How to set Gtk and Gnome themes from a KDE desktop

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1

I am having a KDE centric desktop. Official KDE 4.7 and openSuse 12.1 to be specific.
However I use, as most other desktop users, some Gtk and Gnome applications too.
In my case it is mainly Eclipse, it is based on SWT which in turn is based on GTK.
But also Gimp, Dropbox, File Roller and others. Even Firefox and Thunderbird seem to follow some Gtk settings (despite main having KDE integration of some sort)

There is an option in KDE Settings – GTK Styles and Fonts – where you can select a Gtk style from a handy drop bown menu of detected styles. Nice. But…

  1. Where to change Gnome theme?
    Gnome applications have their own themes and settings, not necessarily following Gtk theme.

  2. Where to set subtler visual options if the Gtk theme allows? (QtCurve has hundreds of options, very chameleonic)

  3. Does QtCurve in Gtk app setting mirrors that set by KDE Settings?

What does KDE “under the hood” to change Gtk theme?

There used to be gnome-settings (or so) command, starting a Gnome dashboard, similar to KDE Settings, but since I nstalled Gnome3 it is gone. What is the replacement? What package I need to install. I have installed nearly all of Gnome.

Regards
Your humble user

2

So long as the gnome themes etc are installed, what’s the problem

But why not use gnome with kde apps

3

For GTK2 applications (Firefox, Gimp), add a line including the gtkrc of the Gnome theme you want to use in ~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4 and ~/.gtkrc-2.0
Example:

cat ~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4

# This file was written by KDE
# You can edit it in the KDE control center, under "GTK Styles and Fonts"

**include "/usr/local/share/themes/niglo-openSUSE/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
**
style "user-font"
{
        font_name="Sans Serif"
}
widget_class "*" style "user-font"

gtk-theme-name="niglo-openSUSE"
gtk-font-name="Sans Serif 9"

For GTK3 applications (applications which come with Gnome3), create a symlink ~/.config/gtk-3.0 to point to the GTK3 theme you want to use.

Example:

$ ln -s /usr/local/share/themes/niglo-openSUSE/gtk-3.0 ~/.config/gtk-3.0

This is how I do it. There might be other (GUI) methods to achieve the same result.

  • You won’t have this theme. The installed GTK themes are in /usr/share/themes.
4

> So long as the gnome themes etc are installed, what’s the problem

I have some installed. Problem is how to set them. Change them. Browse them. I would probably like to pick something matching my KDE style.

> But why not use gnome with kde apps

That what I do. That is why I am asking.
I think that Ubuntu (Gnome) has some theme changing utility in the system menu. But I have KDE and openSuse.

5

Ha, I did not realized that quite a lot of gtk applications is not Gtk3 yet. Same story I remember with gtk1 and gtk2. Again, Gimp was one of the last to be done in Gtk2.
KDE (4.7) can set only Gtk2 theme then?

So all the appearance differences I experience is due to undergoing transition Gtk2 and Gtk3? Due to their following of a different setting file?
Well, I remember that before Gtk3, in Gtk2 times, Gnome applications did occasionally looked differently.
Don’t they have (had?) some settings daemon? Which only Gnome applications followed?

Thanks for trying, however, I really did expect something more user friendly. Something on par with KDE.
I want to choose themes.
I want to browse the themes!

Where the gnome-system-setting, the Gnome dashboard, it used to have a appearance section?

6

The gtk theme can be changed using the gtk-ctheme utility

7

Or just in KDE’s “Configure Desktop” (aka. systemsettings)->Application Appearance->GTK as already mentioned here.
And current versions do allow to change the Gtk3 theme, too.

8

the ability to change both gtk2 and gtk3 themes and icon sets has been included in KDE since 4.10 (I think) so you may need to update to a newer KDE - but that will probably also require an update to openSUSE as well as I don’t believe KDE updates are now supported in openSUSE 12.1

SUSE Paste

9

Well, this thread was started 1.5 years ago, maybe the OP has already upgraded in the meantime… :wink:

12.1 is out of support since a few months.

Of course you can also change the GNOME theme by installing and running gnome-control-center or gnome-tweak-tool. Those are included in the distribution, as opposed to gtk-ctheme which I can’t even find on OBS.