Mint Cinnamon and the stupid black on black icon defaults

[Redsandro]

This is an annoyance, especially when your monitor is color corrected for dark gamma for graphic purposes:

minticon.png

All common icons are white by default, but somehow Pidgin Messenger and Tomboy Notes are black, and on my monitor really hard to distinguish.

I have tried some other icon themes, and in some themes they have a normal (colored) appearance, and in others they are white, like the rest is now. Both are fine. I prefer the colored ones though, like dropbox.

However, all of these themes change a lot more icons (duh) and in my opinion this is not an improvement. I like the icons the way they are, except for these two.

Is there a way I can configure the appearance of these icons, and possibly others, within ~ my personal home?
Because I like them to be whatever I want, independent from the chosen icon theme, and without affecting other users.

[Redsandro]

I think other themes do this too. A lof themes only change basic icons, and the rest are the same.

It feels like:
[default icons] -> [subsection overriden by icon theme]

I am looking for:
[default icons] -> [subsection overriden by icon theme] -> [subsection overriden by user]

I can override those weird camouflage black-on-black icons with the originals that are also installed, e.g.:
/usr/share/pixmaps/tomboy-32.xpm

Any thoughts?

[Redsandro]

Here is some interesting information under "Use another icon set while keeping the Ubuntu Mono panel icons":
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Icons

• Go to /usr/share/icons
• Make a copy of your theme, e.g. Mint-X in ~/.icons/
• Rename the folder to a new name.
• Open index.theme
• Change the "Name" field to a new name, e.g. Based-on-Mint-X
• Change "Inherits" field to the name of the icon theme you want to use ‘Inherits=Mint-X’ to the name of the folder of the icons you want to use. (This folder may be in ~/.icons or in /usr/share/icons)
• Save the file and go to appearance preferences to set the new icon theme.

But Both Mint-X and gnome themes have the normal yellow colored icons. I don't understand where the black ones are coming from and how I actually override two or three icons only without using 100 dirs.

[Redsandro]

Ow ca-mòòn, please help me out here.

I love the dark theme and I am totally used to all these icons, except the two dark ones (tomboy and pidgin) which don't make sense.
I want to hard-code these to use the default yellow and purple icons.

Why?

delme1.png

Because in a sunny office

delme2.png

I want to use the screen for what it was meant to do: Give visual feedback on where to click!

[abnvolk]

Uhmm... Actually, the colourful icons are not from the themes, but from the applications, because those themes don't provide the icons for the applications. You can simply use another theme instead. Mint-X is based on Faenza, and Faenza has many variants, with both light and dark panel icons, so that seems to be a good choice. Also, if you install it manually, you can choose whether to overwrite colourful panel icons with monochrome ones
Here is the link: [url]http://code.google.com/p/faenza-icon-theme/downloads/detail?name=faenza-icon-theme_1.3.zip&can=2&q=[/url].

[Redsandro]

Thanks for the information. I was canalizing the installation script in order to figure out how I can remove the monochrome icons while keeping the rest, because this is already installed by default on my system.

However, I don't think the choice to override the defaults with monochrome ones applies to either tomboy or pidgin:

Code: Select all

echo
read -p "Do you want to replace some 22x22 applications icons by their monochrome conterpart to be displayed in system tray ? [Y]es, [N]o :" response
current_dir=$(pwd)
case $response in
	[Yy]* )
		for theme in Faenza Faenza-Dark
		do
			cd $install_dir/$theme/apps/22
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ]; then
				echo "...CoverGloobus..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/covergloobus-panel.png ./covergloobus.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Deluge..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/deluge-panel.png ./deluge.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Exaile..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/exaile-panel.png ./exaile.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Fusion Icon..."
			fi	
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/fusion-icon-symbolic.png ./fusion-icon.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Gnome-do..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/gnome-do-panel.png ./gnome-do.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...iBus..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/ibus-panel.png ./ibus.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Kupfer..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/kupfer-panel.png ./kupfer.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Me TV..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/me-tv-panel.png ./me-tv.png
			if [ "$theme" = "Faenza" ];	then
				echo "...Zim..."
			fi
			ln -sf $install_dir/$theme/status/22/zim-panel.png ./zim.png
		done
		;;
    * ) ;;
esac

[Redsandro]

It's nearly 2015 and this is still the default after the installation of Mint. Does the Mint team have an UX person at all?

Click for a larger image.

[sammosfet]

I was wondering the same thing sometimes you can't even see the damn Icons!! they need to fix this asap!

[WastedJoker]

Perhaps an option to change the background on the panels?

[sammosfet]

oh I don't want to change my fancy transparent panel lol. I think it is some kind of bug they need to work out, because it is not consistent some apps show up fine others don't. This doesn't happen in other distros...

[richyrich]

I also use a dark theme with dark window decorations. I've found the Faenza Darkest Dark icons work the best, but certain program icons are always missing. Usually kde(qt) app icons are not included with gtk themes, and visa-versa. You can check gnome-look.org to see if someone has made those extra icon packs. Or ask at the specific programs website forums. The Mint devs only make the Mint style themes.

[sammosfet]

richyrich is right you can find most of them on gnome-look.org. I just fixed a couple of mine by downloading the light icon packs from there and overwriting the dark icons that I had in my computer. Thanks you sir.

[oscarus]

Holy crap! What a weird coincidence to find that this old conversation was still going on the day before I decide to switch to mint-x to take advantage of the color-folder extension. I was using faenza-ambiance and decided to change it to mint-x only to come across the same dark icon problem, which affects panel apps like shutter and synapse, but it also makes the power icons (lock, logout, quit) on the mint menu look dark as well.

It's nearly 2015 and this is still the default after the installation of Mint. Does the Mint team have an UX person at all?

I absolutely agree with this. I was considering using a few solutions I've been finding, but then then I ran out of patience, not because it was hard but because I started wondering "why should I be doing this?" I know this is linux and is configurable and whatnot, but this is an issue out of the box, so it's weird that the solutions to fix it involve downloading x, overwriting y, or changing the default z. I mean, the problem is there with the default panel + default icon set + default controls, so I find it strange that the devs didn't notice this problem or maybe they did but didn't mind.

Sure, the mint-x icons look fine with the mint-x cinnamon theme, but what's the point of having such a variety of colorful icons if they only look fine when used with a bright cinnamon theme?

I know I sound whiny, but I really do appreciate the work that gets put into this great distro, which just makes it even more frustrating when seemingly small issues like this show up from time to time.

[sammosfet]

Totaly true. Every time I install a new application now I have to go into the settings and break my head switching Icons and whatnot just so I can see it in my systray. I have been dealing with this for a long time and they haven't fixed it yet. I hope that with this LTS project they are on now they will focus more on the eye candy and the users interaction with this great distro. I can't imagine a newbie dealing with these things...