GUI tool to view and edit, independently or together, the four background images KDE Plasma 6 stores in separate configs — desktop, lock screen, login screen, and session splash screen. Plasma's built-in UI splits these across several settings panels with no shared view; this tool brings them into one place.
Out of the box, Plasma 6 keeps four separate background configurations:
| Surface | Config file | Editable from |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop | ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc |
Right-click desktop → Configurer le bureau |
| Lock screen (on resume / lock) | ~/.config/kscreenlockerrc |
Paramètres → Verrouillage d'écran → Apparence |
| Login screen (cold boot, plasmalogin) | /etc/plasmalogin.conf |
Paramètres → Écran de connexion (or root edit) |
| Splash screen (session startup animation) | ~/.config/ksplashrc + theme package |
Paramètres → Écran de démarrage |
Note on the splash screen: it's technically a Plasma "Look and Feel" theme package, not a single image — its background image lives inside the theme's QML. Treating it like the other three means either patching a chosen theme's image asset in place, or generating a small custom theme on the fly. To be decided in design.
There is no built-in "apply to all" checkbox. The closest existing tool (JoCode80/PlasmaWallpaperManager) targets SDDM, not plasmalogin — so it does not cover the login screen on a Bazzite / modern Plasma 6 setup where plasmalogin is the display manager.
A small GUI that:
- Shows the current wallpaper for each of the three surfaces side by side (so you immediately see what mismatches what).
- Lets the user pick a new image — or wallpaper pack / slideshow folder — and
assign it to:
- one specific surface (e.g. just the login screen), or
- any subset (e.g. desktop + lockscreen, leave login & splash alone), or
- all four at once (the "sync everything" shortcut).
- Previews each choice before applying.
- Triggers KDE to reload changed surfaces (no logout needed for desktop + lockscreen; greeter picks it up on next login).
- Handles the privileged write to
/etc/plasmalogin.confviapkexec/ polkit, not by running the whole app as root.
- KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland
- Display manager: plasmalogin (the new Plasma 6 greeter — not SDDM)
- Tested on Bazzite (Fedora atomic) but should work on any Plasma 6 distro with plasmalogin
Skeleton only. To be discussed in the next conversation:
- Stack: PyQt6 (like
astro-a50/gui/) vs Qt6 + QML (like FretMind) — TBD - Packaging: AppImage? Flatpak? rpm-ostree-friendly path?
- Scope: single image vs slideshow pack support
- Whether to also cover splashscreen (4th surface, less critical)
- SDDM support (different config format, not needed on this setup)
- Per-screen wallpaper differentiation
- Wallpaper plugins beyond
org.kde.image(no Pictures-of-the-Day, no slideshow logic) - Custom splash screen theme authoring (only image swap inside an existing theme)