.dotfiles/kde/theme

Darwin Breeze

Breeze for KDE Plasma 6 in the macOS dark system colors, with Helium, T3 Code, VS Code and Telegram themed from the same colors.

Only the colors change. Breeze still draws the widgets and the title bar, and the window buttons stay on the right.

• Selection and focus rings use the macOS blue, #007AFF.
• The title bar has the same color as the toolbar below it, so the two read as one strip.
• When a window loses focus, its selection turns gray, as on macOS.
• Errors, warnings, success text and links use Apple's system red, orange, green, blue and purple.

Install

From ~/.dotfiles:

stow -d kde -t "$HOME" theme
./kde/theme/apply.sh

apply.sh regenerates the app themes, applies the global theme, hides the line under the title bar, turns off the wallpaper accent color and publishes the T3 Code theme and installs the VS Code extension. Restart Helium afterwards; T3 Code switches on its own. In VS Code, pick "Darwin Breeze Dark" once under Preferences → Color Theme; after later color changes, run Developer: Reload Window.

Telegram has to import its theme by hand: Settings → Chat Settings → Chat background → Choose from file, then pick kde/theme/telegram/DarwinBreezeDark.tdesktop-theme and Apply. Import it again after the colors change.

Changing colors

The color scheme is the only place colors are defined:

kde/theme/.local/share/color-schemes/DarwinBreezeDark.colors

Edit it, then run ./kde/theme/apply.sh again. Everything else follows:

App	How it gets the colors
Qt / KDE apps	the color scheme itself
GTK apps	Breeze GTK, which kde-gtk-config syncs from the scheme
Tray icons in kde/tray-icons/	ColorScheme-Text, recolored by Plasma
Helium	../helium/.local/share/helium-themes/, generated by build.py
T3 Code	t3/darwin-breeze.json, generated by build.py and published with t3 theme set
VS Code	vscode/package.json and vscode/themes/, generated by build.py, packed into darwin-breeze.vsix and installed by apply.sh
Telegram	telegram/DarwinBreezeDark.tdesktop-theme, built by build.py and imported by hand

The generated text files are committed so that stow alone gives a working setup; the binary packages (Telegram's .tdesktop-theme, VS Code's .vsix) are built by build.py instead. Don't edit generated files by hand.

T3 Code notes

• T3 Code ignores symlinked theme files, so the theme isn't stowed; apply.sh publishes a copy into ~/.t3/userdata/themes/.
• Every slot of the T3 theme maps to a role in the color scheme (see t3() in build.py), so a new slot or a different mapping is a change there, not a hand-edited color.

VS Code notes

• The workbench colors start from VS Code's own default dark theme, Dark 2026 (vendored in vscode/base/ with the themes it includes). It already lays out its grays as the scheme does: the editor darkest, the chrome around it lighter, widgets lighter still. Each of those becomes the matching scheme gray and the grays between them are interpolated. Other colors take the hue of the matching Apple color and keep their lightness and saturation. Keys with an exact role, such as buttons, badges, the active tab's top border and the git colors, are set directly (vscode() in build.py).
• Syntax colors are Pierre Dark's, the theme T3 Code highlights code with (vscode/base/pierre-dark.json, taken from T3 Code). They are used as they are, without gamma compensation, so code looks the same in both apps.
• The terminal palette is generated from the color scheme.
• VS Code is Electron, so its workbench colors get the same gamma compensation as Helium and T3 Code.
• The .vsix isn't committed; build.py packs it from vscode/.

Telegram notes

• Telegram has some 600 color keys and the scheme has roles for only a few dozen of them (telegram() in build.py). The rest start from Telegram's own night theme, vendored as telegram/night.tdesktop-palette: its blue-tinted grays become scheme grays of the same brightness and its blues take the macOS blue's hue. Other colors, such as the reds, greens and name colors, are kept as night has them.
• The chat list, top bar and compose bar use the window color; the chat behind the bubbles and the folder strip use the darker view color.
• Telegram is a Qt app, so unlike Helium and T3 Code it needs no gamma compensation.
• The .tdesktop-theme is a zip, so it isn't committed; build.py builds it from the night palette and the color scheme.

Helium notes

• Helium loads the theme from ~/.local/share/helium-themes/darwinbreeze through --load-extension in kde/helium/.config/helium-browser-flags.conf. Install it separately with stow -d kde -t "$HOME" helium.
• In Helium's compact layout the active tab and the toolbar segments on either side share one theme color, so the toolbar is the same color as the tab strip and inactive tabs are drawn lighter, as Dolphin does.
• Chromium tags its output as sRGB and KWin shows it with a gamma 2.2 curve, which lifts dark grays (40 becomes 44). build.py writes pre-compensated values for Helium and T3 Code (both Chromium), so the theme files say 35 where the screen shows 40.
• Under Settings → Appearance the theme must be Classic, not GTK or QT.

When the colors don't show up

• In System Settings → Colors, take the accent color from the color scheme. A custom accent, or one taken from the wallpaper, replaces the blue.
• Use the Plasma style called "Breeze". "Breeze Dark" and "Breeze Light" carry their own colors, so panels and popups ignore the scheme.
• GTK apps follow the scheme only with the Breeze GTK theme. Flatpak apps also need org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Breeze installed.