Ubuntu with Gnome Shell: How do I change the font size in top panel

[shuttleworthwannabe]

This is what I like about community participation--thank you Dave and Chuck; i will watch the development and am happy to help test drive this (I am no coder, nor a developer of any kind, just keen learner!).

SwB

[anewguy]

I don't know what I don't have installed or something, but there are no gnome-shell.css file(s) in my entire file system in 11.10.

So, if we take one thing at a time, can the colors be colors that could be selected from a color wheel? The gradient thing I have to express extreme ignorance on - what does this do, and how might these relate to a color wheel?

Trying to get a better understanding prior to starting the project. Also, won't be immediate - I'm "debugging" my taxes this week!

Any information/explanations, and at the simplest terms, would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

[cbowman57]

A color wheel would be the bomb, there's a spideroak link in my signature, grab a copy of ChocoLatte or Absinthe and you can find the files you need to look at. Are you using gnome shell? You should also be able to find one in /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme but I don't think it has gradients. If you pop ChocoLatte or Absinthe in your setup you'll understand the gradients better I think. It can be used in a few places but it gives that old curved & shaded gnome panel look (think something similar o a stock lxde/lubuntu setup).

At this point any tool would be a godsend but if I could shoot for the moon I'd like to have hex, rgb & rgba capability. If I were to prioritize and only one method is possible rgba would be the best choice. You can have variations of transparency with rgba but only solid colors with rgb & hex. gnome-shell.css can also use simple colors, red, white, black, etc..

I'm not a programmer so really don't know how to suggest you proceed but maybe if you incorporated code for an existing color picker it might give you a jumpstart. Since you are considering a color wheel method maybe it would also include a color picker so you could click a color on the desktop and it would be added to the pallet.

Whenever or whatever you decide to do I'm available, retired & can meet you online on a schedule that's convenient for you.

I think gpick is abandoned but I thought it overly complicated. It does contain the code for the selector, hex, rgb, I think rgba & even CMY, possibly a couple more.

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited at the prospect of having something like this available.

If you just want to look here's a link to my gallery, all but RatRod uses gradients. http://cbowman57.deviantart.com/

[anewguy]

Well, the reason I mentioned a color-wheel is that *if* I'm remembering correctly, it's one of the things that there is a tool for when I do the programming. And to be clear - gconf-editor doesn't provide the functions you need, correct?

Dave

[cbowman57]

Well, the reason I mentioned a color-wheel is that *if* I'm remembering correctly, it's one of the things that there is a tool for when I do the programming. And to be clear - gconf-editor doesn't provide the functions you need, correct?

Dave

That's correct Dave, it doesn't go deep at all or make any changes to the shell theme itself. A very simple version could probably be developed around a template and give somewhat limited flexibility. A deluxe version would be able to parse an existing theme, identify the proper entries and allow you change font, color & maybe a few other values (gradient or non-gradient for example). Naturally I'd like the deluxe version.

Just getting a project like this started is a huge thing & if you decide to limit development but make it GPL others could expand it if you were to lose interest.

I'm of course looking at this from the perspective of somebody that likes to make shell themes. If you want to make it so anyone would find it easy to use I imagine you'd factor that in.

Actually you might just want to build it to use gradients because all you'd hve to do if you didn't want them is use the same color code for both start: & end: (actually it might puke if it encountered a theme that doesn't use gradients so probably not such a good suggestion)

Don't want this tl;dr so I'll stop here for the moment.

[anewguy]

It probably sounds a little crazy, but what I'd like to do is figure out where themes are stored, then present a drop-box for the user to select the theme. From there, I would just copy the incoming css file to a new one until I get to the #panel {. At that point I would hope to present 1 or more screens to let one change things inside the panel, then when they are done append that to the new file and finish copying the input css file to the new. When done I would just rename the existing css file so it's backed up, and rename the new one to gnome-shell.css.

However, I have Gnome enabled via CharlesA's stickie for getting Gnome in 11.10, and a nautilus search of my entire file system has not yielded a single gnome-shell.css. So, I still don't know what the rest of the file looks like or where it would be found or how I could do some rudimentary testing here first.

any enlightenment on how I get one of these files to show up somehow in 11.10 would be greatly appreciated!

Hopefully I'll have my taxes finished up by sometime next week so I can get on this project.

Dave

[shuttleworthwannabe]

Dave and Chuck--how about developing something with 12.04 in mind--it is an LTS after all; so if you working this hard for 11.10, might as well put this to 12.04 eternity. And thus, may I suggest, installing Gnome-Shell in 12.04 Alpha 2; then make it available as a PPA???
Is this just wishful thinking?
(an am so excited about this endeavor--as I said, I am no programmer, just a eager-beaver-learner, tester, and etc)

[cbowman57]

I don't think he's working on this with purely Ubuntu in mind, maybe he is. I figured he'd just make it generic.

Truth is I rarely even log into Ubuntu anymore but I still love the community so thought I'd lend support where I can.

[anewguy]

Well, I finally have the css file. I had to install Gnome via synaptic package manager - that seems to have gotten it all.

I see there are many "groups" - buttons, panels, etc. - and since I have no clue what any of it is, I'll try to work up something starting next week. Looks like there are a whole lot of things to accomplish eventually.

As far as 12.04 goes - I have no clue. I've seen somethings referencing java files of some sort and I don't know it that applies to the default desktop manager. After installing Gnome from the package manager the first thing I noticed is the desktop, etc., is quite different. I get a Debian splash screen, an Ubuntu startup screen, and what I assume is an Ubuntu login screen. There is something called "Activities" on the top bar which seems to show graphically what windows I have open. I also notice that at least for Firefox, there is only a close button - no minimize, no window, just close button, and it's back on the right.

So, as a dumb guy who has taken his time trying to use Unity, it appears I now have something like light desktop manager, and with that a bunch of learning to do again.

Oh well, at least I have the css file now!

I will hopefully be able to start working with this mid to late next week. One step at a time - it won't all be there at once - just a piece to try and keep adding pieces.

Dave

[cbowman57]

OMG!! Never dawned on me that you weren't already using Gnome shell, but that would explain why you couldn't find the gnome-shell.css.

Yeah Dave, get familiar with the shell a bit before you decide to proceed.