Is the Qube Manager dark mode working in 4.3?

User Support Testing Release
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I’m trying the usual methods, like changing /etc/environment, installing packages, etc. I have a salt script that works on 4.2, but not 4.3.

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Hey! The way I usually tackle this (which also works on 4.3):

  1. Install qt5ct and qt6ct (not sure which Qt is now being used, so I just installed both)
  2. Install a theme that has a dark variant (or use Adwaita); I found flat-remix-gtk4-theme which has a plentiful of colorful options and looks sleek (I go straight -gtk4- because it pulls its GTK2, GTK3 and GTK4 versions with it for compat, which makes it easier to then experiment if for example something is of a different GTK version and doesn’t like a particular one)
  3. Then (if you use Xfce4) go to Appearance → Theme and select your dark theme; you can try checking the use matching xfwm4 theme checkbox to also enable the same theme for your windows and stuff (I have not tried yet cause I am using i3)
  4. Set QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3 in your /etc/environment and reboot (or log out and back in)

If you are using i3 like me, then add both QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3 and GTK_THEME=Adwaita:dark to /etc/environment (btw, same trick works for making sdwdate-gui and network manager dark).

You can obviously attempt to do the same via lxappearance or qt5ct (or qt6ct), but I haven’t yet been able to make these tools see Qt styles (except for Fusion and Winows) despite them clearly existing (otherwise the whole QT_QPA_ thing wouldn’t work in the first place). I hate Qt and its toolset, hence I try to avoid using it.

Hmu if you have questions, I’ve spent quite some time debugging everything themes-related :smiling_face_with_tear:

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3

It is qt6. All pyqt5 tools were migrated to pyqt6 since Qt5 (security) support was officially ended.

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4

Okay, I was using qt5 and gtk2. It makes sense things were upgraded. I’ll update if I get it working, but it may be a day or two. IDK exactly when.

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I just spent like an hour and a half trying to get this working without the qt5/6ct packages because I got frustrated with the Qube Manager being the only thing not dark. I just had to restart the computer for it to take effect. Now I get to diagnose all that work and see which 5 minute section actually fixed it. :upside_down_face:

*I didn’t want those packages because I’m making an unattended salt script and you have to click on the app for it to work. Also, it really messed with scaling inside the Qube Manager and made everything huge for reasons I don’t comprehend.

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6

For me, this just works™ (but I don’t know which additional packages I installed long ago to make it work, if any)

/etc/environment in dom0:

QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk3
GTK_THEME=Adwaita-dark
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I still plan on updating when I figure out what exactly it needs (it will require reinstalling my test system probably more than once, so it may not happen soon), but I do want to note that the Qubes Manager icons aren’t dark-mode friendly. They get lighter when invalid and darker when usable, which should be reversed for dark mode. (Amongst other substantially similar errata.)

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Yep, that is a well known issue, see this discussion for a workaround: https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/improving-white-background-systray-icons-for-dark-themes

I ended up not doing what is suggested, and made forks of all things that use icons in Qubes instead to mutilate those icons however I want, lol. Now it’s almost decent enough for me to even publish sometime :grinning:

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I’m referring to the icons in the Qube Manager, not the systray. Start qube, stop qube, pause qube, open console, etc.