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boarim

Member

Registered: 2022-05-28

Posts: 29

Website

Not all GTK3 applications respect the dark theme setting

Following the wiki, I set the gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme in my user settings.ini. I am using sway with the default GTK3 theme, namely Adwaita.

However, not all applications follow this setting. Firefox does. Libreoffice and HandBrake do not. I have to force it by setting the environment variable GTK_THEME=Adwaita:dark. In this case, it works for all applications.

I would prefer to just set it in the configuration file. Any clue why is this happening?

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Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. — Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

robson75

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2020-06-28

Posts: 144

Re: Not all GTK3 applications respect the dark theme setting

echo "export GTK_THEME=Adwaita-dark:dark" >> ~/.profile

Last edited by robson75 (2023-09-07 18:32:46)

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Arch Linux Xfce - 64Bit Linux User #621110

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,687

Re: Not all GTK3 applications respect the dark theme setting

Any clue why is this happening?

I think it's because the settings.ini is your configuration file for your gtk applications but the apps you mentioned - Firefox, LibreOffice, Handbrake - are not gtk-native applications. They are in fact cross-platform applications found in other OSes so they render themselves as they were programmed without any knowledge of GTK. When you set the environment variable GTK_THEME, then you're basically telling your compositor to render everything, including non-natives, like gtk.

boarim

Member

Registered: 2022-05-28

Posts: 29

Website

Re: Not all GTK3 applications respect the dark theme setting

That is something I did not know. I thought as long as a software used GTK as its rendering engine, it would follow the GTK settings.

What would be a GTK native application for instance?

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Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. — Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,687

Re: Not all GTK3 applications respect the dark theme setting

An example is grsync. It is rsync backend with a GTK wrapper. Bear in mind that GTK is just like a wrapper. Most applications will be wrapped by gnome with GTK in the same way that the same applications will be wrapped by KDE with QT. But you will have the occasional third party, proprietary apps that won't be wrapped.

Last edited by d_fajardo (2023-09-08 06:50:37)

the-default

Member

Registered: 2023-02-16

Posts: 6

Re: Not all GTK3 applications respect the dark theme setting

Why don't you try the Gnome extension "Night Theme Switcher"? 

> https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/ … -switcher/

There is a menu item called "Themes" > "cange GTK Themes".

When I use this addon, all apps switch to the preferred theme.

Last edited by the-default (2023-09-08 09:32:00)