GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

drtebi · 2016-04-10 14:19:25

Hello,

I have become a victim of the theme-horror.

I run GTK2, GTK3, QT4 and QT5 apps, all of this within Enlightenment.

After an update today, the GTK3 "mate" theme that I once used, had an issue again that selected text was invisibly selected (it's selected, but the highlight is invisible). I tried to fix it, and broke literally everything.

What I am looking for is a somewhat consistent theme, similar to the Enlightenment theme (which is still fine), or like the old Oxygen dark theme. The latter I have been using with dolphin4, which for some strange reason is all white, bright and shiny now. My eyes hurt...

I have done about 2-3 hours of searching the forums, google'ing, trying different themes and settings, but no success. The biggest problem is that Firefox will have highlight problems, where the highlight turns out to have the same color as the background, or the same color as the text.

Can someone recommend a way to get these four different application frameworks to all agree on one nice dark theme? I would greatly appreciate it!

Last edited by drtebi (2016-04-11 12:44:57)

Chazza · 2016-04-10 14:38:47

Have you looked through the GTK updates thread? There's plenty of discussion vis-a-vis broken themes there. The long and the short of it is that the GTK+ 3.20 update has broken things (as per usual) so you'll have to either find a working theme or wait for your old theme to get fixed (or walk away from GTK+ 3).

Radioactiveman · 2016-04-10 14:46:27

I recommend to try the Arc theme which already supports GTK+ 3.20.

rlees85 · 2016-04-10 18:27:35

Vertex is GTK 3.20 ready and in the AUR too. Arc is slightly nicer though IMO

drtebi · 2016-04-11 00:06:41

Thanks for the heads-up on the GTK updates thread, I haven't seen that. I went over the wiki articles on themes and uniform themes, but they are probably out of date, and, frankly, more confusing that any other arch linux wiki article I have seen.

I will go through that thread and see if I can come to a solution, and also try out the Arc theme and Vertex theme.

One question remains though, how do I get Dolphin to look dark again? I am running dolphinpart4 15.12.3-1, and want to stick with it... It was looking great with the oxygen theme, which I somehow managed to get into the dark look, but I cannot figure out how to get it back. The dark breeze theme doesn't look quite right, I just want the oxygen dark theme again

drtebi · 2016-04-11 01:31:36

OK, got a little further...

For Dolphin4, I can live with the breeze-dark theme, and oxygen widget set:
http://drtebi.com/dump/arch-linux/dolph … enshot.jpg

Installed:
- oxygen-icons
- oxygen-kde4
- ttf-oxygen
- breeze
- breeze-kde4

Setup:
KDE Preferences- > Workspace Theme -> Look and Feel [selected Breeze Dark]
QT4 Config -> Appearance Tab -> GUI Style [select Oxygen]

That provides a nice dark theme for Dolphin4, and other QT4 based apps. 'hope that helps someone.

Now I'll try to tame the GTK themes...

Moderator edit: Changed large image to url link https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … s_and_code

Last edited by ewaller (2016-04-11 02:28:59)

drtebi · 2016-04-11 02:01:17

The Arc theme is not working for me. Maybe I am missing something? Installed it from AUR, also did a logout-login, qalculate looks like this:

drtebi · 2016-04-11 02:20:16

The same happens with the Vertex theme:

It seems as though the problems are only buttons, drop-down boxes, and input fields.

Does anybody have the dark Vertex or Arc theme working for them?

drtebi · 2016-04-11 12:42:38

Well, I have, for the most part, solved my theme problems.

I didn't realize that the majority of programs I use are still GTK2 based. Installing the adwaita-dark-gtk2-git theme fixed all those programs back to a dark theme I like.

From what I understand however, I needed to configure this in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 as opposed to through my GUI theme chooser. For my default theme I chose Adwaita, but in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 I added the following:

include "/usr/share/themes/Adwaita-dark-gtk2/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
style "user-font" 
{
	font_name="Cantarell Regular"
}
widget_class "*" style "user-font"
gtk-font-name="Cantarell Regular 11"
gtk-theme-name="Adwaita-dark-gtk2"
gtk-icon-theme-name="oxygen"
gtk-fallback-icon-theme="hicolor"
gtk-cursor-theme-name="Adwaita"
gtk-toolbar-style=GTK_TOOLBAR_ICONS
gtk-menu-images=1
gtk-button-images=1

All of this was already added by the "KDE Gtk Config" tool, I only changed the theme names to the Adwaita-dark-gtk2 theme.

If there is a better way, or more "correct" way, please let me know.

Most applications are looking right now, with a few exceptions (e.g. Cantata has some white text on white background areas). As described in the wiki, an application can also be started with a different theme. This works well when using a .desktop file. So for example, I simply copy the cantata desktop file to my local directory:

cp /usr/share/applications/cantata.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

and then edit the "Exec" line in ~/.local/share/applications/cantata.desktop to this:

Exec=GTK2_RC_FILES=/usr/share/themes/Adwaita/gtk-2.0/gtkrc cantata %U

Now Cantata will always run with the default Adwaita theme. In bright white. But without any theme errors.

Again, if there are better solutions, please comment.

Last edited by drtebi (2016-04-11 12:43:57)

Panzerino · 2016-04-11 17:51:40

drtebi wrote:

The same happens with the Vertex theme:
http://drtebi.com/dump/arch-linux/qalcu … shot-2.jpg
It seems as though the problems are only buttons, drop-down boxes, and input fields.
Does anybody have the dark Vertex or Arc theme working for them?

How to build working Arc theme:

Go here : https://github.com/archlinuxcn/repo/tre … me-arc-git
Download the PKGBUILD.
Download the snapshot from here : https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gtk-theme-arc-git/

Build the theme yourself, with the above obtained PKGBUILD [ makepkg -s ]!
Install. [pacman -U... ]

All will be fine.

For all qt4 or qt5 apps, I use the "-style=gtk+" in the exec line. Thus, all these apps use the default arc theme, and not the qt4 or qt5 theme. Simple and elegant solution for me.

Last edited by Panzerino (2016-04-11 18:06:44)

drtebi · 2016-04-11 19:57:30

Panzerino wrote:

How to build working Arc theme:
Go here : https://github.com/archlinuxcn/repo/tre … me-arc-git
Download the PKGBUILD.
Download the snapshot from here : https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gtk-theme-arc-git/
Build the theme yourself, with the above obtained PKGBUILD [ makepkg -s ]!
Install. [pacman -U... ]
All will be fine.
For all qt4 or qt5 apps, I use the "-style=gtk+" in the exec line. Thus, all these apps use the default arc theme, and not the qt4 or qt5 theme. Simple and elegant solution for me.

I am pretty sure that's what I did before, but maybe I didn't use the GIT version. I tried that again, and it works... well except for Cantata, with that I get some very dark text on dark background.

There must have been something else messed up before, not sure what it was.

Nevertheless, the Arc theme works quite well. Thanks for making me try that again.

Thorned_Rose · 2016-04-12 00:57:14

As a temporary solution for some peeps, I posted how you can change the theme per app so you can use themes that work (e.g. Adwaita) on GTK3 apps without having to use an ugly theme/partially broken theme on everything, here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p1619383

drtebi · 2016-04-12 04:53:41

Thorned_Rose wrote:

As a temporary solution for some peeps, I posted how you can change the theme per app so you can use themes that work (e.g. Adwaita) on GTK3 apps without having to use an ugly theme/partially broken theme on everything, here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p1619383

Right. That's pretty much the same thing I do (described two posts above), only for GTK2 apps. It works very well, and won't get overwritten when you update an application.

---

And by the way, I found out what the trouble was with the adwaita-dark-gtk2 theme. It is missing two lines:

 GtkTreeView::odd-row-color        = @base_color
 GtkTreeView::even-row-color       = @base_color

If you add that to the

style "murrine-default"

block, tree views and lists will have the proper colors.

imraro · 2016-04-12 07:08:02

Another solution: https://github.com/magnific0/gnome-breeze/tree/gtk320

Mixu · 2016-08-04 18:47:02

I only wanted to say THANKS A LOT!!!
I've been wandering the internets for tons of themes for quite some hours until I stepped on this post

drtebi wrote:

Thorned_Rose wrote:
As a temporary solution for some peeps, I posted how you can change the theme per app so you can use themes that work (e.g. Adwaita) on GTK3 apps without having to use an ugly theme/partially broken theme on everything, here:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p1619383
Right. That's pretty much the same thing I do (described two posts above), only for GTK2 apps. It works very well, and won't get overwritten when you update an application.
---
And by the way, I found out what the trouble was with the adwaita-dark-gtk2 theme. It is missing two lines:
 GtkTreeView::odd-row-color        = @base_color
 GtkTreeView::even-row-color       = @base_color
If you add that to the
style "murrine-default"
block, tree views and lists will have the proper colors.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-04-10 14:19:25

GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#2 2016-04-10 14:38:47

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#3 2016-04-10 14:46:27

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#4 2016-04-10 18:27:35

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#5 2016-04-11 00:06:41

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#6 2016-04-11 01:31:36

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#7 2016-04-11 02:01:17

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#8 2016-04-11 02:20:16

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#9 2016-04-11 12:42:38

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#10 2016-04-11 17:51:40

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#11 2016-04-11 19:57:30

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#12 2016-04-12 00:57:14

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#13 2016-04-12 04:53:41

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#14 2016-04-12 07:08:02

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

#15 2016-08-04 18:47:02

Re: GTK3 GTK2 QT4 QT5 -- all themes completely messed up [SOLVED, sort of]

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