start menu icon

[Duncan]

Franklin Weng posted on Tue, 29 Aug 2017 20:26:39 +0800 as excerpted:

> In Plasma 5 we can right-click on the start menu and set our own icon.
> However when I switch my menu from kicker to kickoff or kickerdash, the
> menu icon changed to the default one and when I switch back to the
> kicker, my own icon was gone and the default one is used.  Would anyone
> please tell me how to keep my own icon in the kicker mode, or even when
> switching to different menu mode?

Good question.

Unfortunately, as implemented it's not possible (except for source 
patching[1]), and I'm not sure the plasma devs would consider it worth 
the very likely rather large effort to make it possible.

The problem is that each of the different types of "application launcher" 
is its own separate "plasmoid", that is, component-widget, complete with 
its own settings.

For most plasmoids, switching from one to another is a process of 
deleting the one, selecting add widget, and in the resulting plasmoid/
widget-explorer dialog, dragging the one you want to replace the one you 
just deleted to the appropriate location.  Then, depending on the 
plasmoid, you may have to configure the new one to do what you want.

Now it so happens that with the "launcher" plasmoids, they've created a 
shortcut to all that, that lets you replace the one launcher with another 
one without going thru the whole delete/add process manually.  But the 
different types of launcher are still entirely different plasmoids, each 
with their own settings and defaults, and replacing one with another 
deletes the configuration for the replaced one and sets the configuration 
of the new one to all defaults.

So as I said, you can patch the sources to change those defaults and then 
you'll get your patch-altered defaults every time you switch, but other 
than that, there's no real way to do it.

Wait... I actually just thought of another way, that I use sometimes 
myself.

You can backup the config file before you make your change.  Then make 
your change, configure the new one as you like, and do a second backup, 
keeping copies of both.  Then when you need to switch, you can simply 
kill plasmashell so it doesn't overwrite your changes, restore the 
appropriate backup with your desired settings, and restart plasmashell so 
it sees the altered component, along with the settings you had previously 
configured for it.

The file with all the activity/desktop, panel, and plasmoid settings, is

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc [2]

This file, like most kde/plasma config files, is organized much like the 
standard INI file from the MS-Windows-3 era.  Unfortunately, while 
there's a section hierarchy, the sections are numbered rather than named, 
so you have to read the settings and deduce what container or plasmoid 
each number represents, making hand editing possible but rather more 
difficult than it might be.

Which is why I suggested using the plasma GUI to configure things and 
simply backing up the file when it has a set of settings you want to 
save, so you can switch between multiple configurations by simply killing 
plasmashell, switching the config file, and restarting it.

---
[1] Not possible except for source patching:  It's always possible to 
modify the sources to set your own default.  Plasma is of course 
freedomware with the sources available in ordered to /encourage/ 
patching, and while I don't claim to be a dev, I do run gentoo so already 
build from sources, and if I'm motivated enough I sometimes surprise 
myself at what sort of patches I can hack up!  Were I motivated enough, 
I'm sure this one would not be an issue, since at least in theory it's 
simply replacing one image with another, so the biggest issue would be 
actually looking at the code long enough to find the image to replace, 
and that shouldn't be difficult at all, only requiring time, which is why 
I have to be motivated enough to prioritize finding the location /to/ 
patch and creating and testing the patch above whatever else I'd 
otherwise be doing with that time.

[2] $XDG_CONFIG_HOME:  If this variable isn't set, the default is 
~/.config, ~ of course being your user's home dir.  So the complete 
default path would be: ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman