Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Downloaded and will tear it apart :lol:
I'll find that grey mass or I'll fall asleep trying.
I'm about halfway through the metacity theme for it, revamping my oldmetal metacity theme I made last year and tweaking the heck out of it to make it fit nicely, although the top bar has so many images that when the window goes really small some parts gets knocked out so I will tweak it to make sure only the best parts show and the parts that needed the most (like the buttons), can't really help that part unless I want to loose some parts which I don't.
I'll try some typewritter buttons, if that don't look good I'll make some animated gear ones instead. Well it gives the illusion that they animate when you hover and press them, the gears turn, but I'll try tyupewritter buttons first and see if I can get some phoney animations involved with them.
I'll upload the metacity here only once its finished if anyone wants to test the heck out of it for me and go bug hunting.
Then I'll go nuts on the gtk :D
Here it is so far, still got a lot of changes to make (font color and positioning, bottom corners, take out the overlay on the bottom, change middle left and right sides, top corners below the other top corners part, I'll keep the top corner gears in there though and buttons).Hopefully it will cut down the images from 70 to about 50 or less this way 8)
buttons.png
EDIT almost there, here is the frame with the buttons, not a big fan of these buttons right now, they actually look more like buttons then old keyboard keys, so I'll be changing them to an old digital scorboard feel instead, that way I make them thinner and they won't stand out so much. I have them so they glow also but they still look like normal buttons :evil:
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Ok finally got done the metacity file.
Here it is for anyone who wants it or just to want to find any bugs in the machine for me.
You will notice if the windows gets extremely small there is a bunch up on the top titlebar, unfortunatley its hard to fix this because there are 6 pieces of artwork to piece that titlebar together plus whatever buttons show up moves the title to the left abit to make room for them. The only option around this is to take out some peices and it won't look as good, but it happens only when the window is extremely small.
I also changed the buttons from the image above, it looked too much like a button that belongs on an old jacket, so I made some small digital ones instead, I thought it might fit the theme better.
Here is a screenshot of an active window and an inactive one behind it (I desaturated the inactive windows)
newtheme.png
I've included the metacity for download here also.
Let me know if theres any bugs please, next I'll start piecing togeather the gtk that cbowman57 gave me (thanks for that it should make my job a lot easier which is always good :D )

Sam
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

cbowman57 wrote:Hey Sam, this looks like it might be helpful. http://gnome-look.org/groups/?id=377

It's a gui theme maker for gtk-3.0, pre-alpha but I think it might be useful to you.
Thanks for this cbowman just downloaded it and took it for a test run, quite a cool little tool, I use the TWL this is an extension of that, still in the primitive working stages but its enough to get the job done :D
Thanks again
Sam
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Sam, that was fast. Wow!

This is a beautiful theme. I don't anticipate you having any problem with the gtk if you can do work like this.
Screenshot-8.png
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

samriggs wrote: Thanks for this cbowman just downloaded it and took it for a test run, quite a cool little tool, I use the TWL this is an extension of that, still in the primitive working stages but its enough to get the job done :D
Thanks again
Sam
Yeah, I thought it was neat. I should have used that on the gtk earlier but I was just pecking away with gedit. :)
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Thanks :D
Glad you like it, it was taken from an old metal theme i made a year ago, I just made all the artwork over again obviously, (except the top corner pieces I had those in my old metal theme, they seem to fit this theme so I kept them) and change some of the code around to make it fit as good as I could, it's nice to have templates laying around that I already coded, makes my life a lot easier and wipes out half the battle.
The only problem is when the window gets super small, I might try and tweak it more a tad but theres really not much I can do about it unfortunatly.
The gtk always takes me longer :lol: theres so much tweaking that needs to be done (especially when adding pixmaps) they have a way of looking great in one program and look totally horrible in another one. It should be interesting to see how adding an image to the toolbar works in gtk3, if you don't stretch it in gtk2 you have to divide it in half and put the top on the bottom and the bottom on the top because it lays it out in the center, that one really threw me for a loop when I first started learning this stuff, stretching it works fine though).
I will get looking into the gtk tomorrow and see what you done and if I need to add anything to it.
Thanks again for all your help :D
just pecking away with gedit.
Thats all I use, it might be interested to use this tool, first I will do it in gedit then test it in the tool and make the tweaks in there instead.
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Howdy cbowman
Just checking out your gtk, are you using the xfce lmde install with a gnome shell?
I can't get that search to work on mine but this has thunar as a file manager, also when you open up gedit id your toolbar grey and the rest light beige? just wondering if it's this thunar file manager doing this to me or not, I rather go back to nataulas or whatever I had before in lmde instead of thunar but don't know how plus a bit scared of messing this up now that I have it working :lol:
Unless theres an easy to switch file managers.
Sam
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Hi Sam, actually I made those mods running (don't tell anybody) a Gnome only Debian installation I created with a net install iso.

I haven't tried it on an LMDE installation so don't know exactly how it would display on one. Are you going to try & make this theme a LMDE only thing or make it more universal?
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Don't tell anyone :lol: ya just did.
This should be universal even if it was made for lmde, its not the version its the base that determinies what works and what doesn't in themes, it'll be gtk3 for gnome 3 so anything running that should be fine, doesn't matter otherwise at least I don't think so, any theme I made so far worked on mutliple systems, the only issue I had on one was someone wanted a xfce frame instead of a metacity so I quickly learnt how to do it in a day and made one for him. (actually it was extremely easy since theres no coding involved at all except for a few lines.)
But yup it should run fine on any gtk3 and gnome 3 system, I am still trying to understand why we still need a gtk2 folder with the files if its only going for gtk3 unless they want some backward compatibility with it.

Oh that grey area you couldn't figure out what it was in the code, look for the toolbar in the code, thats what it is.
I haven't dug too much into it yet, been deciding what to do and what pixmaps I'm going to include and if any image buttons or not, maybe some image tabs not too sure yet what would look better without going overboard like I do in some themes I made :lol:
Also Im thinking of adding some things to shell that will hopefully not be too much and look cool
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Well some of the older apps, I used Transmission as an example, are still built around gtk-2.0 so it is a backward compatibility thing.

With your theme I think the gtk-2.0 tweaks look quite good with it, but there is always room for improvement. :)
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

I'm slowly going through it now, just added a status grip, this one will take me a bit, I'm recoding the gtk but then I have to see what changes need to be made in the css files (first time making one of these) I have only made themes for gtk2 so this should be challenging.
The wife loves the color theme you made and said if she didn't have her pink theme I made for her she would have this one instead, hopefully I wont wreck it :lol: she'll be looking at it probably to make sure I don't get too carried away as usual.
Always willing to learn something and sometimes you can teach an old dog some new tricks
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Tell the Mrs. thank you very much. The gtk-2 is fairly simple, I used Gpick to import the pallette from a wallpaper that I thought complimented the theme and went from there. I thought the result was like a strong coffee or cocoa, pleasing to my eye. :)

I wasn't really familiar with the Steampunk fashion until I started messing with your theme but I've become intrigued. If I had to sum it up I'd say it's a nostalgic look at the Victorian era through sepia colored glasses. I'm quite taken with it.

Glad she's looking over your shoulder and keeping the reigns on you.

I've got a question, on the technical side. Is there a simple method to batch process the images to convert the greens to a deep maroon? Not sure how it would look but in my mind's eye I think a red version would look cool too, but not if you have to recolor each image individually. Ask your wife what she thinks. :)
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

She said she thinks maroon is better then green, what greens are you taaking about?
As far as batch coding them, if its images then just gimpers and use colorize and choose a maroon and it will turn the whole image into a monotone color image of your choice, if your talking only code, then the quickest way I can think of how to do this would be in your main colors, then just refer whatever is green to thaat link color instead, if they are already linked to a green that is in the main color scheme, just change that one part of the code and anything linked to it will turn that color, hopefully I am explaining this properly to be understood.
Heres your basic theme color scheme on top of the gtk

Code: Select all

gtk-color-scheme = "base_color:#dcca9a\nfg_color:#dcca9a\ntooltip_fg_color:#dcca9a\nselected_bg_color:#a9895b\nselected_fg_color:#382b1b\ntext_color:#382b1b\nbg_color:#382b1b\ntooltip_bg_color:#382b1b"
find the one that is green and change it to a marron hex color color code instead, then anything linked to that in the gtk will turn that color
Examples hoe they link

Code: Select all

bg[NORMAL]        = @bg_color
links to the bg_color color in the main color scheme
another example

Code: Select all

style "entry" {
	xthickness = 3
	ythickness = 3

	bg[SELECTED] = mix (0.4, @selected_bg_color, @base_color)
	fg[SELECTED] = @text_color

	engine "clearlooks" {
		focus_color = shade (0.65, @selected_bg_color)
	}
}
links the colors here in the entry box
the background selected color will be the selected_bg_color (a9895b) with base_color (dcca9a) mix looks like at an alpha of .4 just one point less then half
the foreground will be the same color as the text color (382b1b) and the focus color will be just over a half alpha shade of the selected_bg_color (a9895b).
Don't know if this makes sense or not, hopefully it does.
So check the gtk first, see where all the greens lead to, if they link like this does then just change it at the top (usually its at the top, depending on who coded it, but it should be for proper coding etiquette, to make it users friendly), nothing like a programmer that codes in a style that only he or she understands, I hate that way of coding, I was a tech reviewer years ago for flash/php books and one author named his variables like one two three gOne gTwo and stupid ways of naming them, glad he understood what they meant nobody else would of :lol: had to get another author to rewrite the thing so everyone could understand what it meant, there were four reviewers on that book and all of us were complaining and scratching our heads over that one.
Ok enough of ranting about poor coding.
If you also know what you want maroon just make it at the top, go through the code if they all dont link to where you want it to go, then just paste the link in that place, you can zip through the code rather quickly this way, but having it refrenced at the top is the easiest and fastest way I can think of.

As far as steampunk goes, I fell in love with this about a year ago, I was checking out some artwork online (never heard of steampunk before) and was blown away at the details, the sepias and the old victorian style (one of my favorite eras as an artist), I love the rustic style and so much detail and things can be added into it, been a big fan of it ever since, actually always was just never knew it was called steampunk till a year ago. Not a fan of goth which is close but too dark for my liking.
The wife is looking over my shoulder as I do your theme so don't worry :lol:
Its when shes not around I might go over the limit :lol:
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

I was referring to the colored inserts in the top & bottom bar of the window, at least they display green to me.

I was thinking something like the deep reds in this. I don't know, might not work in practice but you did declare this a brainstorming thread. :)
Image
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Here you go, heres the gimp file for it plus the two pngs I used. I put a blue-green back to the grid because that was what my wallpaper is :lol: sorry I was selfish on that one. metacity doesn't allow alpha channels so I had to match the holes with something, I just cut a piece of the top of my wallpaer out and used that for the backing.
Open up gimpers you'll see a layer called Pasted Layer#1 thats the background, just change it to what you want instead, if you just want to color it a maroon color, highlight that layer go to Colors on the menu then choose colorize, it will all turn a light blue at first but move the top slider either almost to the end of the right or left to get a red then adjust it to get the shade you like, then you can fool around with thee sat and lightness to tweak it as you want it to be.
then go to image > scale image make one 90x30 and save it as titlebar-mid-focused.png then rescale it again to 45x15 and name it bottom_tile.png paste those into the metacity file replacing the old ones and your done.
If you want the inactive to change to then you have to open both pngs you just created
The first 90x30 go to Colors > Filter Pack and click on Saturation under windows another small windows oppens up click less sat and click ok and close that plug-in save it as inactive_titlebar-mid-focused.png do the same for the other image (smaller png) and save it as inactive_bottom_tile.png and replace those two images and your all done.
The saturated ianctives files shouldn't be an issue though because they will look greyish anyhow.
Hope this helps ya out.
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Ok, I'll try to decipher that & see if I can do it. The most I do with gimp is to resize images & play with some filters so I'm pretty much a n00b. :)
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Ok, this is what I ended up with. I think I was used to the green, not sure of what I think of this yet. It is the red I was going for, just not sure of what to make of it yet.

Thanks for teaching me something, as many times as I've used gimp I really didn't know how to use 98% of it.
st-red.png
I attached the resulting files.
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

Looks good
If you want to get rid of that bottom overlay (the green blue traansparency) without wiping it out of the metacity code then just open the images up in gimpers and set the alpha to zilch for that whole layer, it will still load but it wont show.
The image are the bottom overlay file (I wiped out the inactive in the code but I kept the image in there in case anyone wanted it)
Otherwise you can go into the code and look for the image and delete the whole line,
this one

Code: Select all

<image filename="bottom-overlay.png" height="object_height" width="width" x="0" y="0" />
or just comment it out with <!-- -->

Gimeprs isn't too hard to learn but I been using it pretty much since it was invented, plus pretty much every other art program on the market. I find testing the scripts and plug-ins the most headache especially when they have bugs in the code. The manual helps out a lot and there should be tons of tutorials online for it.

The ones I use for gimpers the most when it comes to fooling around with the colors is the first four in Colors, then I go from there on down the list, plus I have a heck of a lot of scripts and plugins installed on top of it but the first four should do for about 90% of any coloring work, the filter pak is great for antiquing images, I also use Gimp Paint Studio a heck of a lot you can get it HERE it converts gimpers into one mean painting machine thats becomes better than any other program on the market, I rather gimpers over photoshop any day, make sure you download the manual for that paint studio you'll need it :D or you wont know where to find the special brushes and it teaches you some things as well.

I changed the brown background color to an image (I used your brown as a base for the texture). Mind you this changed everyhitng that was linked to that backgorund color so now I have to change all that back again individually now :lol:
Heres the change, this used to be one brown now it has some texture to it without changing the color to much.
browns.png
Hope this helps ya out.
Sam
cbowman57

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by cbowman57 »

Thanks Sam, I tinkered with the image but couldn't get it to do what I wanted, so I took the easy route & edited the xml.

I'll have to do some studying & exploring to understand gimp better. Looks a lot better now though, I was curious about that green haze, looked just fine with the original though.

Wow, that's cool with the textured background. I'm going to have to cruise DeviantART and see what kind of comments this is getting.
samriggs

Re: Theme Brainstorming for Gnome3

Post by samriggs »

I dont think it is getting any on deviant art, not last time I checked, there just downloading it and taking it for a spin, plus its only the shell on deviantart so far, I have it on gnome look it has some comments as long as folks have fun with it its all good :D
Ya I was going to remove that transparent overlay but it does look alright with the green back grid so I kept it but took it out of the inactive part because it stood out to much.
Once I get the full package together I'll make some better screenshots for it that show all the details and see what happens, plus I still only do this because it's fun for me and keeps me in practice for artwork, so the part about comments and ratings and downloads I really pay no attention to its just fun to make them for me :D
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