Change window border colour on active window

[gwi]

Hello all,

Sometimes I have a lot of open windows, and with all borders gray it is difficult to see which of them is active (i.e. has the focus).
How can I change the border colour of the active window? I managed to do this in Mate, but I would like to do it in Cinnamon. The Metabox window theme does what I want, except I don't like the looks of it. How can I change the Mint-X window theme (or create my own based on Mint-X) to act in the same way?

Below is an example of what I mean, created in Mate.

mint-border-color.png

George

[remoulder]

Cinnamon Settings > Themes

[gwi]

Cinnamon Settings > Themes

And how does that let me set the window border colour of an active window, so it is not the same as the border of inactive windows?

Edit: After diving into the subject I managed to create an adapted Mint-X theme, and also discovered I could copy the Clearlooks metacity-1 theme from my Ubuntu installation to my Mint installation. Problem solved.

[dhdurgee]

Cinnamon Settings > Themes

And how does that let me set the window border colour of an active window, so it is not the same as the border of inactive windows?

Edit: After diving into the subject I managed to create an adapted Mint-X theme, and also discovered I could copy the Clearlooks metacity-1 theme from my Ubuntu installation to my Mint installation. Problem solved.

Could you clarify how you did this? I would also like to highlight the active window. I have done so in katya by customizing the window border to be "Murrine" and would like something similar in maya cinnamon x64 edition.

Dave

[gwi]

For creating a theme based on Mint-X, I copied the Mint-X directory from /usr/share/themes (the system wide themes) to ~/.themes (personal themes), and renamed the directory.
I then changed the contents of ~/.themes/MyMint/index.theme.
The theme will now be shown in the list of window themes, with its new name.
To change the looks of the theme, I edited ~/.themes/MyMint/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml.
I used Gnome Dev Center's Understanding Metacity Themes as main source of information.

After doing that, I realized both Mint and Ubuntu use Metacity themes. So I copied /usr/share/themes/Clearlooks/metacity-1 from my Ubuntu system to my Mint system.
The Clearlooks theme already has active window title bar colouring, so I did not have to change anything here. The title bar of an active window now is green (where it was orange on Ubuntu).

So, you can make your own theme, but you can also install another Metacity theme that already does what you want. GNOME-LOOK.org is a possible source for themes.

George

[BlackCow]

It's rediculous that we have to jump through such hoops to get something simple like this to work.

I might switch back to Cinnamon now that I know its possible to get the clearlooks theme working.

[gwi]

Even more ridiculous: the live cd is using Clearlooks as default theme...

[dhdurgee]

Are there any cinnamon themes available for download with the border color changing on the active window and with the older style menu button on the upper left and the usual three buttons on the upper right? I sometimes keep multiple windows open and prefer to have the active window highlighted for quick identification and I find the additional buttons handy.

Dave

[gwi]

Metacity themes can do that for you. Clearlooks does what you want, except for the menu button on the upper left.

[abisdad]

This is just what I need to do too - but it looks a real complicated way to do it!

I remember in good old Windows 3.11 up to XP it was so easy to do...

[SteveFAL]

@gwi :
In Mint/Mate, the Menu is themed separately from the desktop in general. Right click the menu button, select preferences--> theme, and the colors can be changed, which also changes the panel button.

[gwi]

I installed Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon 64 bit in a virtual machine. I installed the Clearlooks theme, but for some reason all window title bars stay gray. So again there is no way of telling which window has the focus.
Why does the Clearlooks theme no longer work in this new version?
Why is it so difficult to change the color of the active window's title bar?

[jsplicer]

If this is what you are talking about I used went to system tools - system settings -- themes --- other settings-- controls Adwaita, window borders crux. I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for also I used the Halo Transparent theme, once in themes go to the 'get more online' themes, let it refresh and download them, then go back to installed click on the theme you want, then hit the 'apply theme' button, once you see a check mark next to the theme your using that theme. There are a lot to choose from just refreshing the get more online tab.

Hope this helps,

John

[gwi]

I know there are lots of themes to choose from. I don't need/want all the fancy stuff. I like the way the Minty theme looks, with the window theme Clearlooks.
My question is why this combination in Mint 13 gives the focused window a green title bar, and the others gray, while on Mint 15 all title bars are gay, focused or not.
I was just wondering how I could get this behaviour back, without having to go trough dozens of themes of which I don't know in advance whether they have different colour for the title bar of focused windows.

Following your configuration: when I set the controls theme to Adwaita the focused title bar turned blue (I kept Clearlooks as the window theme). When I select Adwaita as window theme, the focused title bar is gray again. So it apparently is not just the theme, but a combination of themes that determines whether focused title bars have a different color.

Why does the title bar turn blue with Adwaitha, and green with Clearlooks? With Clearlooks on Ubuntu the titlebars turn orange, so the colour is not in the Clearlooks theme.

My conclusion: the Mint-green colour was set in the Mint-Z control theme, which is no longer in Mint 15. I downloaded Mint-Z from gnome-look.org and configured the themes as I had them in Mint 13: Minty theme, Mint-Z for the controls, Clearlooks for the windows: gray title bars, blue for selected list items.

Use Mint-X for controls: gray title bars, green for selected list items. Fits the green icons, but where is my green focused title bar?

[jsplicer]

gwi ~ I hear ya. I thought it might work for you. Sorry was worth a try. It could be that since this is an RC that hasn't been put in yet? I don't know. A lot of things changed in cinnamon since 14 so maybe in time we will get them all figured out.

I liked the blue and the crux so I matched up some of the coloring of my conky file to it. I used to get the same window border in green in 13 & 14, but I'm pretty sure that was in plain Mint, not cinnamon...

Edit: I just checked and your right Mint Z is not a choice in window borders in (LM15 cin, themes)...which would probably give you the green your looking for....

[taariqq]

End of 2017. Amazing that we still have the same issue!
I had to switch to Cinnamon because my Mate installed programs decided to disappear from the menu after the computer rebooted a few times due to electrical problem. I like the feel of Cinnamon but this one thing is annoying.

[Moem]

I like the feel of Cinnamon but this one thing is annoying.

Taariqq, try changing the settings for Buttons. It's counter-intuitive but this also changes the appearance of window borders, and some button settings combined with some of the window border options give you a coloured active window border.

windowborders.jpg

[Minterator]

Cinnamon generally ignores border and titlebar color. Try my custom theme here, it works as designed in MATE

viewtopic.php?f=206&t=252647

[Moem]

Cinnamon generally ignores border and titlebar color.

Then why is my titlebar purple?

[Minterator]

Cinnamon generally ignores border and titlebar color.

Then why is my titlebar purple?

In 18.2 mine are all grey even tough my theme specifies different color for active window. What version are you running?