May 24

Update: Since this post tends to get a few clicks and it’s rather outdated, I just wanted to give an update of what am currently using (last update: 15/05/2011)

  • Oxygen KDE (Firefox Theme) as my theme instead of the KDE 4 and Firefox 4 theme. It’s under constant development and just keeps getting better. It looks great too!
  • Oxygen-Molecule KDE & GTK+ unified theme instead of gtk-qt-engine, but it’s not really developed anymore, so I would suggest the brand new Oxygen Gtk theme that came out recently and it’s actively and officially developed by KDE.
  • Plasma Notify: You don’t need this anymore. Just go to “about:config” in your address bar. Search for “ui.”, then turn the “ui.use_native_popup_windows” key value to true. That’s it. Enjoy your plasma notifications again.
  • Steps #2 and #4 below.
  • Firefox addon for kwallet: I haven’t tested this one personally, but you might want to try it out. Got an update recently to support Firefox 4.

After all the above, this is what my Firefox 4 looks like under KDE 4.6:

The first thing you probably notice when running Firefox on a system that uses KDE  is that it looks so “not KDE”..

These are a few customizations to give it a better KDE look ‘n feel:

1) Install the KDE 4 and Firefox 3 theme..

  • KDE 4 Oxygen Theme maintaining Firefox 3 identity.

2) Install the Konquefox extension..

  • adds some usefull buttons : Clear URL, Go Up and Zoom, for a better integration in Linux or KDE.

3) Install the “gtk-qt-engine” package from the package manager you use..

  • GTK+ 2 theme engine that calls Qt 4 to do the actual drawing. This makes your GTK+ 2 applications look almost like real Qt 4 applications and gives you a more unified desktop experience.

4) Enter “about:config” in the Firefox address bar and look for the key “ui.allow_platform_file_picker”. Change its value to “false” by double clicking on it..

  • gives your Firefox file picker a KDE/Qt style

Enjoy! =)

9 Responses to “Integrate Firefox and KDE 4”

  1. Anonymous says:

    3) Install the “gkt-qt-engine” package from the package manager you use..

    You have a typo: gkt-… should be gtk-…
    Thanks for the nice tutorial!

  2. tetris4 says:

    thnx for letting me know about that..
    you are welcome!

  3. Anonymous says:

    using opensuse 11.1, gtk-qt-engine is not listed in yast

  4. tetris4 says:

    Try searching for the kde4-kcm_gtk package..

    You can find more info on this subject here:

    http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/406331-kde-4-2-kde4-gtk-qt-engine-2.html

    hope it helps!!

  5. Benoit says:

    Life saving post! Thanks a lot.

  6. A great way to make all GTK apps blend in with the default Oxygen theme is to use the Oxygen-Molecule theme on KDE-Look.org. The only thing is that you will have to uninstall gtk-qt-engine for it to work properly, according to the instructions.

  7. lefty.crupps says:

    |I thought that the KDE4-theme-for-Firefox plugin and the gtk-qt-engine did the same thing (change the appearance) and only one is used at a time?

    This is definitely my preferred use of Firefox however — get rid of the icons that don’t fit in at all, and add some usability to the location bar.

  8. tetris4 says:

    @S.Christian Collins: I didn’t know about the Oxygen-Molecule theme. It looks great, thnx!

    @ lefty.crupps: They probably do a very similar job, but the gtk-engine enhances the overall integration of the theme. Using them together will give you a better result IMO.

  9. leo laporte says:

    Notice that Mozilla says about FF3:
    For optimal functionality, we recommend the following libraries or packages:

    * NetworkManager 0.7 or higher
    * DBus 1.0 or higher
    * HAL 0.5.8 or higher
    * GNOME 2.16 or higher

    No KDE.
    F U to us all.. falalalalalala.

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