No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not showing

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samandiriel

No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not showing

Post by samandiriel »

I'm fairly sure that Mint has more than just Mint-X installed for themes (I can see quite a few in /usr/share/themes), and I installed some via the Appearance Preferences control panel as well (which I can see in ~/.themes). However, only Mint-X is showing up under the Theme tab. The permissions on both folders are 755, so that should be OK. Can anyone tell me what the problem might be?

FYI: At least one other person is having this issue, but no answer there yet and no activity for a few days, so I thought I would post my question separately.

UPDATE: I should mention this is a fresh install of v14 + MATE.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
jabes

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by jabes »

I am running Mint 14 Nadia + MATE and I'm also experiencing this issue. I wish I had some useful feedback but I'm a newbie. Obligatory Bump.
bnebb

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by bnebb »

I, too, am having similar issues. I'm running Linux Mint 14 with MATE desktop on an AMD 64 bit process with 2 GB RAM. The ONLY thumbnails which show up is Mint-X and ONE self installed theme. I can find plenty of themes in usr/share/themes and in ~/.themes but none of them show up as thumbnails to choose. Surely we three are not the only ones who are having this problem! Has anyone solved the issue?
mistert

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by mistert »

Same problem here. LM14 (Mate), only the Mint-X theme shows despite all the themes existing in /usr/share/theme etc.
mistert

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by mistert »

I'm wondering, is it something to do with the themes only being suitable for particular desktop environments? i.e. only Mint-X one suitable for Mate? It doesn't seem that likely but then I don't have much experience with desktop linux.
mistert

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by mistert »

Anyone?
flyboy1565

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by flyboy1565 »

I'm sorry I can't help, but I suggest you change the title to bump so the mods will see it

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
mistert

Bump

Post by mistert »

Bumping. (Sorry if I'm not doing this the 'right' way, couldn't see the bump button mentioned in the forum rules topic).
caribriz

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by caribriz »

samandiriel wrote:I'm fairly sure that Mint has more than just Mint-X installed for themes (I can see quite a few in /usr/share/themes), and I installed some via the Appearance Preferences control panel as well (which I can see in ~/.themes). However, only Mint-X is showing up under the Theme tab. The permissions on both folders are 755, so that should be OK. Can anyone tell me what the problem might be?
This is what I think ...
In a new LM14 mate install, there appears to be only one complete theme installed by default - Mint-X.

Some of the "themes" you see in /usr/share/themes only contain theme "elements" like controls and window borders.
You use these "elements" when you go to Appearance Preferences window, highlight Mint-X theme and click "Customize ...", choosing different colors, Controls, Window Borders etc. That is, you use those theme "parts" to add to the Mint-X theme, changing it and creating a new customized theme.
When finished customizing, you click "Save as" to save your "new" theme with its own name, which then appears next to Mint-X in the window.

If you then opened your home folder, clicked View > Show hidden files
Opened .themes
There is a folder with the name of your "new" theme
The only file inside this folder will have the name of your customized theme.
Click File > Open in terminal, enter ls, press enter
It shows that this file is really called index.theme

Themes need this index.theme file in its main folder if the theme is to show up in Appearance Preferences window in mate.
If for some reason index.theme is not in the theme folder or it doesn't have the theme name correctly displayed in the file, the theme will not show up in the window
to choose it. The only theme in /usr/share/themes that has this index.theme file is Mint-X. There may be other "whole" themes in /usr/share/themes, but they don't
have this file, so they don't appear in Appearance Preferences. I don't know the reason this file isn't included in those themes.

This is the content of the index.theme file of a theme I customized in Appearance Preferences window - Dark-blue-mate:
customized theme index.theme file - name marked in red.png
This is the default Mint-X index.theme file:
Mint-X theme in mate - index.theme file.png


If you have downloaded a theme from somewhere else and extracted it to ~/.themes, you may also need to logout/in
to see it in Appearance Preferences window - providing it includes the correct index.theme file as mentioned.

Note:
If you try to read index.theme file by double-clicking it, you'll get a message:
Could not display "/home/username/.themes/your-theme-name/index.theme".
The location is not a folder.

Instead, while in the new theme folder:
click File > Open in terminal, type in
pluma index.theme
The file will open showing the name of your theme and its details.
Last edited by caribriz on Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
mistert

Re: No themes except Mint-X + self-installed themes not show

Post by mistert »

That looks like a pretty thorough analysis, thanks for the tips caribriz :)
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