http://anadoxin.org/blog

Removing the unwanted Konsole toolbar

Mon, 19 July 2021 :: #linux :: #kde

Generally I'm pretty happy with my KDE desktop, although I'm among those people who think that KDE hasn't been the same since version 3. Having version KDE v5.22.3 currently installed on my machine I do see lots of bugs, but the advantages like the feature list, and not assuming the user is an idiot (comparing to GNOME) easily convinces me that KDE is the best thing Linux Desktop has to offer for me (I also refuse to use the Plasma terminology, because I'm still not sure what is it).

That being said, some bugs are pretty frustrating. One of the bugs that has popped up recently is a Konsole bug that doesn't allow the user to hide its toolbar. Normally I do mind when I see some pixels that are out of place, and in this particular case a whole toolbar is out of place, so I couldn't continue until I've found a solution. I considered switching to a different distro because of it, but ultimately I didn't have to because of a quick walkaround.

Normally this bug is active on my openSUSE distribution, but I don't see it under ArchLinux. This is how it looks like on openSUSE:

(the video shows a toolbar that can't be hidden)

Lucky users (on e.g. ArchLinux) have these options to their disposal, freeing them from this problem:

Screenshot on ArchLinux

The problem is that some distributions bundle KDE in a way that this option is simply not available, as shown in the video.

So, the first workaround I've found is:

  1. Ensure that the menu bar is visible (Ctrl+Shift+M),
  2. Right-click on the menu bar,
  3. Hide the toolbar from there,
  4. Hide the menu bar again (if needed).

This does hide the toolbar, but the problem is that this method won't work in another instance of Konsole. So it fixes the problem only for current Konsole window.

Another workaround, which might be better, is to open this configuration file:

~/.local/share/kxmlgui5/konsole/konsoleui.rc

and comment out this section inside it:

<!--<ToolBar name="mainToolBar">
 <text>Main Toolbar</text>
 <index>0</index>
 <Action name="new-tab"/>
 <Action name="split-view-left-right"/>
 <Action name="split-view-top-bottom"/>
</ToolBar>-->

This effectively hides the toolbar, maybe not in the best way possible, but it appears to work! At least maybe until some update will show up that properly fixes the problem, or someone else will figure out a better solution.