Looking for info on making a theme.

[ferulebezel]

I'm trying to make some new themes. Unfortunately I can't find any information via google. Perhaps I suck an coming up with search terms.

What I'm looking for is an explanation of the *.css files. There seems to be features in them that goes beyond what I've learned messing around with web pages.

I don't understand the things like:

color: shade (@bg_color, 0.6);
text-shadow: 0 1 alpha (shade (@bg_color, 1.25), 0.5)

what are these -unico values?

And in lines like:

GtkComboBox.combobox-entry .button,
.button:active,
.button:insensitive{

are all buttons, active buttons and insensitive buttons affected by what is within the curly braces or is it just the ones within a combobox.

What I also would like is a picture of the components (I believe the term might be "widgets") labeled with what they are called in the files.

Are these files documented anywhere?

[LarsKongo]

shade is what it sounds like. The shade of the color value @bg_color (that's defined in the gtk.css file.) The lower the value the darker the color gets and vice versa.

alpha is the transparency of the color. 0.0 is invisible. 1.0 is fully visible.

:active (or in some cases :selected) is the pressed/selected state of something. So for example: .button:active { background-color: shade (@bg_color, 0.6); } will make all buttons darker when they're pressed.

:insensitive is the state of items you can't interact with. (A grayed out button for example.)

-unico* values are engine specific settings for the Unico GTK3 engine.

AWF is useful when testing any changes you do to a theme: https://github.com/valr/awf (It doesn't update in real time though, so you'll need to close the gtk3 part of the app and open it again to test any changes.)

[cortman]

Are you talking about themes for Gnome shell?

If so, it's pretty easy- I've done one myself, and would like to do more if I can find time.
With CSS, the best way to learn is just to play with it. Install a theme, open up the existing CSS file in ~/.themes/theme_name, and start changing things. Change a value or two, save, and run "r" in the Alt+F2 box to restart the desktop. See if it changed.
As clunky as that sounds that was the best way I learned it. Just have fun with tweaking things.

[Frogs Hair]

Lots of information here . http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/

[ferulebezel]

I've gotten pretty far but still have some problems.

I can't figure out what is the variable for the color of the box and shading you get when resizing a window or the area surrounding the buttons on the title bar in a non maximized window.

What kind of ineritance mechanism is there? GtkCombobox.button inherit the values for .button?

Finally, I beg again. Has anyone compiled a list of the variaiables, preferably with a picture of the components they control.