gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

mac57 · 2006-02-11 20:12:20

I have been playing with adding gtk themes to my system by creating a ~/.gtkrc and ~/.gtkrc-2.0. I downloaded a large set of themes, and when I select one in my .gtkrc-2.0 file, it seems to work. Nonetheless, before I started this effort, I had checked the Arch repository and see that there is a package called gtk-engines.

Since my theme selections appear to be working without this package, I am left wondering what it does and whether I need it for something that I am not aware of. I have done a "pacman --query gtk-engines" and I can see that it is not on my system.

So, my question is - what does this package do? Can I use new/different themes with it? What functionality does it enable? Thanks.

paranoos · 2006-02-11 20:33:22

gtk-engines gives you more themes. such as Clearlooks and Industrial (which are two of the nicer ones available, if you ask me)

mac57 · 2006-02-11 21:47:06

Thanks, I installed it and tried out Industrial. You are right, a very nice theme. Clearlooks is nice too, but I am guessing it is a Gnome based theme - too much earthtone in it for my taste! Thanks again.

iphitus · 2006-02-11 23:51:49

what the package provides, is engines. Engines provide a look and shape. However you can get themes from art.gnome.org and gnome-look, which use these engines, with different colours or even combine multiple engines for a different look.

So its easily possible to have clearlooks, not earthy, but totally white like a default industrial.

iphitus

mac57 · 2006-02-12 18:01:08

Thanks, I'll have a look at art.gnome.org and gnome-look.org. I didn't know about either of these, and my googling for theme sites did not turn them up. Strange.

When you say it is possible to have, for example, Clearlooks without the earth tones, are you saying that such a theme has been created and I can find it at one of the above two, or are you merely commenting that I can go in and edit the theme myself manually (I have done this before in the past!) to change some of the color elements?

iphitus · 2006-02-13 05:32:14

You can do both, edit it, or grab one off the sites.

The clearlooks engine itself knows nothing of 'earthy colours'. The only reason why it is associated with such colours, is the default colour theme distributed with it uses them.

iphitus

mac57 · 2006-02-13 22:03:42

Yes indeed, gnome-look.org was overflowing with lots of excellent GTK themes AND icon themes. I would encourage folks to look there; lots of nice stuff for your desktop.

As you mentioned, I found many, many Clearlooks themes that did not feature earth tones. There is a package there called something like Clearlooks-bigpack, which has about 10 different Clearlooks themes in it. A very worthwhile investment! Happy Hunting!

Arch Linux

#1 2006-02-11 20:12:20

gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

#2 2006-02-11 20:33:22

Re: gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

#3 2006-02-11 21:47:06

Re: gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

#4 2006-02-11 23:51:49

Re: gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

#5 2006-02-12 18:01:08

Re: gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

#6 2006-02-13 05:32:14

Re: gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

#7 2006-02-13 22:03:42

Re: gtk-engines? Do I Need It?

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