Ambiant MATE Dark theme scrollbar colors

Development Discussion
1

I just noticed a bit of an oddity in the scrollbar colors of the Ambiant MATE Dark theme compared to its lighter counterpart:

From left to right:

  • Ambiant MATE
  • how I expected Ambiant MATE Dark to look
  • how Ambiant MATE Dark actually looks (a bit too dark, and it loses the MATE accent color)
2 Likes
2

Hello

This seems to be common with all themes. I am currently on GreenLaguna and thought I give a try on it for a custom scrollbar. So I have created a custom theme package and hit on my first problem. I have yet to be able to add my custom theme to the appearance gui. I have put it in ~/.themes and /usr/share/themes. Both ways should work, I have used this in the past in Ubuntu.

For the moment I’m stuck until I get pass this.

Any thoughts?

@Alif_Dal_Mim because you asked about scrollbar color.

@lah7 could this be a bug?

3

I still have the above problem, but made some headway with scrollbar background color.

Added this to ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

scrollbar trough {
    background-color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.10);
    background-image: none;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: alpha(@frame_color, 0.6);
}

This gives me black scrollbar background. Still more tweaking to do, but a start in the right direction.

I’m getting my ideas from here:
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/theming.html

4

This looks like the next needed part:

scrollbar slider,
scrollbar .slider {
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: transparent;
}

Out of play time for now. Later

1 Like
5

I haven’t been following the themes @m1804 but I asked the guy who has oversight.

According to @wimpy, the dark one is as intended. His thoughts were the green made it look stark.

I would personally prefer the green variant too, since it helps with accessibility with a better contrast. You could also say it stays consistent with the regular theme.

The source code for themes can be found in ubuntu,-mate-artwork, if you’d like to contribute the changes. :slight_smile:

6

Final results

Note:
This tweak should work on all default themes. It was created using GreenLaguna, so milage may vary.

Scrollbar/buttons/slider tweaks will need to be added to (home directory) ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css (the /gtk.css file will need to be created at that location) and this is a per user modification that will not work system wide. Currently I cannot add a custom theme system wide using root access to /themes or user themes to /.themes. The appearance GUI just will not see them.

Code to paste to /gtk.css:

scrollbar slider {
    /* Size of the slider */
    min-width: 15px;
    min-height: 15px;
    border-radius: 17px;

    /* Padding around the slider */
    border: 2px solid transparent;
}

scrollbar trough {
    background-color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.60);
}

scrollbar button,
scrollbar button.vertical,
scrollbar button.horizontal,
scrollbar .button,
scrollbar .button.vertical,
scrollbar .button.horizontal {
    color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.10);
    background-color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.4);
}

scrollbar.vertical slider,
scrollbar.vertical .slider {
    background-image: linear-gradient(to top,
                                      shade(@toolbar_gradient_base, 0.85),
                                      white);
}

scrollbar.horizontal slider,
scrollbar.horizontal .slider {
    background-image: linear-gradient(to left,
                                      shade(@toolbar_gradient_base, 0.85),
                                      white);
}

@lah7
Lets see what people think of this first and I will also post here:

1 Like
7

Ok, here ya go. This is tweaked for Ambiant MATE Dark theme.

scrollbar slider {
    /* Size of the slider */
    min-width: 15px;
    min-height: 15px;
    border-radius: 17px;

    /* Padding around the slider */
    border: 2px solid transparent;
}

scrollbar trough {
    background-color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.60);
}

scrollbar button,
scrollbar button.vertical,
scrollbar button.horizontal,
scrollbar .button,
scrollbar .button.vertical,
scrollbar .button.horizontal {
    color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.10);
    background-color: shade(@theme_bg_color, 0.4);
}

scrollbar.vertical slider,
scrollbar.vertical .slider {
    background-image: radial-gradient(ellipse at center, #86A551 0%, #86A551 100%);
}

scrollbar.horizontal slider,
scrollbar.horizontal .slider {
    background-image: radial-gradient(ellipse at center, #86A551 0%, #86A551 100%);
}
8

Another way to make scrollbar more visible (green) is to replace lines 162-163 in /usr/share/themes/Ambiant-MATE-Dark/gtk-3.0/gtk-main.css with

@define-color scrollbar_slider_bg_color shade(@selected_bg_color, 0.89);
@define-color scrollbar_slider_hover_bg_color shade(@selected_bg_color, 0.93);

btw similar issue has been raised in

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1377410

1 Like