Chapter 3. How to make themes for KSplash

Table of Contents

Identifying your theme
Background files

Default Theme
Standard Theme
Redmond theme
MacX Theme
MacClassic Theme
2k theme

General

Making your own themes for KSplash is easy. After you have finished your themes you can post them on the KDE-Look so that others can use it.

Identifying your theme

Let us create a theme called MyCoolTheme. For the theme to be recognized by KSplash, it should be stored in a folder called MyCoolTheme under ~/.kde/apps/ksplash/Themes/. It should have a file called Theme.rc, containing the settings of the theme. You can specify large numbers of special things to theme, change the plugin engine to use, and so on. You do not have to use all the settings available; usually, the settings have an acceptable default value. The basic syntax for entries in the Theme.rc file is [option] = [value] You can find the definitions of the various options in the following sections.

Example 3.1. Simple Theme.rc file

[KSplash Theme: MyCoolTheme]
Name = MyCoolTheme
Description = A nice theme using XpLike engine
Version = 1.0
Author = Real Name <realmail@mail.com>
## Use the XpLike engine for this theme.
Engine = XpLike
Show Icon = false
Welcome Text = Loading KDE

After specifying the name, the description and the author of the theme, you should first choose a theme engine (also known as a plugin). Then, you can customize various features of the theme engine by assigning key-value pairs as in the example file above.

Important

Ensure that the name of the directory that contains the theme files (~/.kde/apps/ksplash/Themes/MyCoolTheme in this example) and the identifier ([KSplash Theme: MyCoolTheme] in this example) of the theme in the Theme.rc file are identical. Otherwise, KSplash will not recognize the theme.

Background files

When KSplash starts, it tries to find a background image for your current screen resolution, if the theme engine uses one. The background image file should be named in the following format: Background-WWWxHHH.png.

For example, you might use a file called Background-1024x768. If the background image for your screen resolution cannot be found, it tries to resize the original Background.png or the file specified in Theme.rc to suit the current resolution. Resizing on-the-fly will certainly take some time, so you should provide background images for at least the following sizes: 1280x1024, 1024x768 and 800x600.