A Beginner "How To" for gtkrc themes.

[scigirl]

Thanks for the quick replies - I really appreaciate your help
I see what you are suggesting here, but I guess I was looking for something that would actually keep my white on dark theme :\
I actually took your moonglow theme and modified it a bit to make it all dark without any green, and I love it because in general white on dark is much easier on my eyes (and it goes great with my desktop picture). I could try something else with a black font, but it just wouldn't be the same I guess. I really appreaciate your help though, I couldn't have done it so quickly and easily without your how-to
Here is what my firefox ends up looking as though:

You can see how I made the theme up on top - it's all dark gray with white font. What bugs me are those dark text fields and buttons - they just look horrible on the white background. I guess this happens because firefox uses GTK buttons and text fields somehow, so I guess one of solution would be to find a different browser that doesn't do that. I'll post back if I figure it out

[crimesaucer]

Yeah, I see what you mean.

I always like the different color buttons and text boxes for google just because they match the url text boxes of my browser and the rest of my OS.

I just hate when I can't view the text when typing in a text area like this reply box for Ubuntu I'm typing in right now.

It's funny, your theme and the theme I just posted are like yin and yang.

If I learn a new tip about being able to fix the text areas, I'll post it.

[EML910]

Crimesaucer awesome themes. I to am new to Xubuntu and learned a lot from your posts. Do you know a code for blue text?

[crimesaucer]

Thank you, do you mean text for the mousepad, like for anything you type?

I'll try to help if you explain what area you want to customize color-wise.

[EML910]

I was thinking for anything that I typed.

[ComplexNumber]

Thanks for the quick replies - I really appreaciate your help
I see what you are suggesting here, but I guess I was looking for something that would actually keep my white on dark theme :\
I actually took your moonglow theme and modified it a bit to make it all dark without any green, and I love it because in general white on dark is much easier on my eyes (and it goes great with my desktop picture). I could try something else with a black font, but it just wouldn't be the same I guess. I really appreaciate your help though, I couldn't have done it so quickly and easily without your how-to
Here is what my firefox ends up looking as though:

You can see how I made the theme up on top - it's all dark gray with white font. What bugs me are those dark text fields and buttons - they just look horrible on the white background. I guess this happens because firefox uses GTK buttons and text fields somehow, so I guess one of solution would be to find a different browser that doesn't do that. I'll post back if I figure it out

don't make the base[NORMAL] so dark. another thing to remember with dark themes is NEVER have any font as pure white. make it light grey instead. you will find that when you use firefox, some (white) fonts won't show up on the white background.

Crimesaucer awesome themes. I to am new to Xubuntu and learned a lot from your posts. Do you know a code for blue text?

depends what shade of blue. if you use any application where there is the colour picker widget, that will tell you the code. personally, i use an application called gcolor.

[crimesaucer]

When writing it for the gtkrc for the xfce-engine, this would be the place for all "written" text:

text[NORMAL] = Font color used for Mousepad, Firefox (web pages unless you un-check you "Use System Colors" in Firefox Preferences-->--Content-->--Colors), Url font, Thunar font (not selected), xubuntu menus (not selected). Checks for check boxes, radio dots too. Combobox, ComboBoxEntry, GtkCombo, GtkEntry, and numbers in numberbox.


Then if you want the Firefox Browser's menubar to have blue text, like where it says File, Edit, View...then this is where to put your blue text:


fg[NORMAL] = This is the font color in the menu bars in FF and xubuntu, and also the color of the app in the pager that is open on a different Desktop.


As for the Dark background themes:

I noticed that as long as you have your, Firefox-->--Edit-->--Pref.-->--Content-->--Color-->--"Use System Color" un-checked....that you won't have white text in most pages (like Beryl forum). The exception is this Ubuntu Forum's text boxes, and maybe other Forum Text areas that are similar to this one. Then it gets really difficult to see.

So using a light gray or off-white, or some other lighter color like my light green, is a good idea so if you run into one of those pages where it doesn't work, then at least you can still see the light text a little bit.

But this is one of the reasons, that after the Black and Green one, that I mostly do themes that use #000000 for the text[normal], like the last gtkrc I posted called Xfce-rusty_milk.

I spend too much time on this Ubuntu forum to be squinting at light text like the black and green one.

And for anybody else that's interested in any of my gtkrc themes, I have 6 of them posted in the Ubuntu Gallery and also at Deviant Art in the XFce section and the Firefox section. They all have the gtkrc posted with the screenshot.

[theadventuresofanidealist]

i have a question: where can i find the font in the xfce-rustsy_milk theme, the window title font?

[crimesaucer]

I had originally gotten it from here: http://www.dafont.com/sg06.font

but I also saw it here: http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/SHAKAGRAPHICS_06.htm

[AJB2K3]

If anyones interested i started several GTK theme pages on wikipedia based on 1.0>1.5 gimp and with most of it still usable im looking for contribitors to make it better.