole screen and is quite clear.

Number 2

The image has for years been "iffy" in terms of clarity until Wiley when it was QUITE CLEAR and a very nice size, about an inch and a half square on Wiley, the absolute same pic now is very jaggy.

IT MAY BE THAT THE SIZE OF THE IMAGE IS A FUNCTION OF THE PARTICULAR THEME, ONE MIGHT CHECK ALL OF THE THEMES AND POSSIBLY TRY A THEME FROM KDE LOOK THAT BRAGS ABOUT A LARGER IMAGE.

All settings / personalization / account details / user manager / click da pic.

This jaggieness is not a "new" problem. I think that the developers want to kind of "keep things stock" for a while.

a few YeARS ago one had to really fiddle with the image, mainly by using a file type that would allow such things as "reducing resolution" and "deinterlacing" and stuff so that when it was really squeensy it looked ok. I'm not going to go to the trouble to do it right now.

number 4

FOR THE MAIN KICKER IMAGE:
the little k and wheel at the end of the panel.
Right click the kicker / application dashboard settings / general / use custome image / choose a file, but it has to be SMALL, there are several examples of appropriate image sizes in various artwork threads here at the forum.

THE CHANGE IS INSTANTANEOUS
.
FOR THE INDIVIDUAL SUB MENU ITEMS:

Right click the kicker / edit applications / choose a subhead such as games / click the provided image, for me a blue ball and you will have to WAIT but a menu box will appear for various provided symbols, / other icons / browse, again you will probably do best to choose an image of the appropriate size.

FOR AN INDIVIDUAL ITEM WITHIN THE SUB MENU, repeat as above or as "those who dive" say, dive, share, repeat! lol

Number 3

I see no option for changing what might be called "granular" settings for the clock except:

a) right click the clock / set time format / tick detailed settings / time - different languages.

right click the clock / digital clock settings / appearance / default

this will change the "font" not the size of the font

If by "granular settings you mean change the font SIZE I would imagine that you will have to:

a) find the actual file where these things are stored and pick some kind of larger or smaller font
b) adding a new font with different size into that file.

c) Possibly pick another clock.

Number 1

I, personally find absolutely no change in quality of the images on both a widescreen t.v. using an older machine and using a two year old AMD with a high end card and the same for a HP widescreen monitor.

This is using just images that I download from the net or extremely hi res pictures from my GoPro Black or by using 'wallpapers" that are appropriate for my wide screen monitor.

I think that there is a possibility that it is what you are using to render the desktop:

system settings / display and monitor / compositor

there are three settings in my particular setup

open GL 2.0
open GL 3.1
xrender

I have for the latest and greatest Kubuntu and KDE Neon had screen tearing with both of the Open GL rendering engines.

I have been changing to the xrender and the screen tearing goes away.

I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT RENDERING THE IMAGE ON THE DESKTOP, but, as I stated above, I have seen no problems but that may because i tend to follow the example of the Chief Radarman on my ship and keep a bottle of Puerto Rican rum on my table at all times! lol

Or......also a nice gin and a lot of coconuts and sweet milk to make "sky juice".

woodgonnamakeaskyjuiceandlistentoRadioTenerifonGme rlinPlayerlolsmoke

[woodsmoke]

I have updated the below post for all items.
woodwaytoomuchtypingforsomebodywithacoupleofskyjui cesinhimsmoke

[woodsmoke]

For kiker images of the appropriate size search for "Starwolf" a great supporter who has a LARGE body of work here at the forum and at KDE Look, etc.

Here is a link to one of the kikers that he made:

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...light=starwolf



woodthinksstarwolfisagoodartistsmoke

[seascape]

I found out that #1 is an issue many other people have had. It's been discussed on the KDE bugtracker.

The workaround:

Open /usr/share/plasma/wallpapers/org.kde.image/contents/ui/main.qml or /usr/share/plasma/wallpapers/org.kde.slideshow/contents/ui/main.qml:

Setting sourceImage.size to the size of the screen may change the aspect ratio of the image. Qt handles this especially badly and I think there is a bug in Qt regarding that. However, there is no reason to change the aspect ratio back and forth. It's better to set just the width or the height of the source and let Qt keep the aspect ratio.

Changing all occurrences of the line

currentImage.sourceSize = Qt.size(root.width, root.height)

in /usr/share/plasma/wallpapers/org.kde.image/contents/ui/main.qml to

currentImage.sourceSize.width = root.width

fixes it for me. I think this is an actual fix, not just a workaround.

[Rog131]

2)

How did you add the avatar picture ?
Could you show a picture of the problem ?

3)

A wish: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=375969

Meanwhile, there is an option to edit the qml scripts: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?...361132#p361132

4)

A bug report: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=345100

Earlier at the Kubuntu forums: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...rst-level-Menu

5)

Avatar - Earlier Kubuntu forums: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...nal-login-icon

SDDM theme background image - The recent Plasma 5 releases have KDE configuration module: KDE System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Login Screen (SDDM). There should be a background button.

Random image background - There is an option to add new greeters - Plasma 5.8/5.9 (?): KDE System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Login Screen (SDDM) > Get New Theme/Install From file. Or make an own theme and share it with us: https://store.kde.org/browse/cat/101/

[Rog131]

a random image greeter - hmm

Taking duck tape and taping the QML slideshow with KenBurns effect: https://gist.github.com/nbergont/8963892 to the SDDM Greeter.

A bit polishing and there will be a new greeter: Breeze Slider:

- the ui is sliding off the sight when it is not needed and sliding down when the mouse is moving...
- there are option to use:
- color background
- image background
- video background
- video playlist background
- image slideshow background

Image slideshow preview:

Direct: https://youtu.be/ZaElaJ6Ver0