Appearance and GTK themes suggestion

Hey all, my suggestion is allow full customization via GTK 2 and GTK3 to include everything to make it look like it should without personalizing, Im having serious gripe because menu icons “mate logo” and the rest of the menu bar seems not very compatible with GTK themes.

Not sure if is an easy fix, but appearace section needs a revamp to allow more customization options, in my humble opinion.

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No replies? I think this is important in the long run, “retrospective future” needs customization in order to flow with new times too.

I think your comment is just too general for anyone to reply. Plus gtk2 is being phased out and I do not expect to see much effort in improvement of it.

Hi @Pablo_Perez_Gutierre,

themes in general seem to have one problem or another in Ubuntu Mate, I have noticed that with nearly all themes there are small niggling issues!. :smiley:

Maybe @Wimpy can shed some light on the matter?. :smiley:

menu icons "mate logo" and the rest of the menu bar seems not very compatible with GTK themes.

What do you mean exactly? Can you provide a concrete example of what doesn't work in your opinion? I.e. what do you want to change, how and can't?

The problem is general: Customization and Themes needs fixing

to be specific just like wolfman pointed out: “nearly all themes there are small niggling issues”

Another thing why people are going mint instead of ubuntu is precisely this, GTK 3 themes should work. In my case the menu bar indicators almost never match the themes.

Also we need more default wallpapers by spying on mint mate I saw they have plenty more and better looking, another thing that could improve.

Loving mate!

to be specific just like wolfman pointed out: "nearly all themes there are small niggling issues"

That's a bit vague...

Another thing why people are going mint instead of ubuntu is precisely this, GTK 3 themes should work. In my case the menu bar indicators almost never match the themes.

But Gtk 3 themes do work. When they have issues in Mate, like the wrong color somewhere, it's an issue with the theme, not Mate. The same goes with the indicators: they're handled by the icon themes.

That's why I was asking for precisions: most of the issues you'll have are dependant of the themes and can't be fixed in Mate. Other issues can, like changing the logo on the menu applet: the applet Mate uses doesn't allow this, so it could be updated to have a new dialog to select an icon and such, it's part of Mate.

I agree about the wallpapers part, some work can be done here (at least drop the Mate logo everywhere and the green tint). Also, the background manager should be able to handle standard dirs (I already complained about this).

@terzag

Thanks for the answer, but not sure if its a theme problem or mate because I recently downloaded: BluecurveRH icon set specifically made for mate in gnome-look.org and some indicators didnt change.

For the most part GTK 3 themes do “mostly” work, but could use some fixing in my opinion, hoping wimpy tells us something on this.

Thanks for the answer, but not sure if its a theme problem or mate because I recently downloaded: BluecurveRH icon set specifically made for mate in gnome-look.org and some indicators didnt change.

Do you have a link? There are a lot of results for "bluecurve" on gnome-look.org but I can't seem to find a "BluecurveRH". Note that the icon theme might be incomplete regarding indicators. Also, some icons in the systray (not indicators) won't have their icon changed in some specific cases (like Dropbox).

For the most part GTK 3 themes do "mostly" work, but could use some fixing in my opinion, hoping wimpy tells us something on this.

GTK themes that are part of Ubuntu Mate (like Ambiant-MATE & Radiant-MATE) or others?

This is the icon set: https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1167536/ , dropbox icon works alright its just internet icon missing for me.

GTK themes that are part of Ubuntu Mate (like Ambiant-MATE & Radiant-MATE) or others?

Others, mostly every theme from gnome-look.org, the default themes haven't found issues.

This is the icon set: Bluecurve icons - Gnome-look.org , dropbox icon works alright its just internet icon missing for me.

I've quickly checked the icon theme and it is indeed quite incomplete. For status icons (the ones used for indicators and the systray, mostly), it pretty much has icons for the volume, the battery and the weather. It lacks a lot of basic icons. It's up to the theme designer/packager to fix this and make a more complete theme.

Others, mostly every theme from gnome-look.org, the default themes haven't found issues.

Same thing: if people design bad themes with issues (I don't blame them, it's quite complicated to create a Gtk theme, the entire system is a dirty mess), there's nothing that can be made on Mate's side, all you can do is ask the designers to fix their own theme.

ok, I guess the designer said it was for gnome/mate but forgot some indicators then.

Well, when an icon theme is for “Gnome/Mate”, it’s rather a way to say that it’s not for KDE (which has some specificities regarding icons), not that the theme is by any means complete.

In fact, this icon theme lacks a lot of icons, not simply a few ones for indicators.

Yes, thanks a lot for the info, you are right. Arg is there a way to find individual icons for indicators and others?

I really like this icon theme, disabling indicators in “ubuntu tweak” fixed some missing indicators like sound, but not internet and bluetooth which are still missing.

You could find missing icons in other themes and put them in the one you use but be aware that you’ll need specific icons and in various sizes (i.e. it’s not simply one icon per indicator − e.g. the network icon has at least one for cable, one for wireless, both with various states of “animation”…).

If disabling the sound indicator fixed the issue, I guess that it moved it to the systray and it uses a different name for the icons, which is in your theme while the one for the indicator isn’t.

Sorry for not going into details but themes are more complex than it seems and it’s not easy to explain how they work in a few lines.

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Understood, thanks I probably won’t get into it, but Ill follow your advice and tell the theme maker about the missing icons hopefully add them soon.

Terzag continue been awesome

@terzag

Hey one last question: Know how to download bluecurve icons (complete set finally) from fedora website?

Tried searching, but cant find it and does it work with UM?

@Pablo_Perez_Gutierre

Use some Google-fu please. See -

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@mdooley

Thank You, how do you install it, I put it in icons folder and nothing.

Im new to linux

If they were all in an icon theme, with a name like bluecurve, and organized, you could place them in a /usr/share/icons/directory. See one of the icon themes you probably already have - matefaenza, for an example of an icon theme.

Icons placed in your home in the .icons directory can be used for individual icon replacements. If you have any launchers on your top bar, for instance, try right clicking the icon, left click on Properties, and then left clicking on the icon shown in the Properties dialog box. You can navigate to ~/.icons and pick another icon from the icons stored there.

And please use Google as a means to find out more. Good luck PPG.