Klikit has made it extremely simple to customize virtually any aspect of your display, and Icons are no exception. This tutorial will cover the basics of:
- Changing your Icon Theme
- Changing individual icons, and
- Creating custom icons
Changing your Icon Theme
1. Start by clicking the Launch button and selecting KControl (KDE ControlCenter), from the menu.
The Control Center window will open. In the left pane, select the Appearance and Themes icon.
2. In the left pane, click the Icons icon.
3. In the theme selection list, click on the theme you would like to use. If you have downloaded or created a custom
Icon Theme, you can install it by clicking the Install New Theme button, then select your newly installed theme
from the list. A preview will appear above the list window. If you like what you see, click the Apply button to apply
your selection.
4. If you'd like to customize your selected theme, click on the Advanced tab at the top of the window. Here, you can choose
which icons will be affected by your custom settings. You can, for example, configure the toolbar icons to behave or appear
differently than those on the desktop.
5. By clicking the Set Effect button under each mode at the bottom of the window, you can set the behavior of icons when they
are not selected, when they are active, (i.e. you hover the mouse pointer over an icon), and when they are disabled.
6. You can click on the various effects in the left pane, and see in the Preview box in the right pane, just how the effect will look. In the
Effect Parameters box at the bottom right, you can adjust the color and amount of the effect to be applied. Again, the changes will be
reflected in the Preview box above. When you have things set the way you like, click the OK button in the Select Color window, then
click OK in the Setup Active Icon window.
7. You will be returned to the main Display Properties window. Click the OK button to apply your
modified settings and close the window. Your new theme and settings will now appear on your desktop.
Changing Individual Icons
1. On your desktop, right-click the icon you want to change, and select Properties, For this example, I will use Kopete,
(Instant Messaging) Suppose you are a recently arrived refugee from that other operating system....you may like the
functionality of Kopete, but find the standard icon kind of ugly. Here's how to replace it with that familiar yellow smiley
face we all know and love.
2. The Properties for kopete.desktop window will open. Click on the existing icon at the upper left.
3. The Select Icon window will open. System Icons will be selected by default, and Applications will be selected
in the pull-down menu gadget at the top right. You can scroll through the icons displayed in the bottom pane,
until you find a suitable icon. Click it once to select it, and click the OK button.
4. If you would rather use a custom icon, not in the list, select Other Icons, at the top of the window, and click the
browse button. Browse to where your custom icon is stored. Click it once to select it, It will be previewed in the
Preview pane on the right, if Preview is checked. Click Open.
5. You will be returned to the Properties for kopete.desktop window, and you will notice that your newly selected
icon now appears at the upper left.
6. Click the OK button to close the Properties window. Your newly installed icon will now appear on your desktop.
Note: For instructions on creating your own custom icons, see the following section.
Creating Custom Icons
There are a number of icon editors available from the Klikit Repositories, but I have found that KolourPaint,
which is installed with Klikit, and is available from the Launch > Graphics menu, is fast, easy to use, and
works wonderfully for creating icons. In Klikit, it seems that virtually any image, (photo or drawing), can be
made into an icon. The images must be converted to .png format, and they should be cropped to a square,
with equal sides. The largest icons Klikit will display are 128 X 128 pixels. You do not need to resize your
image to this size, as the system will display it at the correct size regardless of the size of the original image,
but you should view it at that size, or even at 64 X 64, to make sure it is still legible whenreduced to that tiny
size. Any image can be made into an icon, but not all of them will make good icons. Choosean image that will
be recognizable, even when shrunk.
1. In this example, I will grab an image from the Yahoo messenger web site, using Ksnapshot, the screen
capture utility available from the Graphics menu, then load that image into KolourPaint, for cropping and clean-up.
2. Using the Selection tool from the top of the toolbar at the left, I crop out the part of the screen capture that I want for my icon.
Then from the Selection menu, I click Set as image(Crop).
3. Next, using the Transparency setting, (click the glass pyramid icon to the left of the color pallette at the bottom of the window),
and the Flood-fill tool, (the paint can icon on the toolbar to the left), I fill the background of my cropped image with transparency,
leaving only the familiar yellow smiley.
4. Save the resulting image with a name like ym_icon.png. While you can save the image anywhere, a good place
might be in your home folder, in the corresponding .(program name) folder, or you could create a new folder in
your home directory named Custom icons, and store all your custom icons there. Just remember, that you may
need to find these icons again in the future, so make the location an easy to find, and easy to remember one. Now
that you have created your custom icon, you will want to tell Klikit to use it, instead of the default icon. To do that,
follow the instructions in section two of this article: Changing Individual Icons
That's the end. I hope you find this information useful. papabearak
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