Changing VM color while running?

[qubist]

Hi,

I am looking for a way to change VM color (incl. all open windows, icons wherever displayed and any other visual elements) while the qube is running.

How can I do that?

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Currently it's not supported. Well, kinda - I think if you change the
color and then login to dom0 again, it will be updated.
But if you are asking how to implement such feature, this could be done
by moving VM color (and icon) from cmdline of the qubes-gui-daemon to
its config file and then reloading it on change.

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEhrpukzGPukRmQqkK24/THMrX1ywFAmpH6qYACgkQ24/THMrX
1yw7FQgAmwstevesLoZxQnpPJXBNc3CNd12+YeS/laubpbvmjie9CvIU9rfsXDw6
UQE6+1Hsun+n19YydA2e2JebVJlB7QDx19zuafAm8l6gsbUQ4yNCGKxe0BjUBN1z
EGmqCxbaakZvp4v9BKl5fUwvvLxwG1eFgimdZ5d7lRg0xyGtmbZ3ge90j7VH/Uv5
/S/XE4YmPcrDEZgcMwfObVTL+KAPto2KKs0K26cIIQCpZ/+Suh8FQtsPKoGY2k4v
FPNosLGfp/Z88S3DfzLIc+HVx8XSJtOVzr5nfsGINI7Npap4UCZAJN05QRD456Al
3EigO1Q9IOP9BTXdBp28WU/XQM2iyw==
=Mhqs
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[qubist]

So, basically no way to do it "live" and refresh corresponding GUI elements.
Why is that? What are the challenges?

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

On Fri, Jul 03, 2026 at 06:03:43PM -0000, qubist wrote:
> So, basically no way to do it "live" and refresh corresponding GUI elements.
> Why is that? What are the challenges?

In my previous email I wrote exactly what would need to be done to
support live reload :)

On top of that, likely there needs to be some follow-up work related to
specific window managers, so they actually change the colors of existing
windows (I bet there will be cases where they won't notice it
initially...).

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEhrpukzGPukRmQqkK24/THMrX1ywFAmpH+5gACgkQ24/THMrX
1ywWGgf+N97FPPqe3giE5iALdnd8GkkdMq1RU28EsSHFbJGuaeyiF97oz77h+UsX
Qo5nHuQWOVg+4cY/8RkpzgKVWgdRzvQlGKAA1WBWT3JN+VF92ac3IRV9BKAWR6Xk
PmnrfvAZaraOtcgpCRxpgPaowWjpia3aOynT2qhTwV1XEREco614G4hsE/jeSrrR
diZqBtmc+qaZuq1hDeSRZA1eNXW07T+c/F5td6khLS72gk6MV7kXo13rQNWwuf8/
+rS/YO4W8JSnEtXDHKjcBapVau2gVbuL7r6seOSbJ9SHVjlsnS6/Jsh7QxKjTDhZ
VNzc09CiPpDOCfWeR+hvYFBnxqbtzQ==
=Rxd2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[qubist]

On Fri, 3 Jul 2026 20:12:40 +0200 Marek Marczykowski-Górecki wrote:

> In my previous email I wrote exactly what would need to be done to
> support live reload :)

Yes, you did! What I mean is that there is no *existing* way currently.
Sorry for the confusion.

Could you please point me to the code which needs the work you
mentioned:

[Marek Marczykowski-Górecki]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

That's mostly in https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-gui-daemon/blob/main/gui-daemon/xside.c
Especially in functions parse_cmdline() and parse_config(). And then
reload() needs to take care about reloading the config too.

When that's done, then the config generator needs to put those options
in: https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-core-admin-client/blob/main/qubesadmin/tools/qvm_start_daemon.py#L675-L679
And in the same file, react to label change events to tell gui-daemon to
reload the config.

- --
Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEzBAEBCAAdFiEEhrpukzGPukRmQqkK24/THMrX1ywFAmpJYhIACgkQ24/THMrX
1yxjxAf+OLIcwpbpcVwTe0eCshc7JD4QP3826Vht7DGocbYuvcYtunM1yquzW949
3d4DINgAwvTr40ttU2yZct1zRD6ZPowhlgcZa2gpa4eWOEhTS5UL5Yt9NROltcxL
BaHaTEmdBHHhF2E24kbn4JWr/4r1aeIljjoth1lfoI0ur08KTU84QIw2nphleKuf
cewkYPfnS3/NfhPBNDsU4hkG6jPydlzy0kbK+AceXuobKOHyhmR5GwcTkQBg64c9
n8MXWRWpzOxmph54h7zpwHtDqRmO+Z6USAC0M7qGiP+yBFpTobNnQgj3l5PLss7z
5NIkYwPho3lcMzlih2Ps/9mxucZcxw==
=iVhf
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[qubist]

Thank you.
I will have a look.