[SOLVED]Unable change window theme

[Liatodua]

I am using Mint-Lisa

I try to change look of open windows through Menu>Other>Advanced Settings>Theme>Window theme

But whatewer theme I choose the window looks the same

sc.png (54.65 KiB) Viewed 1563 times

How to change the look of the window?

[richyrich]

...

[proxima_centauri]

Change the window theme, then press Alt+F2, type "r", without the quotes, and hit enter. This will reload gnome-shell with the updated window theme.

[Liatodua]

Alt+f2 did not do anything.

But I entered r in terminal. The reply was:

The program 'r' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install littler

So I did that and there was a long process of installation. And when it finished, I typed r and pressed enter. Nothing happened. Will now reboot and try again

[Liatodua]

Oops, it does not allow to close the terminal - it says there is a process runing and closing the terminal will kill that.

Ok, I'll wait...

[dagon]

Alt+f2 did not do anything.

But I entered r in terminal. The reply was:

The program 'r' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install littler

So a did that and there was a long process of installation. And when it finished, I typed r and pressed enter. Nothing happened. Will now reboot and try again

I seldom use "Alt + F2" and the Run Application function but if you type "r" on the command line you are trying to invoke "litler", which is some scripting frontend for GNUR... And if you try to run a command/program that you don't have installed but that is in the repository, then Linux is going to ask you if you want to install it.
Since "littler" is used with R, which is a programming library, it will install that too so that explains the long installation process.
Whenever you install a program and there is a need for other software to be installed the computer will ask you if it is OK to install this other program, so it pays off to watch out for these
R or littler has nothing to do with themes of any kind... Since "littler" is used with R, which is a programming library, it will install that too so that explains the long installation process.

This is what it looks like when I try it:

$ r
The program 'r' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install littler
oskar@dagon-5741G ~ $ sudo apt-get install littler
[sudo] password for oskar:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
dpatch gfortran gfortran-4.4 libblas-dev libblas3gf libbz2-dev libgfortran3
liblapack-dev liblapack3gf libpcre3-dev libpcrecpp0 libreadline-dev
libreadline6-dev patchutils r-base-core r-base-dev r-cran-boot r-cran-class
r-cran-cluster r-cran-codetools r-cran-foreign r-cran-kernsmooth
r-cran-lattice r-cran-mass r-cran-matrix r-cran-mgcv r-cran-nlme r-cran-nnet
r-cran-rpart r-cran-spatial r-cran-survival r-doc-html r-recommended tcl8.5
tk8.5
Suggested packages:
curl gfortran-multilib gfortran-doc gfortran-4.4-multilib gfortran-4.4-doc
libgfortran3-dbg r-cran-getopt ess r-doc-info r-doc-pdf r-mathlib
r-base-html cdbs tclreadline
The following NEW packages will be installed:
dpatch gfortran gfortran-4.4 libblas-dev libblas3gf libbz2-dev libgfortran3
liblapack-dev liblapack3gf libpcre3-dev libpcrecpp0 libreadline-dev
libreadline6-dev littler patchutils r-base-core r-base-dev r-cran-boot
r-cran-class r-cran-cluster r-cran-codetools r-cran-foreign
r-cran-kernsmooth r-cran-lattice r-cran-mass r-cran-matrix r-cran-mgcv
r-cran-nlme r-cran-nnet r-cran-rpart r-cran-spatial r-cran-survival
r-doc-html r-recommended tcl8.5 tk8.5
0 upgraded, 36 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 43.4MB of archives.
After this operation, 97.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

You can safely uninstall it again but you should pay attention when you get a question like that because sometimes you will come across a piece of software that depends on another desktop environment than the one you've got installed and that could pull down even more software.

Oops, it does not allow to close the terminal - it says there is a process runing and closing the terminal will kill that.

Ok, I'll wait...

Just close it!

[bimsebasse]

You need to change both "window theme" and "gtk theme" for a full window theme change, The window in you screenshot looks like it should because "gtk theme" is set to adwaita and only "window theme" is set to Crux.

Window theme = metacity theme, visually only the window buttons (minimize, max, close) will change
gtk theme = main window styling, this is the one that changes the whole window (except window buttons/metacity related styling)

See 4a in this guide

[proxima_centauri]

Running "r" in terminal is not the same as running it with Alt+F2. When you run "r" with Alt+F2, it restarts gnome-shell. Sorry for the confusion, you cannot run the same command in terminal.

To fix the Alt+F2 behaviour, go to Keyboard Settings in System Settings. Go to Shortcuts -> System, and add Alt+F2 to "Show the run command prompt".

[Liatodua]

Just close it!

I closed it eventually. Nothing happened, anyway. I guess I installed the wrong thing? Should I uninstall it?

[Liatodua]

You need to change both "window theme" and "gtk theme" for a full window theme change, The window in you screenshot looks like it should because "gtk theme" is set to adwaita and only "window theme" is set to Crux.

Window theme = metacity theme, visually only the window buttons (minimize, max, close) will change
gtk theme = main window styling, this is the one that changes the whole window (except window buttons/metacity related styling)

See 4a in this guide

Going through those instructions carefully. Will report back

[Liatodua]

Running "r" in terminal is not the same as running it with Alt+F2. When you run "r" with Alt+F2, it restarts gnome-shell. Sorry for the confusion, you cannot run the same command in terminal.

To fix the Alt+F2 behaviour, go to Keyboard Settings in System Settings. Go to Shortcuts -> System, and add Alt+F2 to "Show the run command prompt".

Thanks a lot! It appeared to be disabled so I activated it and am now able to do this 'r' trick.

[Liatodua]

Ok, thanks to all the advices. I managed to change the look if the window. Here is what I did (if somebody has the same problem):

Menu>System tools>System settings>Keyboard>Shortcuts>System>Launch the run command prompt
there was no shortcut indicated for this launcher so I inserted Alt+F2 (you have to click the row and then press those keys you want to act as a shortcut)

Then:
Menu>Other>Advanced settings>Theme
And there you play with changing the GTK+theme and windows theme. To see the result of each combination you have to press Alt+F2 and the small window will appear. You have to enter r there and press enter key. The desktop will reload with a new window style/theme/whatever.

I managed to select the one which suits my taste:

sc2.png (54.25 KiB) Viewed 1444 times

Not quite happy with the pink color of the last activated item but it is useful feature and other themes do not seem to have it. At least I know how to get rid of it if I get tired of it.

thanks everybody!