Making (Manjaro) KDE look like macOS, Part 1

I always liked the macOS look but somehow preferred the open approach of Linux. To get the best of both worlds, I made my KDE desktop look like macOS. This first part covers basic settings, while the second part digs deeper into details like global menu for Firefox, scheduled wallpaper changes and displaying mapped drives on the desktop.

Motivation

Having spent so much effort on Making Ubuntu MATE look like macOS, why the move to KDE? Actually, the only reason for moving away from Ubuntu MATE is the notification area, which is just much prettier in KDE:

Ubuntu MATE (Gnome):

KDE:

Why Manjaro KDE? I wanted to have a global menu also for Firefox and Arch Linux (which is the base for Manjaro) allows to install an alternative version which does just that.

Top Panel

I started with a new, empty panel. Right click on the desktop, choose Add Panel... and click Application Menu Bar:

Notice the small panel with the "Default" label on the left? That's easy to get rid of, but the option is well hidden. Right click the desktop, choose Configure Desktop..., go to the Tweaks tab and disable Show the desktop toolbox:

If you open up a Konsole window, you'll now have the global menu in the top panel:

Time to add some widgets to your panel. Click the dotted symbol on the right hand side of the panel and click Add Widgets... and order them to your liking. My panel contains the following elements:

Spacer (using the Add Spacer button next to the Add Widgets... one)
Application Dashboard
Spacer
Global Menu (already included by default)
Spacer
Printers
Display Configuration
Bluetooth
Networks
Audio Volume
Notifications
User Switcher
Digital Clock (to be replaced later for customizable font size)
Search

The panel now looks like this (with a Konsole window open):

Note: If the user name (displayed by the User Switcher) is too large, try reducing the panel height (mine is set to 28px).

Additional Widgets

Digital Clock Lite

The Digital Clock widget has a fixed font size which does not match the rest of the notification area. To get a better looking one, click the dotted symbol on the right hand side of the panel, click Add Widgets..., click Get new widgets and choose Download New Plasma Widgets:

Enter "lite" in the Search box and click Install for the Digital Clock Lite KDE 5 Applet:

Now replace the Digitial Clock applet with the new Lite version and you get a nice an consistent look:

Application Title

macOS shows the application title to the left of the global menu which cannot be achieved using the installed widgets. Again, click the dotted symbol on the right hand side of the panel, click Add Widgets..., click Get new widgets and choose Download New Plasma Widgets. Search for "title" and install the Application Title applet.
Now add the Application title applet, move it between the Application Dashboard and Global Menu, and click Configure.... Set the Text type to Application name, check the Bold check box and click OK:

Remove the Old Panel

Finally, time to remove the "old" panel. Click the menu button on the lower right, then More Settings... and finally Remove Panel.

The Dock

To install and start the dock, run the following commands in a console:

Manjaro (Arch)
sudo pacman -S latte-dock
latte-dock &

Kubuntu (Ubuntu)
sudo apt install latte-dock
latte-dock &

You should have a beautiful dock on the bottom of the screen now (obviously, there's Octopi and Spectacle running at the moment):

To customize the dock, right click the dock and choose Dock/Panel Settings. In the Appearance tab, change the size to 48px, the Background Size to 100% and the Active Indicator to Dot. Add/remove items to your liking, I removed the clock and added the trash can: Right click the dock choose Add widgets... and drag'n'drop the trashcan to the dock:

Time for a Treat: Icons!

Use the Mojave CT icon set available from gnome-look.org. Fortunately, you don't need to use a console, instead:

Open System Settings
Go to Appearance / Icons
Click Get New Themes...
Search for "mojave ct" and install the Mojave CT icons icon set (choose the light.tar.xz version)

Now select the Mojave-CT-light icon theme and click Apply.

Workspace Theme

In System Settings, go to Appearance / Workspace Theme. From there, use all the options to customize your workspace:

Look and Feel

Choose Look And Feel, click on Get New Look... and search for "honey". Install the Honeycrisp KDE theme, select it and click Apply. The top panel and dock now have a nice gray background instead of the black one:

Desktop Theme

Choose Desktop Theme, click Get New Themes... and search for "mojave". Install the Mojave CT theme, select it and click Apply. The top panel will have changed slightly, especially the menu icon on the left.

Cursor Theme

Choose Cursor Theme, click Get New Theme and search for "mac". Install the MacOS MOD theme, select El Capitan and click Apply. The mouse cursor will have changed.

Splash Screen

Personally, I don't like the splash screen, so I chose None and clicked Apply.

Fonts

Search for the San Franciso Fonts on GitHub using Google: "sanfranciscofont site:github.com". Copy the *.otf files to ~/.local/share/fonts . Now you can go to System Settings: Appearance / Fonts / Fonts. Change all fonts (except Fixed width) to San Francisco Display, Medium weight:

Log out and log back in again for the panel font to change:

Widgets

Up to now, the widgets are still KDE standard - time for a change! So, go to System Settings: Application Style / Window Decorations. Click Get New Decorations..., search for "breezemite" and install the Breezemite theme. Then select it and click Apply:

However, the positions are all wrong... On the same settings page, use click the Buttons tab to re-order the positions:

Close
Minimize
Maximize
Titlebar (centered)

Then click Apply:

macOS does not have icons on buttons or menu items. Go to System Settings: Application Style / Widget Style. In the Fine Tuning tab uncheck both Show icons in buttons and Show icons in menus and click Apply:

Final Tweaks

Colors

Go to System Settings: Appearance / Colors. Click Get New Scheme and search for "warna" and install the Warna Mac theme. Choose the Warna Mac 2.0 scheme and click Apply.

Task Switcher

To have the task switcher (Alt+Tab) show the windows horizontally instead of vertically on the left, go to System Settings: Workspace / Window Management / Task Switcher. Change the visualization to Thumbnails and click Apply:

Background Image

Right-click the desktop, choose Configure Desktop and click Get New Wallpapers.... Search for "mojave" and install the Hiking in Mojave background. Choose the background and click Apply:

End of Part 1

I didn't imagine that writing up this customization would be this exhaustive, so I decided to split it into parts. The next part(s) will cover:

Global menu and user chrome for Firefox
Widget styles for Gnome (GTK) applications
Rotating/timed background image changes
Local and network drive icons on the desktop
Getting rid of the console on logon
...

Go and have a look at part 2...

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macOS look for Ubuntu MATE