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Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solved]

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:24 pm
by BrunoMiranda
Hi folks,

After huge fights with my graphics card (an Intel 855GM), I've finally managed to run Cinnamon on my old Acer LM250 laptop. But not with Mint, it was with Zorin OS (based on Ubuntu+Debian)... (probably shouldn't be asking for help here...:roll: )

The thing is that the Cinnamon Menu has it's background transparent (except for the Favourites' bar).
I'm not showing printscreens here because the app doesn't work when the Menu is up... So I can't record it.

Since the Menu's letters are white, if I have anything with a white background open, I cannot read the text, just see the icons.

I've googled around and found some help, I have tried to edit the cinnamon.css file all around but haven't managed to solve the thing. I've checked both colour and transparency settings, but no change at all.
So the right fields to edit are escaping me... Or I have another video driver problem, but I guess not because Cinnamon's System details tells me that the driver is detected and the Experience is Standard.

inxi -Gx
Graphics: Card: Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device bus-ID: 00:02.0
X.Org: 1.11.3 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1024x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 852GM/855GM x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 1.3 Mesa 8.0.4 Direct Rendering: Yes



Cinnamon's version is 1.6.7.


FYI, I have installed other Cinnamon Themes, restored the defaults and even downloaded a cinnamon.css file from the internet but nothing of this has fixed it...

You can take a look at my cinnamon.css file here:
http://db.tt/FBvcRaIn


Can some give me a hint on where to edit, or send me your cinnamon.css file, please? Thanks! :wink:

Re: Cinnamon menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not work

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 12:49 am
by abnvolk
Maybe... using a different theme will work?
What is the theme you are using? And can you show me a screenshot please?

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 6:33 am
by BrunoMiranda
OK, it's kinda solved.

(About taking screenshots... the keyboard shortcut doesn't work when the menu is popped up...)


First, I had installed other themes but by coincidence they behaved the same way.
I've installed Nadia Dark theme and it has solved this issue.

Second, I wasn't editing the right file. I was editing

/usr/share/cinnamon/theme/cinnamon.css

instead of

/usr/share/themes/Nadia Dark/cinnamon/cinnamon.css.

Editing the last one does change things.

I still haven't been able to find the field that controls the menu's colour and opacity, but this way is ok enough, at least I can read it! :wink:

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 7:30 am
by bimsebasse
You can't (with css code) in that theme because it draws popup-menus from an image file (label.svg) - so if you wish the menu changed in Nadia Dark, you'll need to edit label.svg in inkskape.

What is it you want done? I can help :D

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:24 pm
by BrunoMiranda
Hi Bimsebasse, and thank you so much for your reply and for offering help!
This way it's working good enough for me, I've managed to make the panel and the menu opaque and that's what I needed for usability, but thanks anyway for offering your help.

Nemo works very well as it solves quite a few bugs that haunt me in Caja (memory leaks with 100% CPU, not opening directly multimedia files on Windows shares, not remembering Windows shares' passwords, etc), so I will stick with this OS for a while as I've been distro hopping quite a lot just to find an OS that works the way I need. Or I can try LMDE UP6 to see if my video, keyboard, mouse and touchpad now work... :lol:

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:26 am
by lunatico
bimsebasse wrote:What is it you want done? I can help :D
I'm trying to find a similar solution. I'm using the Ambiance Mint theme (comes installed in LM14) and I want to make the menu a bit transparent.

I was looking at the /usr/share/themes/Ambiance\ Mint/cinnamon/cinnamon.css file but can't figure out what to change to make the menu transparent.

I'm sure bimsebasse can help. Do you know if with this theme I can make this change on the css file?

Thanks!

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 11:51 am
by bimsebasse
You can either try the Glass theme, which is based on Ambiance, and made semi-transparent: http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/themes/view/150

Or in Ambiance you can edit this bit:

Code: Select all

.popup-menu-boxpointer {
-boxpointer-gap: 2px;
-arrow-border-color: rgba(22,22,22,0.2);
-arrow-border-width: 1px;
-arrow-border-radius: 4px;
-arrow-background-color: #3c3b37;
-arrow-base: 15px;
-arrow-rise: 4px;
}
"-arrow-background-color:" controls the popup-menu background (which the menu uses). Change the "#3c3b37" to the rgba equivalent "rgba(60,59,55,1.0);" - the last "...1.0" controls transparency, "rgba(60,59,55,1.0);" is opaque, "rgba(60,59,55,0.0);" is fully transparent (invisible background), just set it to anything in between you like. I think grey transparency looks very unattractive but forced at gun point i'd probably choose "rgba(60,59,55,0.85);" or something.

Code: Select all

.popup-menu-boxpointer {
-boxpointer-gap: 2px;
-arrow-border-color: rgba(22,22,22,0.2);
-arrow-border-width: 1px;
-arrow-border-radius: 4px;
-arrow-background-color: rgba(60,59,55,0.85);
-arrow-base: 15px;
-arrow-rise: 4px;
}

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:03 am
by lunatico
bimsebasse wrote:You can either try the Glass theme, which is based on Ambiance...
Thanks very much!!! I have dismissed the Glass theme but I'm using it now and I think I rather like it!!! I have never been a big fan of transparent panels but maybe I'll start liking them now with Glass.

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:38 am
by lunatico
lunatico wrote:Thanks very much!!! I have dismissed the Glass theme but I'm using it now and I think I rather like it!!! I have never been a big fan of transparent panels but maybe I'll start liking them now with Glass.
I spoke too soon... The Glass Mint theme (using the one that comes pre-installed on LM14) has this bug:
panel_bad.png
The icons go huge and ugly! A fix to this could be to go into Cinnamon Settings -> Panel and select the option to "Allow Cinnamon to scale panel text and icons according to the panel hights". After doing this it went back to normal and looked like this:
panel_good.png
Now I need to find nicer icons for my weather applet (this ones are too dark...).

Re: Menu transparent, editing cinnamon.css not working [solv

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:47 am
by lunatico
lunatico wrote:
lunatico wrote:Now I need to find nicer icons for my weather applet (this ones are too dark...).
Never mind! There is a "Symbolic Icons" option on the applet settings window that fixes this!