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Customizing Desktop


william
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Under Gnome and as a root I suceeded in installing and selecting all available themes for my desktop. In order to be able to use these themes as a simple user, I've copied the contents of /root/.icons folder to the /home/user/.icons and the same for the themes folder, /root/.themes to home/user/.themes.

 

New explanation of the problem (trying to be a little more clear):oops:

 

"When I log as a simple user and go to the theme preferences in gnome control center, clicking on themes > details button, it brings Controls, Window border and Icons tab.

 

The themes related to the Control tab are there avaialable for use, but when I click over the one of my choice it affects only the window appearences and patterns, the buttons and scrollbars are not affected by the new theme."

 

That's the point, despite of selecting a theme, only its windows patterns and colors are assumed. The buttons and scrollbars (that is certainly related to the /home/user/.themes directory) are not affected by the new theme.

 

I hope you've understood what I meant.

 

I've already installed the themes as a user, but unfortunately the problem persists, it seems as I have some problem of appearance configuration here. I've checked all configuration possibilities under gnome control center, but there isn't anything related to buttons appearance issues.

 

Edited in order to give a better explanation of the problem.

 

Sorry for that and thanks for the inputs.

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It would be alot faster and eaier to just reinstall them as 'user', or copy them as 'user' from /usr/share/icons, then delete them from /usr/share/icons. Which means you'll have to copy from /root/.icons. Also note that you can't have the same theme in ~/.icons and /usr/share/icons, so you'll then have to delete from /usr/share/icons, which would be silly. Sometimes they show up and don't work. If you have multiple users, the best thing to do is to keep everything in /usr/share (global for all users)......saves hd space as well. All this also applies to metacity, gtk, and gtk2 themes.

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Guest smoketoomuch

Yes, you need to change the owner. Open a console in your home directory, and as root, change the owner of .icons directory (in your home directory) recursively:

 

chown -R username.groupname /home/user/.icons

 

For example, my username is smoketoomuch, the groupname is smokie, and the above command would be: chown -R smoketoomuch.smokie /home/smoketoomuch/.icons

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That means you've loaded a theme that is missing the theme engine. Which theme/s are doing this? You need to get the engine>uncompress it>and in the uncompressed dir do;

1. ./configure --prefix=/usr

when it's done

2. make

3. (as root) make install

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I've downloaded some GTK 2.x from Theme Depot (Aquesco-gtk-blue, Aqua Metal,MardiGras) and probably you are correct, but how to get the "theme engine"?

 

Some additional information: as normal user when I run some root application like gnome control center and linux conf, despite being under a simple user environment, these applications are affected by the theme and its controls, boxes and scrollbars work smoothly.

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bvc, sorry for my stupid question about what a theme engine is. I've been using linux for only 1 month and naturally I will have to spend much of my time to acquire some valuable knowledge in order to avoid this sort of question.:(

 

Reading a FAQ in art-gnome site, there's a tutorial teaching how to install GTK theme engines and another showing how to install GTK 2.x themes. When I installed MardiGras theme (as a root), I applied the dragging method and everything worked like a charm.(buttons, scrollbars and so on). It was not necessary to install any GTK theme engine!!!

 

I've tried all the recommendations here concerning user permissions, file sharing and whatever, but the problem still persists, I mean: as a root everything works fine, but when I log as a user and install a theme (using dragging method) that has some "Aqua" butons, it doesn't work.

 

Is it a bug or a problem between user and computer? :oops:

 

Sorry for being persistant with this look and feel (make-up) questions.

 

BTW: Do someone here recommend to try enlightenment?

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bvc, sorry for my stupid question about what a theme engine is
I won't say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but this is not one. :) Like many things in gnome it just takes a little time, or 'familiarity'. You get to know the engine/themes etc....but basically IMO the easiest way to find out is to use file-roller to uncompress the themes/engine and see if there's these types of files in it;

[bvc@localhost bvc]$ ls /home/bvc/tar/gnome-themes-extras-0.1

aclocal.m4     COPYING                      intltool-update.in  missing

AUTHORS        depcomp                      libtool             mkinstalldirs

BlueSphere     gnome-themes-extras.spec     license_dsg         NEWS

ChangeLog      gnome-themes-extras.spec.in  license_gpl         Nuvola

config.guess   Gorilla                      license_lgpl        po

config.h       INSTALL                      ltmain.sh           README

config.h.in    install-sh                   Lush                stamp-h1

config.log     intltool-extract             m4                  TODO

config.status  intltool-extract.in          MAINTAINERS         Wasp

config.sub     intltool-merge               Makefile

configure      intltool-merge.in            Makefile.am

configure.in   intltool-update              Makefile.in

[bvc@localhost bvc]$

see the Makefiles and configure files? This usually indicates an engine. So say you want a smooth theme;

http://art.gnome.org/show_theme.php?themeI...4&category=gtk2

that requires the smooth-engine;

http://art.gnome.org/show_theme.php?themeI...2&category=gtk2

Note: the tarball is called "GTK2-Smooth-Engine.tar.gz"

 

If you use file-roller to open this tarball and go into it you'll find configure and Makefiles. Meaning, you have to (should as a user)

./configure --prefix=/usr

make

(and as root) make install

 

B4 installing an engine, you can see what engines you have in;

/usr/lib/gtk/themes/engines

and

/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/2.2.0/engines

 

Hope this helps you understand a little better.

 

Enlightenment? Sure! I used E for about 3 or 4 months. I recommend them all. DE's/wm's are fun, and you'll find one you'll stick with the most of the time and maybe bounce between a few, just to have a change now and then.

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Another think to check is if mandrakegalaxy is running in your preferences>sessions. If so, Remove>Apply and run;

gnome-save-session

 

This is mandrakes attempt to hardwire kde/gnome to have a uniform look....which is nice until you try something other than the galaxy theme.

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bvc, it's starting to drive me crazy, I've already tried everything suggested here but without no success. I've also removed usr/bin/mandrakegalaxy and typed gnome-session save as recommended but .....

 

I will place the pics of I got here.

 

Thanks.

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