I was considering installing Ubuntu MATE 18.04 but when I was trying it out I noticed there was no way to change the theme colors. Changing the theme colors was one of the main reasons I decided to go with the MATE desktop environment several years ago. Is there any way to get that feature again or is it gone for good?
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By âchange the theme coloursâ do you mean keep the existing theme, but just change the colours inside it? Or, do you mean change the theme itself, so that the colours will be changed as a result?
If you mean the latter, then this is still entirely possible.
If you mean the former, I was not aware UM ever had that facility (though, I will be happy to stand corrected) other than by getting oneâs hands dirty by going directly into the themeâs config file and manually editing it.
Or, are you referring to the âfolder colour changerâ? Because that feature is still included.
Hello,
I think that @Unicorn777 is speaking about âAppearance Preferences > Customize Theme > Coloursâ as this screen capture taken by @wolfman in the fourth post in this thread https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/re-creating-the-classical-ubuntu-orange-theme/3062/4
Sadly, this functionality is gone ⌠no more available.
You need to patch manually the theme to change colors.
Kr
WellâŚI never didâŚ
I didnât even know that functionality was available first time around
I wonder if âgnome-color-chooserâ might do the trickâŚ
Edit to addâŚ
That would be a no on the Gnome color chooser.
Itâs how I used to tweak my themes when it was GTK2
So, I am guessing the migration to GTK 3 is what has done for it
Hello,
I do not know about âgnome-color-chooserâ. Thanks @stevecook172001
After some search, there is no GTK 3 version.
But I found this tools which seems to be GTK 2 and GTK 3 compatible.
gtk-theme-config: on launchpad.net
Some screen captures: http://www.webupd8.org
Not tested yet and donât know if it will work with Mate Theme.
Kr,
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I installed it. It only sort of half works. But, not really.
Yes, I was referring to Appearance Preferences. Iâll be sure to try out the gtk-theme-config and see if I like it or not.
You mean under 18.04 you can have any color you want provided itâs green? No offense to the devs, but I hate the color green and always change it to grey.
Every time I think of upgrading to 18.04 from 16.04 something comes along that turns me off the upgrade. Why would you get rid of this functionality?
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Iâm very sad that the Appearance Preferences > Customize Theme > Colors is gone - Iâve heavily relied on that for many years. Itâs so much more convenient than having to track down which themesâ filesâ code to have to figure out how to edit and install. Please reinstate it or similar functionality. Iâm guessing this is an upstream MATE issue, not an Ubuntu MATE one, so maybe Iâll ask them, but not being able to customize colors in an LTS release is disconcerting. I use MATE because I want things to stay the same year after year after year so I can focus on things other than figuring out how to force new tweaks for new glitches (which is what the other desktops impose on you).
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Unfortunately, this not even an upstream MATE issue: this is an upstream GTK+ issue⌠They dropped this functionality entirely, and now they are trying to figure out how to drop themes altogether. Since we are bound to GTK+, we have no say in the matter. Weâve had a few possible solutions being discussed, but they would require a lot more developers/time to make them happen.
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Drop themes? Whaaaaat?
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This is a recent example:
https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-at-scale/
Iâve had conversations with people in the GNOME community and the idea of getting rid of custom themes is sort-of a thingâŚ
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Gnome devs making arguments like that would have a lot more credibility if this wasnât something that has worked for literally decades on dozens of platforms without any problem at all. The fact that they managed to half-ass their code so badly that things donât work any more in GNOME doesnât magically turn themes into something âimpossibleâ, and to claim that it does is flat-out dishonest.
I fired up an 18.04 VM today to check if a bug in ffmpeg was fixed in that release, and discovered that the footer bar in caja is using a 6pt font: half the size of any font I have set. How? Why?! Because âGNOME, so @#$% you, user scumâ.
The mouse wheel randomly doesnât work for listboxes: a full sweep might move 3 lines, or 1 line, or not even move at all.
The whole thing is just a broken mess.
vkareh: Given how hostile the GNOME devs are to not just user choice, but code that actually functions correctly at all, why is MATE chasing GTK+ updates? Wouldnât it be better to just use the version linked with MATE 1.12 or so and stay there, instead of pulling in these horrifically-broken newer versions? Or does that cause DLL hell?
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Itâs the tired old argument usually brought up by misinformed Windows users that Linux is somehow âfragmentedâ because we donât all run an identical UI.
Itâs rubbish of course and Iâm sorry, but I have to say it - The Gnome devs locking everything down annoys the hell out of me and totally goes against the whole philosophy surrounding open source and freedom of choice.
One of the major strengths of Linux IMO is that I can make my DE look and behave exactly as I like and I think Gnome is a terrible UI.
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Keeping up with newer versions of GTK+ has massive benefits: Itâs faster, has HiDPI support, fewer bugs, to name a few. It also has downsides: dropping certain widgets, CSD titlebars, app menus (which are thankfully going away).
Then thereâs dependency hell if we donât keep up. The best solution weâve found is to fork the deprecated parts of GTK+ that we use into a separate library, and track the rest from upstream. Unfortunately, this requires a lot of work on an already tiny, overworked team, so we havenât done it yetâŚ
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Thanks for explaining, @vkareh. Sounds like a tough situation.
I read that Gnome blog article. I have to admit that Iâve always had my color/theme customizations cause occasional bad indecipherable GUI widgets of too-similar/too-ugly colors on each other, even with GTK-2 (but I never reported bugs to particular apps about it, knowing it was due to my tweaks). GUI design isnât my specialty so I can sympathize if comprehensive theming really does interfere with apps too much, but I tend to suspect that such a composability issue could be solved well somehow, but that would have to be some whole new different toolkit I guess.
My interest in easy changing of colors is mostly just to be able to change windowsâ title bar and border colors semi-frequently, since those are what I like to use to indicate which window has the current focus (Iâve used Dopple for years), and colors and styles I donât like make it pretty unpleasant. IIUC, this aspect is mostly separate from the theming of the windowsâ content so itâd be nice if we could at least be able to customize this via a convenient GUI. Being mostly separate (IIUC), I hope the ability to change titlebar and border colors and styles doesnât go away if they do away with theming.
[quote=âBulletdust, post:14, topic:17682â]
One of the major strengths of Linux IMO is that I can make my DE look and behave exactly as I likeâŚ[/quote]
Certainly one of the attributes that makes Linux superior IMO. But more than just the GUI, for me itâs really about being able to customize the whole system. Taylor fit it to your needs and desires.
I used to be in that camp. Been really enjoying it as of lately though.
HiDPI support was a must have to keep Ubuntu Mate relevant IMO. Regardless of the trade-offs.
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The themes I set myself no longer work. The included themes are all either too bright or much too dark. 50% black doesnât seem to exist. And no way to change that. :-/
That drives me back to version 16.04.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I expected dependencies would be the root of the problem.
âFewer bugsâ doesnât match my admittedly brief experience with it: even utterly basic things are broken. Two easy examples: resizing the Software Updater window doesnât resize the list it contains; and the mousewheel literally doesnât work at all about half the time for scrolling a listbox, completely at random.
HiDPI support is obviously hugely important to a subset of users though, so itâs a tough position to be in, and the maintenance burden pretty much forces your hand, as you say. 
honestly I wonder if MATE will have to leave GTK someday