Showing posts with label themes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label themes. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Spice Up Your Linux Desktop With The Moka Project GTK / Icon Themes
Many of you are probably already familiar with the Moka Project but, since I never covered it, and the project has evolved a lot recently, I though I'd write an article about it now.
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| Stark Ceru GTK theme / Faba Ceru icon theme in Unity (Ubuntu 14.04) |
Moka started as a single icon theme but it has evolved into an entire project which includes multiple GTK and icon themes for the Linux desktop as well as icon themes for Android, all designed / developed by +Sam Hewitt.
Currently, the Moka Project consists of 3 beautiful GTK themes (Moka, Orchis and Stark) and 3 icon themes (Moka, Faba and Faba Colors) for Linux desktops, accompanied by a GNOME Shell and a Plank theme.
Here are a few screenshots with some of the GTK / icon themes included in the Moka Project:
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| Moka Icon Theme |
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| Faba Colors |
To allow you to choose from 6 different folder colors, there's a supplementary theme to Faba called Faba Colors (along with Faba Light/Dark) which you can see above. Faba Color matches the Stark GTK theme, which is available in the same color variations:
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| Stark GTK theme |
Below you can see some of the Moka Project GTK / icon themes in action:
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| Orchis GTK theme / Moka icon theme in GNOME Shell |
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| Orchis GTK theme / Faba Roja icon theme in Unity |
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| Moka GTK theme / Faba Viol icon theme in Unity |
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| Moka GTK3 |
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| Orchis GTK3 |
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| Stark Lutu GTK3 |
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| Stark Roja GTK3 |
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| Stark Verd GTK3 |
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| Moka GNOME Shell theme |
It's also worth mentioning that according to Sam Hewitt, Orchis is the main project GTK theme, and not Moka, as you would expect. Moka GTK theme is still maintained though.
Download the Moka Project GTK / icon themes
All the Moka Project GTK / icon themes are available in repositories for Ubuntu / Linux Mint (Launchpad PPA), Fedora, openSUSE and Arch Linux (AUR).
The themes are free to download but there's also an option to donate to help its development and for this reason, I won't add installation instructions here. Instead, head over to the Moka Project website:
... and simply click the theme you want to install, then click the Download button and follow the instructions.
To change the GTK / icon theme, use a tool such as Unity Tweak Tool, GNOME Tweak Tool, Ubuntu Tweak, etc.
... and simply click the theme you want to install, then click the Download button and follow the instructions.
To change the GTK / icon theme, use a tool such as Unity Tweak Tool, GNOME Tweak Tool, Ubuntu Tweak, etc.
Important note: the Moka Project website doesn't mention the GTK version required by the GTK themes. I've tested the GTK themes with Ubuntu 12.04 (which uses GTK 3.4) and the themes looked broken so I assume the GTK themes require at least GTK 3.6 (the themes seemed to look ok in my brief Ubuntu 12.10 / GTK 3.6 test).
Report any bugs you may find @ GitHub.
some images via Moka Project
Friday, October 23, 2015
Ambiance And Radiance Colors Theme Pack Available For Ubuntu 14.04
Ambiance & Radiance colors is a theme pack that provides Ambiance and Radiance themes in 9 different colors: blue, brown, graphite, green, orange (different than the one used by default in Ubuntu), pink, purple, red and yellow. The pack supports Unity/GNOME as well as Xfce and LXDE/OpenBox.
The themes were updated recently with support for the latest Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
GTK Theme Preferences (gtk-theme-config) can be used to recolor GTK themes to any color you want however, it doesn't work with Ambiance and Radiance from Ubuntu 14.04 because they use PNGs for checkboxes, progress bars, etc., which can't be changed by this tool.
In my test, the themes worked as expected under Unity, but there's a small glitch under Xfce: the panel text, used by the clock or some indicators, uses a dark color on a dark background, making it unreadable:
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| Ambiance Colors under Unity |
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| Ambiance Colors under Xfce |
Install Ambiance & Radiance colors in Ubuntu 14.04
Ambiance and Radiance Colors can be installed in Ubuntu 14.04 by using the RAVEfinity PPA. Add the PPA and install the themes using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ravefinity-project/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ambiance-colors radiance-colorsTo change the theme in Unity, you can use a tool such as Ubuntu Tweak or Unity Tweak Tool. For GNOME Shell, you can change the theme using GNOME Tweak Tool.
Thanks to Jared for the tip!
Monday, October 19, 2015
Humanity Colors Icon Theme Now Available In 12 Colors
Humanity Colors, an icon theme pack designed by the Ravefinity Project which provides Humanity (the default Ubuntu icon theme) in various colors, was updated with 3 new colors along with other changes and bug fixes.
Humanity Colors 14.04.3 includes 3 new colors: Manila, Aqua, Teal, bringing the icon theme to a total of 12 colors variations (the theme already included the following colors: blue, brown, graphite, green, orange - different from the default Humanity orange -, pink, purple, red and yellow), all available for both dark and light panels.
Here are the 3 new icon colors in action:
The new version also brings "darker, crisper and way better looking overall colors" for the whole icon theme pack, according to Jared Sot, one of the Ravefinity designers:
It's also worth mentioning that the icon theme no longer requires Humanity and Ubuntu Mono icon themes to be installed, these being bundled with the theme. Because of this, Humanity Colors now uses about 90-100 mb of HDD space.
In the email I received today from Jared, he mentioned that Ambiance & Radiance Colors are to be updated to match the new colors at some point. For now though, Ambiance & Radiance colors is available in 9 color variations - see THIS article for more info.
As a reminder, Humanity Colors icon theme pack should work with Unity, GNOME (Shell), Xfce, LXDE, Openbox and probably other DEs/shells too.
Install Humanity Colors in Ubuntu
Ubuntu 14.04, 13.10 and 12.04 / Linux Mint 17, 16 and 13 (and derivatives) users can use the Ravefinity PPA to install the latest Humanity Colors:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ravefinity-project/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install humanity-colorsFor other Linux distributions, grab Humanity colors from the Ravefinity website.
To change the icon theme in Unity, you can use a tool such as Ubuntu Tweak or Unity Tweak Tool. For GNOME Shell, you can change the theme using GNOME Tweak Tool. Make sure to set Humanity-dark-COLORX icon themes for dark panels and Humanity-light-COLORX for light panels.
For matching GTK themes, see: Ambiance And Radiance Colors Theme Pack Available For Ubuntu 14.04.
Thanks to Jared Sot for the tip!
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Paper: New Material Design Inspired GTK Theme
Paper is a new material design inspired GTK theme, which is currently in beta. "Its design is mostly flat with a minimal use of shadows for depth", mentions its website, and it was developed primarily for the GNOME (Shell) and other desktops that make use of header bars.
Ideally, you'll need a complete GNOME 3.14 / 3.12 desktop to see what Paper is all about, since the theme uses custom colors for header bars / client-side decoration apps.
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| Paper under Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 |
Unfortunately, Ubuntu 14.10 (screenshot above) ships with GNOME 3.12 by default, mixed with some 3.10 bits and because of that, some applications like Gedit or Calculator don't use header bars, so here's another screenshot, via Paper's website:
The theme looks pretty nice with traditional titlebar/menubar/toolbar applications, but it doesn't compare with the experience it offers for header bars apps. Here's a Paper GTK theme screenshot taken under Ubuntu 14.10 with Unity:
The theme looks pretty nice with traditional titlebar/menubar/toolbar applications, but it doesn't compare with the experience it offers for header bars apps. Here's a Paper GTK theme screenshot taken under Ubuntu 14.10 with Unity:
And a couple of screenshots to get an idea on how the widgets look like with GTK3 and GTK2:
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| GTK3 |
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| GTK2 |
It's important to mention that currently, there are a few issues with Paper GTK theme, especially on non-GNOME (Shell) desktops. For instance, the Nemo statusbar is not themed correctly, the Ubuntu Sound Menu buttons are not displayed and probably more (so I don't really recommend it on Unity, at least for now). Also, the GTK2 theme still needs some work. However, the theme was developed with GNOME / header bar apps in mind and furthermore, it's still in beta, so that's understandable.
According to +Sam Hewitt, the theme developer, Paper will be a complete theme suite once it goes stable: the GTK theme will be accompanied by GNOME Shell, icon and Plank themes.
Download Paper GTK theme
Ubuntu users can install the latest Paper GTK theme by using its official daily buils PPA (unstable):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:snwh/pulp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install paper-gtk-themeArch Linux users can install Paper via AUR.
Once installed, use an application such as GNOME Tweak Tool to set the theme to Paper.
If you download the Paper GTK theme tarball, you'll find an "install.sh" script that you can run to install the theme and set it as the current desktop theme however, note that if you run the script as root (that's required if you want to install the theme globally, under /usr/share/themes/), the script can't set the current theme to Paper because gsettings (which the script uses to change the theme) doesn't work as root.
initially seen @ Marco's Box; second screenshot via Paper's website
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Install Ambiance And Radiance Themes With Fixed Header Bars For GNOME 3.12 [Ubuntu GNOME]
Ubuntu GNOME with GTK/GNOME Shell 3.12: if you're an Ubuntu GNOME user, you're most probably aware that Ambiance and Radiance (the default Ubuntu themes) don't support GNOME Shell and applications that use header bars look broken. Well, Leo Iannacone has fixed the default Ubuntu themes to work properly under GNOME 3.12.
Here are a couple of screenshots taken under GNOME Shell / GTK+ 3.12 (Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn) with fixed Ambiance and Radiance themes, using proper header bars (client side decorations):
Unfortunately, Leo's fixed Ubuntu themes don't work properly with Unity. For instance, the Nautilus toolbar/pathbar looks pretty weird. So I recommend using them only with GNOME Shell (Ubuntu GNOME).
Since the default Ubuntu themes don't ship with GNOME Shell themes, you can use Ambiance-Gnome ad Radiance-Gnome, which I've uploaded to the failsdownloads Themes PPA so you can easily install them in Ubuntu 14.04 (if you've upgraded to GNOME 3.12) or 14.10:
Install Ambiance and Radiance fixed for GTK+ 3.12 in Ubuntu GNOME
These Ambiance and Radiance themes only work with GNOME/GTK+ 3.12 which is available in a PPA for Ubuntu 14.04 and in the official Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn repositories. Don't install the themes if you're using a different GNOME version!
To install Ambiance And Radiance fixed for GNOME/GTK 3.12 in Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 or 14.10, you can use Leo's PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:l3on/ubuntu-themes-gnome-shell
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install light-themesNon-Ubuntu users can download Ambiance and Radiance fixed for GNOME (3.12) from Launchpad (bzr).
If you want to revert the changes, use the following commands:
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/l3on-ubuntu-themes-gnome-shell*
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install light-themes/trustyTo change the theme to Ambiance/Radiance, use GNOME Tweak Tool (under "Appearance", set the Window ad GTK+ theme to Ambiance or Radiance)
Install Ambiance and Radiance GNOME Shell themes
If you're looking for matching Ambiance and Radiance GNOME Shell themes, you can use DarkBeastOfPrey's themes which, just like the fixed Ambiance and Radiance GTK themes, are for GNOME Shell 3.12 only.
You can install these themes by using the failsdownloads Themes PPA. Add the PPA and install Ambiance and Radiance GNOME Shell themes using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:failsdownloadsteam/themes
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ambiance-gnome radiance-gnomeOr, download the themes from Gnome Look: Ambiance-Gnome | Radiance-Gnome, extract the downloaded archive and copy them to ~/.themes/
To be able to change the GNOME Shell theme, you'll need to install the official GNOME Shell extensions:
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensionsThen, open GNOME Tweak Tool and on the "Extensions" tab, enable the "User themes" extension and restart GNOME Shell (ALT+ F2 and enter "r"). And finally, set the GNOME Shell theme to Ambiance-Gnome or Radiance-Gnome via GNOME Tweak Tool (Appearance > Shell theme).
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Ubuntu 14.04 Themes To Use Borderless Window Decorations
Back in Ubuntu 11.04, the default Ubuntu themes (Ambiance and Radiance) had the window borders removed. That change was reverted because of some Unity 2D related issues but it looks like borderless Ambiance and Radiance will finally make it into Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.
Marco Trevisan, the Ubuntu developer who worked on many other features for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, like the new Unity decorations, the improved window spread, locally integrated menus, etc., has updated the default Ubuntu themes - Ambiance and Radiance -, with borderless decorations.
The change hasn't landed in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr yet, but it will probably make it sometime before the UI freeze (March 13th). This change landed in Ubuntu 14.04 a few hours after publishing this article.
The reason behind using borderless window decorations is that some applications, like GNOME Terminal, some media players, etc., look a lot better without a border, as you can see in the second screenshot below:
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| Before |
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| After (Ambiance Borderless) |
As for window resizing, that's not affected by this change because the actual invisible draggable area which you can use to resize a window remains unchanged.
Ambiance And Radiance Colors Theme Pack Updated With Dark Menus Everywhere, Other Changes [Ubuntu 14.04]
Ambiance & Radiance colors is a theme pack that provides Ambiance and Radiance themes in 9 different colors: blue, brown, graphite, green, orange (different than the one used by default in Ubuntu), pink, purple, red and yellow. The pack supports Unity as well as Xfce and LXDE/OpenBox (it doesn't work very well in GNOME Shell because Ubuntu's Ambiance doesn't either - they don't support client side decorations).
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| Ambiance Red under GNOME Shell - KKEdit, a GTK2 app uses dark menus (with the default Ambiance theme, the app uses a light menu) |
The theme pack was updated recently with some enhancements and bug fixes:
Also, if you liked the previous gray window close button, you can continue to use that by using the "Pro" themes (Ambiance-blue-pro, etc.).
Here are a few more screenshots with the latest Ambiance & Radiance colors:
As a reminder, for matching icons, see the Humanity Colors icon theme pack.
Ambiance and Radiance Colors can be installed in Ubuntu 14.04 by using the RAVEfinity PPA. Add the PPA and install the themes using the following commands:
- colored window close buttons are back, as requested by many users;
- dark menus and dropdowns are now used everywhere - for instance, using the stock Ambiance, GTK2 apps / Firefox use light menus (try it with Firefox's context menu for instance);
- various fixes for the Openbox / Xfce themes.
Also, if you liked the previous gray window close button, you can continue to use that by using the "Pro" themes (Ambiance-blue-pro, etc.).
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| Dark Firefox context menu (the default Ambiance theme uses a light menu here) |
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| Ambiance Blue under Xfce |
Here are a few more screenshots with the latest Ambiance & Radiance colors:
As a reminder, for matching icons, see the Humanity Colors icon theme pack.
Install Ambiance & Radiance colors in Ubuntu 14.04
Ambiance and Radiance Colors can be installed in Ubuntu 14.04 by using the RAVEfinity PPA. Add the PPA and install the themes using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ravefinity-project/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ambiance-colors radiance-colorsTo change the theme in Unity, you can use a tool such as Ubuntu Tweak or Unity Tweak Tool. For GNOME Shell, you can change the theme using GNOME Tweak Tool.
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