[answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

Skaperen · 2021-07-22 02:38:06

this is in Xubuntu 18.04.5 with XFCE 4.12.3 today.

i have 18 users i regularly use to some degree. in all 18 users i long ago (in Ubuntu 14.04 with whatever XFCE installed at that time) set all 18 users to the same theme and adjusted the color setting that affects/includes the window title bar. if i recall correctly, it also affected/included the thin border around windows. a few months ago i noticed that one user's colors were a little different in the title bar. once noticed, it now bugs me every time i switch to that user. i want to get this color changed, soon. i remember that i went through all the users (probably 14 users back then) one at a time getting everything to be the same. i did everything through the GUI interface, as i recall. i remember colors were set by entering numbers in color panels. i had to use numbers to be sure there were no subtle differences. but there is with this one user. i cannot recall or find how i did this. i did this about 5 or 6 years ago and have not changed any of it since then. maybe the new versions are interpreting what was a subtle difference back then more radically today.

the exact number of users may be higher, like 20. but the number that is different is exactly 1.

i cannot find the way to change the colors in the window title bars. i think i have looked through every Whisker setting. can someone help me find the way to set the color for this one user so it is the same as the other 17 users?

Last edited by Skaperen (2021-08-01 23:13:58)

ToZ · 2021-07-22 02:47:12

Is the Window Manager theme that you are using located in a system directory (/usr/share/themes) or in a user directory (~/.themes).

If the former, the only way that it would change is if you had some intermediate setting that was changing it. Do you have anything in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 for this problem user? Can you also post back the problem user's xsettings:

xfconf-query -c xsettings -lv

If the later, make sure that the files are the same in the theme's xfwm4 folder for the problem user as they are for the other users.

Skaperen · 2021-07-23 01:21:19

here it is for user "sr":

/Gtk/ButtonImages               true
/Gtk/CanChangeAccels            false
/Gtk/ColorPalette               black:white:gray50:red:purple:blue:light blue:green:yellow:orange:lavender:brown:goldenrod4:dodger blue:pink:light green:gray10:gray30:gray75:gray90
/Gtk/CursorThemeName            Human
/Gtk/CursorThemeSize            24
/Gtk/DecorationLayout           menu:minimize,maximize,close
/Gtk/FontName                   DejaVu Sans 14
/Gtk/IconSizes                  gtk-button=16,16
/Gtk/KeyThemeName               
/Gtk/MenuBarAccel               F10
/Gtk/MenuImages                 true
/Gtk/MonospaceFontName          Monospace 10
/Gtk/ToolbarIconSize            3
/Gtk/ToolbarStyle               icons
/Net/CursorBlink                true
/Net/CursorBlinkTime            1200
/Net/DndDragThreshold           8
/Net/DoubleClickDistance        5
/Net/DoubleClickTime            400
/Net/EnableEventSounds          false
/Net/EnableInputFeedbackSounds  false
/Net/FallbackIconTheme          gnome
/Net/IconThemeName              elementary-xfce-darker
/Net/SoundThemeName             default
/Net/ThemeName                  Greybird
/Xft/Antialias                  1
/Xft/DPI                        96
/Xft/Hinting                    1
/Xft/HintStyle                  hintslight
/Xft/Lcdfilter                  lcddefault
/Xft/RGBA                       rgb

Skaperen · 2021-07-26 17:54:10

which setting changes the color of the window title bar? what value to get pure white as in 0xffffff?

ToZ · 2021-07-26 18:17:01

Is the Window Manager theme that you are using located in a system directory (/usr/share/themes) or in a user directory (~/.themes).

If its in the system directory (/usr/share/themes) then it is really odd that one user is different unless you have a copy in a local user directory (~/.themes).

Can you post bacl:

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/theme

ls -l /usr/share/themes

...and for the problem user:

ls -l ~/.themes

Skaperen · 2021-07-26 22:09:26

there is no ~/.themes directory in any user home directory.

lt2a/root /root 4# ls -dl /home*/*/.themes
/bin/ls: cannot access '/home*/*/.themes': No such file or directory
lt2a/root /root 5#

and...

lt2a/sr /home2/sr 21> xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/theme
Greybird-compact
lt2a/sr /home2/sr 22> ls -l /usr/share/themes
total 80
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Adwaita
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Adwaita-dark
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Bright
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Daloa
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Default
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Default-hdpi
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Default-xhdpi
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Emacs
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Greybird
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Greybird-accessibility
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Greybird-bright
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Greybird-compact
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  HighContrast
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Kokodi
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Moheli
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Numix
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Raleigh
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Retro
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019  Smoke
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb  9  2019 'ZOMG-PONIES!'
lt2a/sr /home2/sr 23>

i remember selecting Greybird-compact for every user because the compact header allowed a big terminal window to fit one more row.

ToZ · 2021-07-27 00:08:16

Hmmm. Strange. Do you have anything in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 for the problem user?
Can you post screenshots of the good and bad windows?

mint4all · 2021-07-27 00:26:40

Skaperen wrote:

which setting changes the color of the window title bar? what value to get pure white as in 0xffffff?

Perhaps my own efforts of "tweaking" a theme might help ... Some 4-5 years ago, I saved a series of gtk2-themes (named A+...) from the "uberstudent" distro, mostly because I liked the color gradients/shading of the borders, sliders, and window decorations (ie titlebars). Using this collection's xfwm4-folders, I tried out different border thicknesses, rounded corners etc. Note: this is using the old xfce4 window manager (4.12/4.14).

So for your pursuit, let me suggest to look at your base-line user's greybird-compact theme'x xfwm4 folder. You'll find a collection of *.xpm and *.png files. Though I am not certain about the WM's preference, I think the *.xpm widgets take precedence over the *.png widgets. The way I tweaked my final (today's) versions (3px borders, rounded corners, gradient titlebars, proper active/inactive shading etc) was by editing the pertinent *.xpm files (doc @ https://www.fileformat.info/format/xpm/egff.htm ), then using the image viewer to view them, and save them as a *.png file. So in order to "fix" your errant user's theming, simply duplicte your base system's xfwm4 folder on the errant user's xfwm4 folder.

Afaict, the general settings for the window decorations are located in the "themerc" file located in the xfwm4 folder. I have no idea how these general settings, and the *.xpm widgets' interplay with the rest of the chosen theme (ie buttons, popups, backgrounds, assets etc), but I am satisfied with my own tweaks (YMMV). Alas, I am not looking forward to how, or even if, this is going to work with the WM converting to gtk3+, or what my conversion efforts may turn into ...

Ps: If your setup entails a single system serving as a multi-user server/cloud, I suggest to save a local copy (in that errant user's ~./themes folder) of the --working-- greybird-compact (aka "reference") theme to circumvent whatever errant config might be in play. Just an afterthought...

Cheers, m4a

Last edited by mint4all (2021-07-27 01:19:33)

Skaperen · 2021-07-28 02:29:24

ToZ wrote:

Hmmm. Strange. Do you have anything in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 for the problem user?
Can you post screenshots of the good and bad windows?

the "issue" seems to have gone away. i have made no changes but i did reboot 3 times about 2 hours ago.

here is what is in ~/.gtkrc-2.0:

lt2a/forums /home/forums 17> box /home{/forums,2/sr}/.gtkrc-2.0
+----</home/forums/.gtkrc-2.0>-----------------------------------+
| style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {                                  |
|     XfdesktopIconView::ellipsize-icon-labels = 0               |
| }                                                              |
| widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
+----</home2/sr/.gtkrc-2.0>--------------------------------------+
| style "xfdesktop-icon-view" {                                  |
|     XfdesktopIconView::ellipsize-icon-labels = 0               |
| }                                                              |
| widget_class "*XfdesktopIconView*" style "xfdesktop-icon-view" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
lt2a/forums /home/forums 18>

it looks like all users have the exact same file all dated the same (since my last install) with -rw-r--r-- permissions on all.

Skaperen · 2021-07-28 02:30:43

mint4all wrote:

Skaperen wrote:
which setting changes the color of the window title bar? what value to get pure white as in 0xffffff?
Perhaps my own efforts of "tweaking" a theme might help ...

i'm tempted to just copy a bunch of ~/.config files that look like they are for XFCE4 from a good user to the bad one. i have not done that because i worry about the impact it might have. there might be files with the user name or a path encoded in there that could cause issues.

Skaperen · 2021-07-28 20:03:39

the "issue" has switched to a different user ... "skaperen" (my nickname, where i do various web searches). i will try to get data from "skaperen", now.

this is odd. i wonder if it has been switching around a lot. maybe, at times, it has been affecting more than one at a time. maybe some system glitch is going on.

Skaperen · 2021-07-29 06:18:10

i found what is different. in file ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfwm4.xml the value of property name="frame_opacity" is less than 100 (is 72) while other users have 100. this is letting some background color through. rebooting and changing this to 100 before the affected user logs in fixes the odd coloring. now, to figure out what changes it.

maybe i need to save a sha256 of this file and have a script run to make sure each user has this setting and warn me if different.

ToZ · 2021-07-29 11:25:34

Good hunting. It had to be something strange that was causing it.

Skaperen · 2021-07-30 00:31:42

right. for a color issue, one does not think of opacity. i have a background that is a vertical gradient from blue (#004488) to brown (#884400). so the compact title bar had pretty much the same-ish blue color behind it. if i had an image, it would have been quicker to see the real issue. but i use nearly full size windows (just the 16px panel left visible) for nearly everything. see http://ipal.net/xfce/20210729/202107292 … 510513.png (1920x1080 HD-2k 232572 bytes df88818ca1f7c23fec8f06a9031f05009db88a65d89bb899d5d2bcfcc29ea7d0 sha256)

olh · 2021-08-01 07:46:36

So, was the question "how to change the color of the window title bar" actually answered?

I had xfwm4 theme "Default" (or perhaps no xfwm4 theme at all), which gives grey for active windows, and grey for inactive windows. This makes a great UI.

With "xfwm4-settings" one can select a them different than "Default", to turn the title bar of some, but not all, active windows to blue.

This still leaves the question where the colors are coming from, and how to change them.

Skaperen · 2021-08-01 23:12:38

well, i guess, technically, it was answered. opacity does result in a (subtle) color change, depending on the background.

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#1 2021-07-22 02:38:06

[answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#2 2021-07-22 02:47:12

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#3 2021-07-23 01:21:19

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#4 2021-07-26 17:54:10

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#5 2021-07-26 18:17:01

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#6 2021-07-26 22:09:26

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#7 2021-07-27 00:08:16

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#8 2021-07-27 00:26:40

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#9 2021-07-28 02:29:24

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#10 2021-07-28 02:30:43

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#11 2021-07-28 20:03:39

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#12 2021-07-29 06:18:10

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#13 2021-07-29 11:25:34

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#14 2021-07-30 00:31:42

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#15 2021-08-01 07:46:36

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

#16 2021-08-01 23:12:38

Re: [answered] how to change color of window title bar for just one user

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