Xfce Forum

advice1010

Member

Registered: 2023-02-19

Posts: 68

Custom theme and icon set questions

I apologize if any of this is common knowledge but I have some questions about themes if anyone has any info to share.

1.) I notice that many DE have some common themes available.  Are custom themes created specifically for each DE or are they some kind of standard theme format that work in all DE?

2.) I have mentioned in other posts that I noticed that Xfce does not have the ability to allow users to change specific file type / MIME icons.
Also cannot change default folder icons / Home category folder icons / use custom folder icons for specific folders (except for thumbnail trick)
I noticed though that when you change themes all of these icons change, so this is available to those who create themes.
I was wondering if existing themes can be edited, allowing user to change MIME / folder icons?

3.) Are themes created simply with some kind of text file or do they require compiling.
I believe I read on some forum a user mentioning that creating custom themes require a good amount of programming knowledge.
Wasn't sure if this is correct or not.

I think that is all the questions I have at the moment.
Mainly just hoping to be able to change some icons and also have some programs that don't work too well with certain theme elements and was hoping to be able to tweak some stuff if possible.
Hoping that editing existing themes is possible

Anyways thank you to anyone who reads this and for any information shared

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,060

Re: Custom theme and icon set questions

1.) I notice that many DE have some common themes available.  Are custom themes created specifically for each DE or are they some kind of standard theme format that work in all DE?

Some are specific to different DEs and some are shared. GTK themes are somewhat interchangeable (assuming they provide support for the DE) and QT themes are separate on their own.

2.) I have mentioned in other posts that I noticed that Xfce does not have the ability to allow users to change specific file type / MIME icons.
Also cannot change default folder icons / Home category folder icons / use custom folder icons for specific folders (except for thumbnail trick)
I noticed though that when you change themes all of these icons change, so this is available to those who create themes.
I was wondering if existing themes can be edited, allowing user to change MIME / folder icons?

This one is a little more complicated to answer:
a) changing mime icons is possible by changing the files located in the icon theme itself, or creating an override theme of your own.

b) default folder icons can be changed on one by one basis, as you noted with the thumbnailer trick, so to have them change with icon theme changes, you would need to manually change the thumbnail files as well, or use the default icon theme folder icons.

3.) Are themes created simply with some kind of text file or do they require compiling.

Most are simple text files. There is some icon themes that uses SASS compilation methods  and scss files (like Greybird).

Hoping that editing existing themes is possible

See my link above on creating an override theme so you can inject your own icons that won't be overwritten with a package upgrade.

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