What is the difference between Application Style and GTK Theme?

Desktop Environments Plasma
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Hi friends.

I would like to know what is the difference between Application Style and GTX Theme, or what each of them is for.

I mean, in the first image, you can see that there are 3 different Application Style, their main difference is volume bar size, volume bar %, button outline, etc. It is clearly seen that there is a difference between the 3 of them, the 3 of them are:

-Breeze
-Fusion
-MS Windows x9

But if you press the button on the bottom right “Configure GNOME/GTK Application Style…”, another window opens where “GTK Theme” appears, which seems to be not Application Style. What is this supposed to be and what is it for?

By default, 3 appear:

-Breeze
-Default
-Emacs

So, there is something I don’t understand:

For example, I download the Global Theme Sweet KDE, install it, and automatically get:

  • Application Style: None (Breeze default)
  • Plasma Style: Sweet
  • Window Decorations: Sweet-Dark
  • Icons: Candy-Icons
  • Cursors: Sweet-Cursors
  • Splash Screen: Sweet

I mean, the Global Theme gives me all of that, but there’s something weird:

If in the second screenshot that I have shown, you click on the bottom right and click on “Get New GNOME/GTK Application Style”, and search for “Sweet”, you can install something related to Sweet KDE, and select it in this dropdown, under “Emac”.

What is this GTK “Sweet” supposed to be? I mean, it’s not a “Global Theme” (it’s already installed and selected), it’s not a “Plasma Style” either (it’s also installed and selected).

So, I don’t know what this is for or what visual changes it modifies, since it only appears in the dropdown.

Sorry, KDE has so many configuration settings that I don’t even know 50% of all of them.

Thanks in advance.

2

The global theme changes various elements KDE/plasma itself and the theme for Qt applications.

GTK3 applications are themed completely differently than Qt applications. So the gtk theme is used to theme those applications.

A couple of years ago, that allowed you to have a nice mostly unified look across all your applications. These days things are more complicated with more GTK applications using libadwaita which has only minimal ability to be themed.

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3

Thank you very much for the explanation Mr. Dalto, it was a little confusing for me to understand because these topics always confuse me, but you explained it very well.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the thread, but the other day he was searching for threads related to the transparency of the Garuda dr460nized topic, and Google led me to a Garuda forum. I swear I saw a guy whose name was just like you, and he seemed to know as much as you do. :no_mouth:

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The internet is a mysterious place. :laughing:

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