Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

Geoff 42 · 2018-04-05 10:00:28

While most things worked nicely after the upgrade to Ascii, the look and feel of some of the programs has been upset. One item is that some of the affected programs have non-functioning scrollbars. I knew that I had seen a post about this and eventually found it in "Off-topic". GNUser describes how to improve scrollbars and buttons.

https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=1945

I think that the problem is with programs using GTK, possibly 3. The ones which I have noticed include emacs and synaptic.

Following GNUser's recipe worked nicely on my laptop, which has been on Ascii for a long time. The laptop also has a reasonable look and feel. My newly upgraded desktop machine is less happy. The scrollbar is now working to some extent in emacs, but is still absent in synaptic. The other problem with the look and feel is that the buttons in the menu bar at the top do not show up as buttons when you hover over them. There are just words in black on a grey background. There is no representation of buttons or tabs, just the words or icons. The only thing that does show up in this area is when a button is greyed out.

I suspect that I have some theme missing, although I have not yet spotted the difference between my 2 set-ups.

I have now been checking the settings for the look and feel. Selecting the "Customise Look and Feel" option from the "Preferences" menu item allows the selection of the theme. I had been using the Raleigh theme. I think that this was meant to look a bit like an IBM theme! If I change this to one of :- CLearlooks, CLearlooks Phenix-DarkPurpy, Adwaita, Industrial or one or 2 others, then the scrollbar is fully displayed and the buttons show when hovered over. My guess is that the Raleigh theme is no longer supported in GTK-3. I have currently settled on Clearlooks.

While the scrollbar is now working in synaptic, it does not seem to be following the style set up by GNUser's recipe, but is of the thin pop-up variety.

Geoff

msi · 2018-04-05 11:50:38

FYI: https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2014/06 … me-for-gtk

golinux · 2018-04-05 15:27:11

GTK3 and Adwaita theme sucks. Clearlooks is GTK2 only so won't handle the GTK3 in synaptic. The standard scrollbars are shown by default in the Clearlooks-Phenix and the (improved) Clearlooks-Phenix-Dark-Purpy themes which work with GTK2 and GTK3.

Geoff 42 · 2018-04-05 19:11:34

I do recall reading of problems keeping themes going in GTK3, so it was interesting to see MSI's link.

Following Golinux' post, I installed Clearlooks-Phenix and as described, the scrollbars in Synaptic work nicely, although they are still pop-up, but I can probably live with that. While the Clearlook-Phenix-Dark-Purpy does also work well, I do find it a bit, er, dark and prefer the lighter blue version. I was interesed to see that Clearlooks-Phenix-Purpy does not work so well with the scrollbar or with toolbar buttons, but I do notice that it is at an earlier version number.

Thank you for your info and help

Geoff

golinux · 2018-04-05 19:47:05

Geoff 42 wrote:

I do recall reading of problems keeping themes going in GTK3, so it was interesting to see MSI's link.

Since I've been doing the theming, I've been dealing with this for years. It is a royal pain.

Following Golinux' post, I installed Clearlooks-Phenix and as described, the scrollbars in Synaptic work nicely, although they are still pop-up, but I can probably live with that.

Fixing the scrollbars was a major headache. Thanks to fsmithred for his contributions to making that happen. You might find something in this thread to help you sort your synaptic scrollbars.

While the Clearlook-Phenix-Dark-Purpy does also work well, I do find it a bit, er, dark . . .

That's to match the darkpurpy default desktop wallpaper.

I was interested to see that Clearlooks-Phenix-Purpy does not work so well with the scrollbar or with toolbar buttons, but I do notice that it is at an earlier version number.

The purpy theme was for Jessie and used a different version of GTK3 (which is a moving target). It does not work well in ASCII.

Thank you for your info and help

YW

Geoff 42 · 2018-04-06 13:39:51

Having selected a sensible theme and got things reasonable, I backed out the mods suggested by GNUser and that seems to have made no difference.

I then followed Golinux' link to the XFCE discussion. I notice the comment that LXDM doesn't use /etc/environment and you need to put the magic commands in xsession. I think this is a reference to .xsession or .xsessionrc. I have made both of these links to /etc/X11/Xsession.d/52gtk3-nooverlayscrollbar-nocsd. If I look at the environment I can see :-

$ printenv|grep '=0'|grep -v COL
GTK_OVERLAY_SCROLLING=0
GTK_CSD=0
LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0

Also

$ grep '=0' .xsession-errors
dbus-update-activation-environment: setting GTK_CSD=0
dbus-update-activation-environment: setting SHLVL=0
dbus-update-activation-environment: setting GTK_OVERLAY_SCROLLING=0
dbus-update-activation-environment: setting LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0

So it appears that the magic is being set up ok, but the scrollbars are still of the pop-up variety, but of the nice solid variety with up and down buttons.

Geoff

GNUser · 2018-04-06 19:34:26

Hi, Geoff42. I'm using the Arc-Darker theme plus my scrollbar hack (plus a custom metacity-1 theme--see rant below). I don't use emacs (I'm a vim/geany person) so can't comment there, but my scrollbar hack works nicely in Synaptic.

I was hoping my scrollbar hack would work with any theme, but I guess I was just lucky with all the themes I tried.

Rant: Another annoying thing about the new themes are the "flat" window titlebars. When these titlebars overlap, it is impossible to know where one window's titlebar ends and another window's titlebar begins. I spent an unhealthy amount of time hacking a metacity-1 theme to a) have titlebar color gradient, b) use Arc-Darker's minimize/maximize/close buttons, and c) integrate well with the colors of the Arc-Darker theme. The metacity theme is here in case anyone is interested. I know the theme works if you are using metacity or marco as your WM, probably wouldn't work with other WMs but I'm not sure. To try it: Download the tarball, extract it, put the extracted folder in /usr/share/themes/, then customize your theme to use FineryDark-ArcButtons for "window borders".

Last edited by GNUser (2018-04-06 19:56:12)

golinux · 2018-04-06 19:49:15

In Xfce (don't know about Mate) there is a separate option for choosing the window manager apart from the theme that changes the title bar. You don't have to be stuck with gnome.

GNUser · 2018-04-16 20:13:58

Geoff42, I found an app in which my scrollbar hack isn't working: Filezilla.

Initial investigation results: My hack targets only gtk3, but some apps (such as Filezilla) rely on gtk2 settings. I will try to fix my hack so that a traditional scrollbar shows up in Filezilla.

Last edited by GNUser (2018-04-17 02:54:39)

GNUser · 2018-04-17 03:09:10

Creating a hack to override the gtk2 scrollbar settings seems to require more time and patience than I can spare. So a lazy solution is to open up Filezilla (or other gtk2 application of your choice) and keep changing the theme until finding one that makes Filezilla look nice (i.e., traditional scrollbar and reasonable color scheme). Then it's a simple matter of using those gtk2 settings instead of the gtk2 settings in your theme. For example:

I like the Arc-Darker theme the best overall, but prefer how Filezilla (and other gtk2 applications) looks with the TraditionalOk theme. Therefore:

# mv /usr/share/themes/Arc-Darker/gtk-2.0{,-bkup}
# cp -r /usr/share/themes/{TraditionalOk,Arc-Darker}/gtk-2.0

Then log out and log back in (or change theme from Arc-Darker to something else, then back to Arc-Darker) for the settings to take effect.

Last edited by GNUser (2018-04-17 03:13:16)

Geoff 42 · 2018-04-17 15:03:43

I popped up Filezilla to check the look and feel. As I mention above, I am running with the Clearlook-Phenix theme and Filezilla looks good to me. It has the general theme and the nice scroll bars and buttons are permanent and not pop-up. Since the Jessie - Ascii upgrade the icons are a bit, er, loud, but editing the setting/Themes, I can select "Tango" which seems to offer nice icons, without changing the overall theme.

Geoff

GNUser · 2018-04-17 15:24:54

I see. Sorry I missed the detail about the theme you are using. I don't currently have Clearlook-Phenix but used it in the past and remember that it is nice-looking and conservative. I'm not surprised that its gtk2 settings give you want you want out of the box.

It sounds like you are all set with icons, but check out the gnome-colors package. It provides nice, conservative (read: non-flat and actually informative) icon sets in virtually every color. I use the blue set ("Gnome-Brave") on my system, wife likes the pink set ("Gnome-Illustrious").

The main theme-related headache I had when I upgraded to Ascii is that its newer libgtk-3-0 (version 3.22) broke the gtk3 component of the themes I was using in Jessie. Therefore, I had to head over to gnome-look.org to look for themes that support gtk3 version 3.22. The problem with these newer themes is that almost all of them are flat and lack scrollbar buttons. So I settled on one of them (Arc-Darker) and "simply" put scrollbar buttons back in and took out the flat component that was bothering me the most (window titlebars that blend into other window titlebars). The resulting custom theme is here in case you are interested.

Last edited by GNUser (2018-04-17 15:31:30)

golinux · 2018-04-17 16:20:41

Geoff 42 wrote:

Since the Jessie - Ascii upgrade the icons are a bit, er, loud, but editing the setting/Themes, I can select "Tango" which seems to offer nice icons, without changing the overall theme.
Geoff

These have been done for some time but not yet been packaged for ascii. Hopefully this weekend. Enjoy if the color suits you! https://dev1galaxy.org/files/DarkPurpy-links.tar.gz

Geoff 42 · 2018-04-18 15:11:55

I should add that my comments about the icons referred specifically to Filezilla, rather than to a general problem after the upgrade. Having said that, in LXDE's "Customise Look and Feel" (Lxappearance) I have also set the Icon Theme to Tango.

Geoff

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#1 2018-04-05 10:00:28

Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#2 2018-04-05 11:50:38

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#3 2018-04-05 15:27:11

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#4 2018-04-05 19:11:34

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#5 2018-04-05 19:47:05

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#6 2018-04-06 13:39:51

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#7 2018-04-06 19:34:26

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#8 2018-04-06 19:49:15

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#9 2018-04-16 20:13:58

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#10 2018-04-17 03:09:10

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#11 2018-04-17 15:03:43

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#12 2018-04-17 15:24:54

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#13 2018-04-17 16:20:41

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

#14 2018-04-18 15:11:55

Re: Themes etc. after upgrade Jessie to Ascii - LXDE

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