Way back from Windows 3.x days to the latest 64bit Windows 7 (classic/standard theme).. there is a way to make the window edge border wider then 1 pixel... I often use 3 to 5 pixel to make it easy to grab on hi-resolutions displays and hi DPI monitors.
There doesn't seem to be an easy or obvious way to do this with the Gnome X-Windowing system?
Does any one know how?
First find your current theme:
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme
Then edit the xml properties file /usr/share/themes/"ThemeNameFromPrevStep"/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml. Change width properties from 1 to 3 or 5 etc.
For the Ambiance theme on Ubuntu 11.04, the diff below fattens up the borders.
I assume you can apply a similar diff to other themes.
--- /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml.1 2011-07-01 22:09:31.595731506 +1000
+++ /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml 2011-07-02 12:02:35.077593280 +1000
@@ -11,9 +11,9 @@
<!-- General window layout -->
<frame_geometry name="frame_geometry_normal" title_scale="medium" rounded_top_left="true" rounded_top_right="true" rounded_bottom_left="false" rounded_bottom_right="false">
- <distance name="left_width" value="1"/>
+ <distance name="left_width" value="3"/>
- <distance name="right_width" value="1"/>
+ <distance name="right_width" value="3"/>
- <distance name="bottom_height" value="1"/>
+ <distance name="bottom_height" value="3"/>
<distance name="left_titlebar_edge" value="10"/>
<distance name="right_titlebar_edge" value="10"/>
<distance name="button_width" value="18"/>
@@ -198,16 +198,12 @@
<!-- Window Frames -->
<draw_ops name="draw_frame">
- <rectangle color="shade/#3c3b37/0.7" x="0" y="0" width="width" height="height" filled="true"/>
- <gradient type="vertical" x="0" y="0" width="width" height="60">
- <color value="shade/#3c3b37/1.2" />
- <color value="shade/#3c3b37/0.7" />
- </gradient>
+ <rectangle color="#3c3b37" x="0" y="0" width="width" height="height" filled="true"/>
</draw_ops>
<!-- bottom border -->
<draw_ops name="bottom_edge">
- <line color="shade/#3c3b37/0.7" x1="0" x2="width" y1="height-1" y2="height-1"/>
+ <rectangle color="#3c3b37" x="0" y="0" width="width" height="height" filled="true"/>
</draw_ops>
<draw_ops name="border">
The Dust theme has very large left and right borders:
It is probably already installed; try selecting it in appearance settings.
Using a google site search:
Google: "theme create site:library.gnome.org/users/"
I found the info I was looking for on the official Gnome site in the Administrator documentation section:
The Intro Gnome docs URL that talks about creating your own or modifying existing theme settings: http://library.gnome.org/admin/syste...mes-15.html.en
And the detailed settings file docs can be found in here some where. http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/unstable/index.html
The default installed Gnome themes are found here on a Gnome install: /usr/share/themes/theme-name
[13:07:40 hholtmann@v-00000018:/usr/share/themes]
$ ls
AgingGorilla/ ClearlooksClassic/ Dust/ HighContrastInverse/ HumanLogin/ Mist/ Redmond/
Atlanta/ Crux/ Dust Sand/ HighContrastLargePrintInverse/ Industrial/ New Wave/ Simple/
Bright/ DarkRoom/ Emacs/ Human/ Inverted/ New Wave Dark Menus/ ThinIce/
Clearlooks/ Default/ Esco/ Human-Clearlooks/ Metabox/ Raleigh/
and inside each theme folder there is the following structure:
[13:07:41 hholtmann@v-00000018:/usr/share/themes]
$ tree Clearlooks
Clearlooks
|-- gtk-2.0
| `-- gtkrc
|-- index.theme
`-- metacity-1
`-- metacity-theme-1.xml
All the details theme settings such as border and edge widths are in the "gtkrc" file:
Every Gnome theme object can reference pre-defined style blocks with attributes.
Most styles have an xthickness and ythickness value defaulting to = 1
style "default" {
xthickness = 1
ythickness = 1
.
.
}
Changing the x/ythickness values can change the pixel thickeness of all objects.
This blog post also provides an example of creating a new theme and changing it.
http://martin.ankerl.com/2008/10/10/how-to-make-a-compact-gnome-theme/
