Increased text-shadows on Desktop

[Mumrik93]

I've just recently migrated to Linux from windows and so far i love it, I'm using Linux Mint (Cinnamon) and it's working great, but as time has past and I've started to change wallpapers a few times over the weeks I've realized that Linux Mint lacks apparent text-shadows (under the desktop-icons) I did a quick search and i cant find that many people with this problem (to most it might not be a problem?). I find this troublesome since it really strains my eyes if i use a bright background, the text almost fades into the background.

I've been asking around on the forum for a while ( viewtopic.php?f=90&t=282853&sid=1d9d194 ... b7a921fa1e )
and we've ended up being a little group who rolled ideas on how to increase the shadows, but sadly we didn't manage to solve it. I know that other desktops such as KDE (which i considered using before i chose Cinnamon) and *sigh* Windows, has more apparent text-shadows.

So basically I'm wondering if it's possible to have the text-shadows increased by default? Or event better, make it possible to increase them trough the settings?

[Mumrik93]

Took a couple more screenshots comparing my Cinnamon-desktop with a KDE-desktop. The difference is quite big and KDE does come out on top here, the shadows making the text easily readable. Wish i could upload a fullscreen image and not edited ones, but those are too big to upload here

Note!*
I'm using a bold font on Cinnamon while the one on KDE is a regular one. It makes it a bit easier to read, especially if the background image has a darker tone, but it's still pretty hard if it's a brighter background.

[smurphos]

You might be interested in these discussions on the Nemo github.

https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/commi ... c388503751

https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/1658

[Mumrik93]

You might be interested in these discussions on the Nemo github.

https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/commi ... c388503751

https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/1658

Looks really interesting! Sadly i cant find the correct .css file to try it out
Tried editing my current themes gtk.css, the Adwaita themes gtk.css, the Linux Mint -> Cinnamon gtk.css (also in the theme section) and the Mint-Y gtk.css file as well, but none resulted in any difference even after rebooting I might be editing the wrong .css files, i'm still a noob when it comes to this after all, but i dont know where else to look.

[smurphos]

There's nothing to try out other than downloading the source code, editting it and recompiling Nemo.

The defaults are hardcoded into Nemo and can't be overwritten or themed by external themes anymore as far as I am aware.

Edit to add looking at the code and how GTK sets it's priorities for CSS sources it should still be possible to override with user set CSS in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css. I couldn't get it to work earlier though.

[Mumrik93]

There's nothing to try out other than downloading the source code, editting it and recompiling Nemo.

The defaults are hardcoded into Nemo and can't be overwritten or themed by external themes anymore as far as I am aware.

Edit to add looking at the code and how GTK sets it's priorities for CSS sources it should still be possible to override with user set CSS in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css. I couldn't get it to work earlier though.

Mm this sounds a bit too advanced for a newbie like me to handle, i should probably leave it for the time being. Cross my fingers that there might be a easier way in the future to increase the shadows.
Thanks for the help though! Appreciate it!

[smurphos]

It's not hard. And it does actually still work - I just wasn't taking the right steps to get the over-ride to take in testing. Screens are from Cinnamon 4.0.9 / Mint 19.1

In all cases you need a file in your home folder called ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css with the following content and save.

One saved press Alt-F2 to bring up the run dialog. Enter pkill nemo-desktop. Press Alt-F2 again and enter nemo-desktop. Repeat this after any edits.

Example 1

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
    color: #fff;
    text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px #000;
}

Example 2

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
    color: #fff;
    text-shadow: 2px 2px 3px #000;
}

Example 3

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
    color: #fff;
    text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #000, 0px 0px 2px #000;
}

[smurphos]

For your chosen Controls/GTK theme theme to have more control over the hover and selected effects you can also try this content for ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css (buildng on example 3 above).

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
    color: #fff;
    text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #000, 0px 0px 2px #000;
}
.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item:hover {
    background-color: alpha(@theme_selected_bg_color, 0.33);
    background-image: none;
}
.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item:selected {
    background-color: @theme_selected_bg_color;
    background-image: none;
    color: @theme_selected_fg_color;
    text-shadow: none;
}

Mint-Y theme - Hover....


Selected

[Mumrik93]

Oh my god, it really works! It looks great! I'm saving this conversation to my dropbox, aint letting myself forget how to do this again!

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help a noob out! Now my desktop looks perfect!

[Valsodar]

Using this instruction and considering CSS is still CSS as far as the CPU is concerned, I started looking for better solutions (cuz text shadow as shown above isn't really my style) and eventually found the perfect one! It even has its own generator of outlining code. And with some minor tweaking I got the text of my desktop icons to what I needed. Here's a screenshot of the result:



Don't worry, ofc I'm gonna share my findings, I just wanted you to see the result first.
So, this is the address. Let the desktop tinkering start now!

https://html-css-js.com/css/generator/text-shadow/

[smurphos]

Using this instruction and considering CSS is still CSS as far as the CPU is concerned, I started looking for better solutions (cuz text shadow as shown above isn't really my style) and eventually found the perfect one! It even has its own generator of outlining code. And with some minor tweaking I got the text of my desktop icons to what I needed.

Something like this? That's a handy little tool.

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
    color: #fff;
    text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #000000, 2px 2px 2px #000000, -2px -2px 2px #000000, -2px 2px 2px #000000, 2px -2px 2px #000000, -2px 0px 2px #000000, 2px 0px 2px #000000, 0px -2px 2px #000000, 0px 2px 2px #000000;
}

Or maybe...

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
    color: #fff;
    text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #000, 1px 1px #000, 1px -1px #000, -1px 1px #000, -1px -1px #000, 1px 0px #000, 0px 1px #000, -1px 0px #000, 0px -1px #000;
}

[Valsodar]

Something like this? That's a handy little tool.

Like this:

Code: Select all

.nemo-desktop.nemo-canvas-item {
  color: white;
   text-shadow: 2px 2px 0 #000000, 2px -2px 0 #000000, -2px 2px 0 #000000, -2px -2px 0 #000000, 2px 0px 0 #000000, 0px 2px 0 #000000, -2px 0px 0 #000000, 0px -2px 0 #000000;
}