How to get transparency with a blurred background in the application launcher and panel

Desktop Environments Plasma
1

I searched for a solution, but most of the posts are outdated or the solutions don’t work.

I’m using the Breeze Dark EndeavourOS global theme and I tried setting the panel opacity to adaptive and translucent and neither work. I have translucency and blur enabled in desktop effects.

I’ve seen some KDE Plasma distros with a transparent/blurred application launcher and panel, so I know it’s possible. But, maybe they have some custom settings or something.

I’m trying to achieve this without having to use a widget, theme, or kvantum and just use settings if possible.

Any suggestions?

2

As far as I’m aware, that’s not a possibility. You basically listed what you need. There’s also Panel Colorizer (in the AUR) and KDE Material You Colors (also in the AUR) to try. Best way is to tinker wth these and see what works best for you.

3

Seems to work here without additional steps (besides making panel trans).

So I must assume its some sort of combination of your theme and/or settings.

I just checked and breeze-dark seemed to work as well.

Imgur

Note: I did tone down the blur effect in order to make it more obvious it was working.

4

I see it now. I had to reduce the blur effect as well. It’s very subtle though. Also, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Most of the time it doesn’t seem to work. I’m not sure why.

5

You can achieve these effects by downloading active blur when selecting the background image and activating and configuring transparency in the KDE settings under Window Management → Desktop Effects.

Edit: When opening the application launcher, Active Blur has no effect.