This is reference notes for local theme corrections of a Sugar-100 based theme for an XFCE environment, meant as an example case and a starting point for a desktop designer's guide.
Problem
Visual inconsistency: The Sugar theme is designed using the Gtk toolkit, and some applications use the standards offered by the Qt toolkit (and/or others).
Strategies
- Other XFCE-themes must have had this problem! Choose one for reference
- and adapt their changes to the Sugar theme.
- Map visual flaws and report them as bugs to the Sugar Theme team:
- Jonas Smedegaard and myself (Siri Reiter).
Visual Design
- Flat design
- High Contrast icon theme as fallback (not Adwaita), similar in expression
- Strong colors in addition to black and grey theme
File structure
/gtk-2 (toolkit)
- gtkrc
/gtk-3
- gtk.css gtk-widgets.css settings.ini
/xfwm4
- themerc
Window manager icons (in (png and) xmp format)
close (cross, no toggle variant (dialog-cancel.svg)) maximize (window(s) or window with arrows (view-fullscreen.svg)) hide (underscore, no toggle variant (look at Piranha theme (circles))) menu (arrow down (go-down.svg)) shade (arrow up, toggled down (go-up.svg)) ?stick? (circle (view-radial.svg))
variations: -active (white icon, shade 5 background) -inactive(white icon, pale background) -pressed (shade 5 icon, white background) -toggled-active -toggled-inactive -toggled-pressed
white/ shade 1 shade 2 shade 3 shade 4 black/ full color/ shade 5
Themes correspond with their iconset in usr/share/icons/
Content of icon theme sugar.orig
/cursors
/scalable
- /actions /apps /categories /control /device /emblems /mimetypes /status
icon-theme.cache index.theme
Noted flaws
Sugar theme and Sugar icons.
- Sugar does not fully cover the xdg-standard for iconsets.
- Icon fallbacks in Thunar (desktop, filesystem, trashcan, folder, network), Icedove (get messages, write, chat, address book, tag, decrypt - search, filter and dropdown menu arrows are 'sugary') and
Iceweasel menus. Inheritance set to ?HighContrast in icons.theme
- Icon fallbacks in Thunar (desktop, filesystem, trashcan, folder, network), Icedove (get messages, write, chat, address book, tag, decrypt - search, filter and dropdown menu arrows are 'sugary') and
- Frames and icons in content of websites too radical (look for plugin)
- FIXED: Icedove: Selected color white and Icedove inverted active text color
- white in text 'button' when opening submenu (background doesn't change to grey) Grey background clash with Icedove address text color grey when sending mail (text grey when Qt 4 GUI Gtk+ is active, otherwise black) Evince: White text and background in file selection window Connection manager: White text and light grey backgrounds in manage connection selection menu xfwm4-settings: Combobox prelight background and foreground color both white.
- Tickbox and text overlap in submenus (Icedove, Iceweasel, Scribus)
- (but not in Appearence control window)
- Tab menus don't fit with Sugar's circled indication of selection
- (change bg color) (Appearence, Scribus, content of Thunar ind icon set view) (not or disappearing in seconds with Qt GUI set to Gtk+)
- Inkscape export combobox text fiels is too small to contain more than one
- digit
- No sugar style for window manager
- Evince and gtk-demo has its own "window manager" toolbar (following the
- gnome standards?)
- Cursor set is big and clumsy and only show inside borders of certain
- windows (Iceweasel (gtk-2.0), not Thunar (gtk-2.0))
- Libreoffice: Grey squared background shows behind rounded text fields.
- Spelling icons don't match with black background. Prelight fg and bg are both white in dialog boxes.
- Composit windows (necessary to shadow windows) makes selection in terminal
- mode white out, when windows are layered.
Notes
- Gtk theme needs to be in usr/share/themes for xfwm4 to recognize it
- Gtk-2 control styling by gtkrc-file
- Gtk-3 control styling by css-files
- Window frames has xfwm4 icons and shape in bitmaps (png and xpm).
- Xpm is necessary - allocates the space. Theme and typography is set in 'Window management'. Theme needs settings in themerc.
'Qt 4 settings' -> select gtk+ (test)
- Touchscreens work with Metacity
- Evince already has a kind of window manager with perfectly usable icons
- (Adwaita symbolic) - with the Gnome stadard (or maybe not?).
- Cursor theme has cursor.theme file (where?)
- Background image can be placed anywhere and must be chosen in the desktop
- manager widget. (What is the preferred location?)
- Splash screen in usr/share/images/desktop-base (symlink to desktop-splash)
- Size something like 1920 x 1200 px
Decisions
- Sugar theme look here: Thunar, panels, window frames
- Should the theme interfere in app design in Iceweasel, Icedove etc.?
Tasks
- DONE via theme.index Inheritance: Create symlinks from High Contrast icon theme
- (NONE FOUND) Test if programs crash when using Gtk+ theme in Qt programs.
- Identify possible sources to flaws
- Look for Iceweasel plugin to manage fallback in content of websites
- DONE Distribution logo in upper left corner in icons /apps/xfce4-panel-menu.svg and in index.theme directories list (lookup directory). Scalable preferred.
- DONE Find, choose, copy and modify bitmaps and themerc settings from window theme with similar features (Murrinableu (pointy) or Gaudy (rounded))
- DONE Create bitmap icons for window manager
- Write bug reports
- Create splash screen and place it correctly
- Create desktop image and place it correctly
- Create alpha package for Debian
- Report theme changes in git
- Create colored theme variation
Gtk based applications
darktable inkscape galculator gajim thunar
A list of gtk+ applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GTK%2B_applications
Qt based applications
scribus
tk
imagemagick
Mozilla
icedove iceweasel
Todo
mypaint sxiv pidgin gimp libreoffice