in Mint 19 Mate, some themes disable desktop wallpapers

[Jim Shaffer]

If I use only the themes supplied with Mint, everything works fine. But if I install certain other themes (for example, https://www.mate-look.org/p/1225712/), my wallpaper vanishes, replaced by a solid background. I found that if I turn off desktop icons, my wallpaper comes back. But I should be able to have both wallpaper and desktop icons, shouldn't I? And why does it only happen with certain themes? (The themes I've tried are specifically said to be designed for GTK 3.22 -- and some themes I've tried that were designed for earlier versions of GTK don't work at all.)

[KBD47]

This may be a bug in the beta version. Might mention it on the blog when Mint 19 beta is officially announced tomorrow. There are glitches in these betas and you may have found one.

[Jim Shaffer]

Apparently this isn't a Mint problem after all, as I tried it in a different distro with the latest Maté and it still manifests.

[JosephM]

This sounds like it might actually be an issue with the theme. When you enable the desktop icons you get a window which covers your entire desktop that holds the icons. The theme might be inadvertently setting a color on that window instead of allowing it to be transparent so your wallpaper can show through.

[Pierre]

yet, some themes are tied to a fixed wallpaper as well,
& so the changing of the one, will the affect the other as well.

[Jim Shaffer]

This sounds like it might actually be an issue with the theme. When you enable the desktop icons you get a window which covers your entire desktop that holds the icons. The theme might be inadvertently setting a color on that window instead of allowing it to be transparent so your wallpaper can show through.

This sounds like it might be the problem, however I have no idea how one edits a theme other than with the control panel tools which are no help in this area, so I guess I'll either be using a theme I don't particularly care for or not having desktop icons. (The reason I went looking for new themes is that several that I had really liked finally broke beyond my ability to tolerate them with the latest GTK, after developing minor irritations with the previous version.) I did leave a note for the theme's author, but with no reply so far.

[Jim Shaffer]

I finally had time to hunt this one down.

In the gtk-3.0 directory of the theme is a file named gtk-widgets.css. Within that file is a section that looks like

Code: Select all

/* Client Side Decoration */
.background {
	background-image: linear-gradient(to right,
	                                  #080608,
					  #252423 25%,
					  #353535 50%,
					  #252423 75%,
					  #080608);
}

Commenting this out disabled the annoying overriding of my wallpaper choice.