18 Jan
2021
18 Jan
'21
5:01 p.m.
I did try to accomplish this by going through the Trinity Control Center /
Appearance / Colors, but nothing happens to my non-TDE apps, so far as I can
tell. (Actually, I am only guessing, from what I remember; my TCC screen has
been frozen now for a couple hours. See attachment.)
Some of my apps refuse to change colors, even though they used to behave like
I want (in Jessie, that is, before I upgraded to Devuan Beowulf). I seem to
recall that E.Liddell, or maybe Nik, offered some css tricks to do something
like this? The main thing is that I don't want to look at a white screen, but
I prefer to keep my own color scheme, not to use one of those ready-made
themes.
Right now it is psi-plus that won't accept the color scheme that I used before
the upgrade; it accepts some of the definitions, but will not change
background colors.
By the way, if I could get kopete to work again, that would be fine, too, but
kopete-trinity lags behind other chat applications. Pidgin is okay, and I
have others that I am trying out, but at present psi-plus works best for
me ... except for the white background, which tends to be hard on my old eyes
and gives me a headache.
Any suggestions on how to fix the problem or for a workaround?
Thanks for any help!
Bill
18 Jan
18 Jan
8:08 p.m.
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:01:54 -0800
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
I did try to accomplish this by going through the
Trinity Control Center /
Appearance / Colors, but nothing happens to my non-TDE apps, so far as I can
tell. (Actually, I am only guessing, from what I remember; my TCC screen has
been frozen now for a couple hours. See attachment.)
Some of my apps refuse to change colors, even though they used to behave like
I want (in Jessie, that is, before I upgraded to Devuan Beowulf). I seem to
recall that E.Liddell, or maybe Nik, offered some css tricks to do something
like this? The main thing is that I don't want to look at a white screen, but
I prefer to keep my own color scheme, not to use one of those ready-made
themes.
Non-TDE applications will mostly be using one of three widget toolkits:
GTK2, GTK3, or QT5.
The easiest way I've found to theme QT5 is to use qt5ct. Your distro may
have it packaged, or get it from https://sourceforge.net/projects/qt5ct/ .
GTK2 and GTK3 can be themed by using gtk-qt-engine and/or
gtk3-qt-engine , which are optional TDE packages. They're known to
cause problems with some systems, though. Try gtk3-qt-engine first.
The other option for theming GTK2 and GTK3 is to edit some text files.
The theme file for GTK2 is .gtkrc-2.0, in the user's home directory, and
it uses a proprietary format. GTK3 uses one or more CSS files located in
~/.config/gtk-3.0/ . Unfortunately, figuring out exactly what to do with these
files is like pulling hen's teeth, or at least I was never able to find any
documentation with the list of GTK widget names on it. I had to hunt
through a bunch of downloaded styles to get things sort-of working, and
GTK3 is, in addition, a moving target to some extent.
I have my own hand-edited GTK2 and GTK3 theming files (set up for
white text on black/dark blue) that I can offer as examples if you need
them, although both styles are slightly flawed.
E. Liddell
8:56 p.m.
On Monday 18 January 2021 12:08:31 E. Liddell wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:01:54 -0800
Non-TDE applications will mostly be using one of three widget toolkits:
GTK2, GTK3, or QT5.
The easiest way I've found to theme QT5 is to use qt5ct. Your distro may
have it packaged, or get it from https://sourceforge.net/projects/qt5ct/ .
GTK2 and GTK3 can be themed by using gtk-qt-engine and/or
gtk3-qt-engine , which are optional TDE packages. They're known to
cause problems with some systems, though. Try gtk3-qt-engine first.
The other option for theming GTK2 and GTK3 is to edit some text files.
The theme file for GTK2 is .gtkrc-2.0, in the user's home directory, and
it uses a proprietary format. GTK3 uses one or more CSS files located in
~/.config/gtk-3.0/ . Unfortunately, figuring out exactly what to do with
these files is like pulling hen's teeth, or at least I was never able to
find any documentation with the list of GTK widget names on it. I had to
hunt through a bunch of downloaded styles to get things sort-of working,
and GTK3 is, in addition, a moving target to some extent.
I have my own hand-edited GTK2 and GTK3 theming files (set up for
white text on black/dark blue) that I can offer as examples if you need
them, although both styles are slightly flawed.
E. Liddell
Yes, that's what I recall. Would you please share it again? I did save it, but
when my hard drive crashed a few months back, I lost an incredible amount of
materials -- I am still trying to cope -- and among it were the css themes
that you had shared earlier.
I used those as starts to make my own. A little homework, together with using
yours for my cribs, and I am almost done already.
;-)
To do it properly will take more research on css, but for now I just want to
fix the immediate problem.
Bill
11:56 p.m.
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 12:56:32 -0800
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
Here you go. The .gtkrc-2.0 file needs the "industrial" engine for GTK2 to
work properly.
I don't recall whether the GTK3 settings.ini file is required, but I figured it
wouldn't hurt to include it anyway. If you can't get any icons, install the
Adwaita icon theme. Unfortunately, I was never able to fix the "scrollbar
visible only on mouseover" problem.
E. Liddell
On Monday 18 January 2021 12:08:31 E. Liddell wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:01:54 -0800
>
[...]
I have my own
hand-edited GTK2 and GTK3 theming files (set up for
white text on black/dark blue) that I can offer as examples if you need
them, although both styles are slightly flawed.
Yes, that's what I recall. Would you please share it again? I did save it, but
when my hard drive crashed a few months back, I lost an incredible amount of
materials -- I am still trying to cope -- and among it were the css themes
that you had shared earlier.
19 Jan
19 Jan
12:44 a.m.
New subject: how to force TDE colors in non-TDE apps? SOLVED
On Monday 18 January 2021 15:56:39 you wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 12:56:32 -0800
Here you go. The .gtkrc-2.0 file needs the
"industrial" engine for GTK2 to
work properly.
I don't recall whether the GTK3 settings.ini file is required, but I
figured it wouldn't hurt to include it anyway. If you can't get any icons,
install the Adwaita icon theme. Unfortunately, I was never able to fix the
"scrollbar visible only on mouseover" problem.
E. Liddell
Sorry, but I clicked to reply without looking again, and it got sent to
E.Liddell's email, rather than the TDE list. Apologies to himself, and
resending now to the list.
Thanks, I will file them away somewhere safer, I hope.
As it turns out, I stumbled on a site:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/706528/qt-apps-stopped-inheriting-gtk-theme…
https://web.archive.org/web/20201111174652/https://askubuntu.com/questions/…
wherein are unlocked the mysteries of qt5ct in a single line.
*NOTE that other pages gave information which was either contradictory or at
least unclear, leaving me frustrated and unable to figure out where
in /home/<USER>/.profile to insert the line for qt. So for other Trinity
users out there who may want to use the look of their TDE and color outside
the lines when using non-TDE apps, this is what actually worked for me.*
After installing qt5ct and whatever other packages (more for developers), run
this command:
sudo sh -c "echo 'export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2' >>
/etc/environment"
Open qt5ct and choose according to personal preferences, then reboot. The user
will now have TDE colors and themes in non-TDE applications. It will also run
gtk2 and gtk3, and lots of other good stuff. It seems like it will work for
other desktops, as well, as others say.
For most users, this will probably take care of their needs.
Thanks for the tip!
Bill
18 Jan
18 Jan
10:04 p.m.
New subject: [users] how to force TDE colors in non-TDE apps?
On 2021-01-18 14:08:31 E. Liddell wrote:
On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 09:01:54 -0800
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
There are also gnome-control-center and gnome-tweaks, which might be helpful.
Leslie
--
I did try to accomplish this by going through the
Trinity Control Center
/ Appearance / Colors, but nothing happens to my non-TDE apps, so far as
I can tell. (Actually, I am only guessing, from what I remember; my TCC
screen has been frozen now for a couple hours. See attachment.)
Some of my apps refuse to change colors, even though they used to behave
like I want (in Jessie, that is, before I upgraded to Devuan Beowulf). I
seem to recall that E.Liddell, or maybe Nik, offered some css tricks to
do something like this? The main thing is that I don't want to look at a
white screen, but I prefer to keep my own color scheme, not to use one of
those ready-made themes.
Non-TDE applications will mostly be using one of three widget toolkits:
GTK2, GTK3, or QT5.
The easiest way I've found to theme QT5 is to use qt5ct. Your distro may
have it packaged, or get it from https://sourceforge.net/projects/qt5ct/ .
GTK2 and GTK3 can be themed by using gtk-qt-engine and/or
gtk3-qt-engine , which are optional TDE packages. They're known to
cause problems with some systems, though. Try gtk3-qt-engine first.
The other option for theming GTK2 and GTK3 is to edit some text files.
The theme file for GTK2 is .gtkrc-2.0, in the user's home directory, and
it uses a proprietary format. GTK3 uses one or more CSS files located in
~/.config/gtk-3.0/ . Unfortunately, figuring out exactly what to do with
these files is like pulling hen's teeth, or at least I was never able to
find any documentation with the list of GTK widget names on it. I had to
hunt through a bunch of downloaded styles to get things sort-of working,
and GTK3 is, in addition, a moving target to some extent.
I have my own hand-edited GTK2 and GTK3 theming files (set up for
white text on black/dark blue) that I can offer as examples if you need
them, although both styles are slightly flawed.
E. Liddell 
19 Jan
19 Jan
7:04 a.m.
New subject: [users] how to force TDE colors in non-TDE apps?
Anno domini 2021 Mon, 18 Jan 16:04:49 -0600
J Leslie Turriff scripsit:
I just wonder ... why the heck did the GNOMEs have to port the worst of M$ to Linux? Does
this make some "pros" feel more at home?
Nik
[...]
I have my own hand-edited GTK2 and GTK3 theming files (set up for
white text on black/dark blue) that I can offer as examples if you need
them, although both styles are slightly flawed.
E. Liddell
There are also gnome-control-center and gnome-tweaks, which might be helpful.
Leslie
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10 p.m.
New subject: [users] [users] how to force TDE colors in non-TDE apps? [OT]
On 2021-01-19 01:04:57 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
Anno domini 2021 Mon, 18 Jan 16:04:49 -0600
J Leslie Turriff scripsit:
I just wonder ... why the heck did the GNOMEs have to port the worst of M$
to Linux? Does this make some "pros" feel more at home?
Nik
"Pros"?
<rant>
It greatly irritates me that the Linux developer community has followed both
Gnome's and Microsoft's leads in dumbing down (and locking down) the user
interface. For instance, I can't understand their shift from Serif fonts to
Sans-Serif, making reading text much harder; and taking away much of the
user-customization options.
Why does Gnome waste so much screen real-estate with large fonts, icons and
borders? Is this because they expect Linux users to follow the Windows
community's habit of maximizing their application windows, even with today's
high-resolution displays?
</rant>
Leslie
--
[...]
I have my own hand-edited GTK2 and GTK3 theming files (set up for
white text on black/dark blue) that I can offer as examples if you need
them, although both styles are slightly flawed.
E. Liddell
There are also gnome-control-center and gnome-tweaks, which might be
helpful.
11:16 p.m.
New subject: [users] [users] how to force TDE colors in non-TDE apps? [OT]
On Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:00:21 -0600
J Leslie Turriff <jlturriff(a)mail.com> wrote:
"Pros"?
<rant>
It greatly irritates me that the Linux developer community has followed both
Gnome's and Microsoft's leads in dumbing down (and locking down) the user
interface. For instance, I can't understand their shift from Serif fonts to
Sans-Serif, making reading text much harder; and taking away much of the
user-customization options.
Why does Gnome waste so much screen real-estate with large fonts, icons and
borders? Is this because they expect Linux users to follow the Windows
community's habit of maximizing their application windows, even with today's
high-resolution displays?
</rant>
Reason 1: Fashion. There are styles and trends in interface designs just like
everything else. Currently, minimalism and low information density are trendy.
Microsoft, Apple, and Google set the trends, and everyone else either
goes along or consciously decides not to. Gnome is going along, I suspect.
Reason 2: The idiotic pursuit of one GUI to rule them all. Instead of optimizing
one interface for use on devices with big screens and precise pointers, and a
different one for devices with small touch-screens, they want to do it all at once,
and then are surprised when they produce something that isn't a good fit for
either.
Reason 3: Regarding the serif vs sans-serif thing in particular, studies show
that which one you find easier to read depends mostly on which you were
exposed to when you started reading. Younger people are more likely to
prefer sans fonts. Plus it ties back into that silly minimalism trend.
Reason 4: They think their users are stupid. In Microsoft/Apple/Google's
cases, this may actually be the truth for 50% or so of their users.
Reason 5: Again, in Microsoft/Apple/Google's cases, since 90% of their
users will never change the default settings (or will be locked out of them by
corporate administrators), they don't want to put the effort into maintaining
unused code that makes them no money and siphons up no marketing data.
E. Liddell
1434
days inactive
1435
days old
8 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Dr. Nikolaus Klepp -
E. Liddell -
J Leslie Turriff -
William Morder