The Gnome Shell themes thread... ...

[SuBoXiDe]

i tried to work with a repeating background last night "background-repeat:repeat-x;" something like this but it doesn't seem to work or i did something wrong i was tired and after trying 3times i stopped and went to bed and i'm at work now so can't test it but just seeing your screen remembers me of it since some kind off wood structure repeating could maybe give it a nice feel
but like i said maybe i did something wrong i'll try again tonight

[techno-mole]

i did try a background image applied to the overview, this didnt go well either, it did display, but then for some reason it seemed to cancel out the style sheet and everything went transparent, if you rename the style sheet and restart the shell you will see what i mean.

i dont know why it seemingly crashed the theme/scheme of it though.it should be possible to show a background, it may just be an alignment issue ?

ill have another go at some point, and might ask on the gs mailing lists regarding backgrounds, i did put in a feature request that would allow people to change the workspace previews to circles/ovals etc or just round of the corners, but as yet its still an idea, im not sure if it could be implemented in the css ?

the other thing was to allow editing of the theme using an embedded editor type thing, this may be harder than first thought, but one of the gs people suggested using gconf to edit it, which may well be a better idea, we shall see.

[SuBoXiDe]

i was able to add the ubuntu logo as a beackground to the activity button in my last light theme i uploaded if you look close you will see a light ubuntu logo behind the activity button but adding a repeating background seems impossible for now (or i miss something)

[techno-mole]

yes I did see the logo, it seems to be that in order to display an image it would need to be included in a lot of places, for example you can display and image in the panel buttons, and the dash and the overview, you should also be able to display and image as a background in the recent items pop out and the app pop out, and there in lies the problem I think, it's loads of little elements, rather than one big one.

I will have to play around with some image files or varying sizes etc and see what effects can be produced, for example as you said a wooden look could be applied to aspects of the shell, I don't know how well it would work, displaying and image in the app pop out, I will have a go and post some screenshots, this I think will be easier than using a large image in the over view mode, which what I tried and failed badly with.

I have sent an email to the gnome shell mailing list to ask about displaying images as backgrounds just to see what they say.

[augias]

Updated my theme on a new post. Click here to check it out.

[techno-mole]

I have been trying t get an image to display in the overview mode, and I can, but there are alignment issues and then for some reason it only displays once, and seems to cancel out the style sheet for some reason.

the transparency can be removed, eg you can decide to show no transparency and no gradients if you feel the need.

the poster has edited the style sheet to show an ubuntu logo in the panel buttons, i would look there if using blue fish to edit, just press ctrl + f and type panel or such like.

I have not heard anything back from the gs mailing lists, but i most likely will. im still working on trying to add the alignment aspects to get images of varying sizes to display properly in the app menus etc, slow going.

[augias]

By the way, It just occurred to me that this might be important to mention. If the tip is useful, I recommend the OP add this info to his first post.

If you're building gnome-shell from source using jhbuild tools: You can keep the theme you're currently using (without having to re-do everything on updates) by committing your changes to your css file to git, like so.

$: cd ~/gnome-shell/source/gnome-shell
$: git commit -a

This will open a changelog file in nano (terminal's text editor) that asks you for a breif commmit message.

Commit changes to the CSS file.
# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# Committer: Fernando Mora <fernando@homework.(none)>
#
# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
#
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       modified:   data/theme/gnome-shell.css
#





                               [ Read 14 lines ]
^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File ^Y Prev Page ^K Cut Text  ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where Is  ^V Next Page ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell

Just write something obvious like "CSS changes" where the cursor is (at the top where i wrote the same message) and press ctrl+o to save, enter to confirm and ctrl+x to quit.

This will let any updates from git take place without bugging you about your weird CSS file, but i doubt it's foolproof. If you're daring, use

$ git reset HEAD~X

where X = number of commits to revert.

[techno-mole]

By the way, It just occurred to me that this might be important to mention. If the tip is useful, I recommend the OP add this info to his first post.

If you're building gnome-shell from source using jhbuild tools: You can keep the theme you're currently using (without having to re-do everything on updates) by committing your changes to your css file to git, like so.

$: cd ~/gnome-shell/source/gnome-shell
$: git commit -a

This will open a changelog file in nano (terminal's text editor) that asks you for a breif commmit message.

Commit changes to the CSS file.
# Please enter the commit message for your changes. Lines starting
# with '#' will be ignored, and an empty message aborts the commit.
#
# Committer: Fernando Mora <fernando@homework.(none)>
#
# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 1 commit.
#
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       modified:   data/theme/gnome-shell.css
#





                               [ Read 14 lines ]
^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File ^Y Prev Page ^K Cut Text  ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where Is  ^V Next Page ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell

Just write something obvious like "CSS changes" where the cursor is (at the top where i wrote the same message) and press ctrl+o to save, enter to confirm and ctrl+x to quit.

This will let any updates from git take place without bugging you about your weird CSS file, but i doubt it's foolproof. If you're daring, use

$ git reset HEAD~X

where X = number of commits to revert.

consider it done

[techno-mole]

ive just updated gnome shell (from the testing ppa) and there is a change to the css that controls the search feature, basically from what i can tell (havent looked at it that closely) you need to replace the search control css with the following

#searchEntry {
    padding: 4px;
    border-radius: 4px;
    color: #a8a8a8;
    border: 1px solid #565656;
    background-color: #404040;
    caret-color: #fff;
    caret-size: 1px;
    height: 16px;
}

#searchEntry:focus {
    color: #545454;
    border: 1px solid #3a3a3a;
    background-color: #e8e8e8;
    caret-color: #545454;
}

#searchEntry:hover {
    border: 1px solid #767676;
}

you should be okay to just straight replace all the search entry stuff with the above.

[Minipalmer]

Hey guys, the themes are looking great. I tried gnome shell the other day and have a few suggestions/questions.

1. Is there a way to make the font smaller on the top panel-ish thing?

2. Is there a way to make the top panel-thing smaller?

3. My gnome shell did not have the fading icon on top, but just the regular icon. Is there a way to enable it?