Root window properties are used to store resources that apply to the whole desktop during a user session. The desktop wide properties are extracted from configuration files and written to the root window at start up.
The complete list of the root window properties is _DESKTOP_COLORS, _DESKTOP_FONTS, _DESKTOP_KEYBINDINGS, _KWM_GENERAL, _KDE_GENERAL.
The properties prefixed _DESKTOP_ are not specific to the KDE. They are openly available for non-KDE applications to use, or indeed they can be used by other desktops to manage the style of KDE applications.
The root property strategy is robust and extensible. Since the properties use key-value pair dictionaries they can be extended to hold extra resources. Their clear syntax makes it easy to spot corruption and it is always possible to recover from a session with corrupted properties simply by logging off. You can check the state of the properties using 'xprop -root' in your shell.
The set of root properties chosen for the KDE allows a user to import their home session to any terminal they may be working on.
The _DESKTOP_COLORS property holds a string containing six key-value pairs for application colors and six for window manager colors. The entries are separated by newline characters in a format compatible with KConfig. This dictionary defines the 3 pairs of colors needed to consistently set the color scheme for the desktop, namely the general foreground/background color, the window foreground/background color, and the selection foreground/background color.
The keys are
One item is used to determine contrast used for highlights and lowlights
Also defined are one triplet of colors for the active window decoration and one triplet of colors for the decorations of inactive windows. The keys are
The _DESKTOP_FONTS property holds a string containing three key-value pairs. These specify the font to be used for general desktop user-interface elements, a fixed font for text display and a font for window titles.
The keys are
The _DESKTOP_KEYBINDINGS property holds a string containing key-value pairs desribing the keybindings associated with common actions.
The keys are
Contains at the focus policy etc.
The _KDE_GENERAL_OPTIONS property holds the custom colors and describes the widget style to be used by the desktop.
The keys are