Most themes just don't work

Mellowbob · 2020-09-16 18:46:08

I've fought with this for years and am getting quite frustrated by the problem. I using the setting manager to select a theme and I find that most themes just "don't work", even the, I assume, default ones for xfce.

Example, Setting->appearance select any of the XFCE themes (XFCE, XFCE-winter, etc) and the menu at the top of the panel (Style Icons ...) collapses and puts off the text together instead of each option being in a box. Select another theme, like Menta, and the boxes reappear.

I'm thinking that something is broken at my end. No idea what.

I'm running xfce 4.14.2.
I have checked and there do not appear to be any theme directories in my home directory, so I'm assuming the system wide themes are being used.

ToZ · 2020-09-16 20:01:47

Since Xfce moved to GTK3 in 4.14, the older themes (based on GTK2) no longer work. Those themes should have been removed by I guess your distro didn't.

For 4.14 you need to use a GTK3-compatible theme. Some of the popular ones are listed here.

Its also important to keep in mind that in the transition to GTK3, Xfce has created some new themeing classes and some of those themes may not yet have implemented them. The best one to test on would be the Greybird theme as the theme developer is also an Xfce developer and it has been kept in step.

Mellowbob · 2020-09-16 22:41:15

Thanks for the reply.

I've grabbed a couple of themes from xfce-look. Some work ... and, of course, others need a bit of help. Most annoying are the gtk warning which are generated when I start emacs from a terminal. Not a big deal since it's just a matter of editing the offending gtk-3.0 css file.

Still, I wonder why I have all those not-really-working xfce* themes.

mint4all · 2020-09-17 00:41:06

Mellowbob wrote:

Thanks for the reply.
I've grabbed a couple of themes from xfce-look. Some work ... and, of course, others need a bit of help. Most annoying are the gtk warning which are generated when I start emacs from a terminal. Not a big deal since it's just a matter of editing the offending gtk-3.0 css file.
Still, I wonder why I have all those not-really-working xfce* themes.

Greetings to you, and my apology for chiming in a bit late.

I wholeheartedly agree with you -- when the xfce "team" embarked on converting to gtk3's css-styled themes, they orphaned all gtk2-based themes. To complicate matters, there's no magical way to morph a gtk2-theme (based on gtkrc) into a gtk3-theme (based on .css files); all those old themes must be left behind. Worse, there's NO user feedback when a user selects or installs an unsupported/old theme -- one has to figure out trying to backtrack on a visual mess.

There's no "undo", or "restore defaults" or such that would go a long way to help users. The mess isn't over yet: the window manager's themes (aka xfwm4's "themerc") still does not comply with gtk3 and awaits conversion from today's format, non- or pre-gtk2. At the vety least, some warning-popups would be appreciated ...

Cheers, m4a

Mellowbob · 2020-09-17 00:50:57

Glad to know I'm not the only one suffering theme-anxiety!

Do people generate themes with a text editor or are there tools to do this?

And, while I'm on a bit of a rant ... what's with the fascination with dark themes? I'm in my 70s and have decent vision, but I can't stand the dark themes which seem to be so popular. Oh well

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#1 2020-09-16 18:46:08

Most themes just don't work

#2 2020-09-16 20:01:47

Re: Most themes just don't work

#3 2020-09-16 22:41:15

Re: Most themes just don't work

#4 2020-09-17 00:41:06

Re: Most themes just don't work

#5 2020-09-17 00:50:57

Re: Most themes just don't work

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