Finding a Light & Productive GTK Theme for GNOME
So, I recently upgraded to latest Firefox (more on that later) and–to cut the chase here–I’m sick of how it continues to blatantly ignoring dark GTK themes. The bookmarking dialog is unreadable, and the “Awesome” bar urls look absolutely horrible (bright blue on gray, anyone?). While Firefox is still technically usable, these issues cause real annoyance and do cut down on its usability.
Notice how hard it is to read urls. Click for larger image.
The problem is…I love Firefox. Despite its flaws, it stands head-and-shoulders above Epiphany (which remains a bit too simple for heavy web browsing) and just about every other browser out there when it comes to features, security, and extensibility. I’m not giving up Firefox anytime soon, so…I guess I have to change my choice of GTK themes.
Naturally, I went to GNOME-Look.org (a great site) to begin my quest for a light theme that would look great on Firefox and my desktop, but I couldn’t find quite what I was looking for…light, but not cold. Most of the bluish themes out there lack any warmth or inviting feel to them. I like a clean look, but with a bit of cosy-ness to it.
MurrinaVerdeOlivo is clean but warm. Click for larger image.
In the end, I installed the Murinne GTK engine from the standard repos along with the murrine-themes package, and found some nice options…right now my desktop is running the MurrinaVerdeOliva theme with the Blended Metacity window borders and the Crashbit Ubuntu icon set. I’m pleased with the look. If you install those packages, you’ll also get some nice blue themes and couple cool graphite options as well.
What’s your favorite light theme for GNOME/GTK?
Hi Nathan, I use the GTK theme of Crunchbang linux and i have no issues with firefox 3.5 or any other app. I hope I may help you
I use Dust on Jaunty. I can’t remember if I made any color tweaks or not, but it’s a moderately dark theme, but looks pretty good, I think, almost all of the time.
@JakeT I love Dust! It just doesn’t seem to play nice with Firefox 3.5 specifically.
I highly recommend the “Kupo Finale” themes. There is a light and dark version, both of which are very well polished, though I prefer dark themes in general. The Kupo Finale dark theme also works nicely with epihpany/firefox. You can find these themes on GNOME-look.org, here’s a direct link:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Kupo+Finale?content=96121
screen shot of both themes:
http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/96121-1.jpg
@jason Thanks, those are slick!
[...] advice on finding a light GTK theme for [...]
1) I use zenburn
2) A productive THEME?, how stupid can this get?
@p0c
Sounds crazy, I know. But if theme makes text in the Firefox GUI unreadable, then it has an effect on my productivity. If a theme uses an engine that slows down my meagerly spec’d work machine, then it affects my productivity. If a theme is plain ugly, it makes work on my computer less enjoyable, and that can also reduce my productivity. Themes make a difference.
Add this to “userChrome.css” in “./mozilla/firefox/wahtever.default/chrome”:
.ac-comment {
font-size: 100%! important;
color: #FFFFFF ! important;
}
.ac-url-text {
font-size: 100% ! important;
color: #B0D369 ! important;
}
.ac-url-text:hover {
font-size: 100% ! important;
color: #FFFFFF ! important;
}
.ac-comment[selected="true"] {
color: #3A3A3A !important;
}
.ac-url-text[selected="true"] {
color: #FFFFFF !important;
}.ac-comment {
font-size: 100%! important;
color: #FFFFFF ! important;
}
.ac-url-text {
font-size: 100% ! important;
color: #B0D369 ! important;
}
.ac-url-text:hover {
font-size: 100% ! important;
color: #FFFFFF ! important;
}
.ac-comment[selected="true"] {
color: #3A3A3A !important;
}
.ac-url-text[selected="true"] {
color: #FFFFFF !important;
}
You can change the colors, i wrote this for shiki-wise (i think)