Description: A theme which is smooth and subtle, while also being fairly high in contrast, and in which interactive elements are noticeable and responsive in order to deliver a lucid experience.
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After a long while of not caring much about changing from Adwaita, I started using Ubuntu and Unity again after a long while since it finally has become stable. Thus I was motivated to work on gtk3 version of this theme. It is based on Ambiance and thus requires the unico engine.
Please excuse any issues it may or may not have in GNOME Shell, as I will fix those in the final release.
Things to look forward to in the final release:
- Dark version for media applications. - New monochrome media control icons. - Adwaita-like scroll bars (the thin ones from GNOME 3.4), for those not using Ubuntu and/or its special scroll bars. - Various visual effect polishing.
Secondly, Cimi, creator of the Murrine GTK+ theme engine. Without this wonderful engine, it would have been far harder to make the theme look the way it does.
Thirdly, Isaiah Heyer for his initial Lucidity GTK theme release, which gave me a decent base theme to work with.
And last, but certainly not least, the entire Linux user base who has helped further along the aforementioned projects and those who simply download and use this theme, giving me a reason to continue to work on it, other than to make my own desktop look really nice. Last changelog:
v3.0beta: Now includes a gtk3 theme and will work with latest Unity.
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v2.4: Icons done in all sizes, removed some monochromes to favour a more colourful desktop, plus lots of tweaks and fixes to the look and feel. Chrome is now properly themed so you can use the GTK theme setting in Chrome or the Chrome theme, your choice. The Squared version of the theme is now available via an installation option rather than as a separate theme.
v2.3.92: Fixed restore icon and added an option to theme Unity.
v2.4b: Combined the elements and colour schemes from the light and dark versions of the theme. Mono icons available for applications, and updated the panel icons to be a colour changing of the mono panel icons from ubuntu-mono-dark of Ubuntu 11.04. Brand new window buttons created from scratch.
v2.3.3: Smoothed out and simplified gradients. Cleaned up redundant code.
v2.3.2: Subtle improvement to look of unfocused metacity windows. Changed separator style to smooth. Removed gradient and shadows on toolbars, menubar and etc to agree with more apps and for a much smoother appearance. Improved look of buttons and other elements in the dark themes. Cleaned up the look of Nautilus.
v2.3.1: Brightened up the Lucidity and Lucidity Squared Metacity themes for a smoother/nicer look. Colours of Metacity themes now based on GTK colours, except for text and buttons.
v2.3: Unfocused windows in Metacity have a completely sunken appearance so that which window is focused is more noticeable. Added variations - Lucidity-Squared, Lucidity-Dark and Lucidity-Dark-Sqaured. Lucidity-Left and Lucidity-Right metathemes no longer exist; deprecated by configure script found in Lucidity theme's folder and the new variant metathemes.
v2.2-2 (Ubuntu Package Only): Redid package with proper file permissions.
v2.2-1: Added distributor logos for Frugalware, Linux Mint, Mandriva and SUSE. Adjusted Debian icon to appear thicker.
v2.2: Made colour scheme smoother while maintaining contrast. Fixed issues with Evolution. Icon theme now has multiple vendor icons and comes in a GNOME flavour by default.
v2.1: Changed the colour scheme to flat greys, as was originally intended but hindered by my monitor's odd colour balances. Various touch ups to the GTK theme. Added a Lucidity icon theme which is Ubuntu-Mono-Light edited to use Lucidity's colour palette.
v2.0.1: Restored original metacity theme title positioning as accounting for three buttons all the time did not always work. Fixed small pixel off issue with restore button and increased the height the icons travel up when hovered over for a more noticeable effect. Increased button roundness from 10 to 12.
v2.0 Final: Lots of tweaks and changes from a new colour scheme more similar to the original, and lots of aesthetic clean ups. There are now two metacity themes, Left and Right, which centre the text perfectly. Two themes is necessary as the formulas are different depending on which side has the buttons. The buttons in metacity now have a raise and push effect for prelight and press rather than a zoom and darken effect, respectively in both cases. License change to allow for distribution in package repositories.
v2.0-r2: Another colour scheme rework. Last one was too red.
v2.0-r1: Reuploaded with a small tweak to menu contrast.
v2.0: Changed the colour scheme to what is hopefully a more grey scheme. Tweaked lots of styles and elements in order to increase aesthetics. The changes are many - both subtle and obvious - and best experienced by seeing the theme on your desktop.
v1.4.1: Fixed incorrectly themed cut/copy/paste buttons in Chrome menu and lack of rounded scrollbars in Evolution. Spaced tabs for a better appearance and changed the focus style of buttons to a "glow" rather than box in the centre. Changed expanderstyle to using circles with plus and minus instead of arrows to fit the theme better.
v1.4: Rounded the buttons and sliders and added a bit more rounding to the other elements as well. Metacity theme is now a bit shorter and the button colours and effects have been enhanced to make them more noticeable and interactive. (Reuploaded: Metacity theme update was not complete.)
v1.3.3: Adjusted the contrast of all the elements to match that of the monochrome icons in ubuntu-mono-light; effectively tightening the colour scheme and giving the theme a more solid look.
v1.3.2: Improved the look of the new restore button and the look of all the unfocused buttons.
v1.3.1: Repacked forgotten metathemes which now do not include the menu icon by default to fit with the Ubuntu Lucid look.
v1.3: Minimise and restore icons are now styled after Lucid Lynx's Ambiance and Radiance for a more integrated feel for the theme.
v1.2.2: - Made checkboxes and radios easier to see. Checkboxes and radios within GTK Trees (places such as sound device selection and etc) still look odd, but it seems impossible to theme them/I am unsure how to theme them. - Menubar styling changed to flat which flows with the rest of the theme much better.
v1.2.1: - Removed handles from scrollbars for a smoother look.
v1.2: - Metathemes are now Lucidity-Left and Lucidity-Right, each with the two most popular button layouts. - Made metacity theme a bit brighter to match mockup. - Darkened text in GTK theme to make it more "lucid."
v1.1: - Modified metacity theme to be much truer to mockup and changed utility windows to have smaller titlebars. - GTK theme no longer has white checks and radio buttons in the menus.
Your theme looks nice and I wonder where is the code to make the window's edge oval in your theme? I want to apply the code into my theme. Please help me. Thx in advance!
The trick to most theming in Linux, due to not much documentation, is reverse engineering things. I wondered the same in the past and just figured out how to do it myself.
I will tell you that the code is in the metacity theme. Outside of that, a mix of tag names and comments should make the rest of it apparent. Cheers.
I have not seen the first issue, although I cannot see a reason why my theme would cause it since I use no pixmaps except to make the panel handles invisible. However, as you learn when themeing GTK, it can be very unpredictable and have a mind of its own.
This is also the reason for the issue with the checkboxes and radio buttons in GTK tree widgets as well. Instead of colouring them how I define them to be coloured in every other case, it treats the check mark or radio dot as text and colours it as such. So I would really love to fix this as I noticed it ages ago, but it is a limitation of GTK and the way Lucidity is coloured. The only way to "fix" it would be to change the way Lucidity looks, which would destroy the look and feel of the theme.
Alternatively, the GTK+ authors could fix this behaviour so that radio and check buttons in treeviews can be themed. Oh well.
As for icons, as mentioned, I cannot help that the Java icon is not made with dark themes in mind. Cheers. ;o
Could we have at least a one-pixel border please? (In whatever color you like.) It's difficult to distinguish the windows without it. Plus, it doesn't look neat.
Example:
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/9281/lucidity0.png
I am trying to work out an idea which will sort it out in the next release but not break the look and feel of a single colour.
The thing is, I have used it with shadows on at all times, and didn't realise until fairly recently that it looked that way without them. Nobody has said anything about it other than you either, which also made it harder to consider. It seems that people just like the click the '-' button for whatever reason then bugger off since I can read their minds.
At the moment I am focused on finishing up the remaining icons for the 2.4 release as I am over halfway done, but I will try to work this in as a final minor release for 2.3. Thanks for bringing this up rather than marking off the theme and moving on. Cheers.
I played a little with Compiz today and found that I can create a one pixel border in any color by going to Window Decorations and setting Shadow Radius to min und Shadow Opacity to max, leaving offsets at 0. I works just fine.
Thank you so much for your work! I really love your theme :-)
There are two places where the font is not readable.
1. In the network connections menu:
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/941/screenshotv.png
2. The shut down window:
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3918/screenshot1wj.png
Beside these minor problems the theme is great.
I noticed that as well, although I also noticed it in other dark themes and it seems to be an issue with the fonts being set to a static colour.
However, I will look a bit more into that to confirm it or fix it if possible. Cheers.
I looked into it and the colours are indeed static. The only way to resolve the issue on my end would be to make the background of the themes darker, which I may do via a swap of base and bg colours. Give thoughts if that is not in your favour. Cheers.
The smoother gradients really make it easier on the eyes.
Definitely an improvement.
Thumbs up :D
I'd rate this up again if I could.
Looking forward to 2.4
All the best.
But:
Gtk-Message: (for origin information, set GTK_DEBUG): failed to retrieve property `GtkWidget::visited-link-color' of type `GdkColor' from rc file value "((GString*) 0x93fead0)" of type `GString'
Gtk-Message: (for origin information, set GTK_DEBUG): failed to retrieve property `GtkWidget::visited-link-color' of type `GdkColor' from rc file value "((GString*) 0x9381b70)" of type `GString
Fix it, please.
Thank you.
>I do not get this error from any of the programs I tried running in the terminal. Which program throws this error? :)
Any program, but apparently it personally I have something in if you are okay.
Ratings & Comments
136 Comments
excellent theme!!! any news on 3.0 final version? if you also release a perfect matching Emerald theme would be great!
Your theme looks nice and I wonder where is the code to make the window's edge oval in your theme? I want to apply the code into my theme. Please help me. Thx in advance!
The trick to most theming in Linux, due to not much documentation, is reverse engineering things. I wondered the same in the past and just figured out how to do it myself. I will tell you that the code is in the metacity theme. Outside of that, a mix of tag names and comments should make the rest of it apparent. Cheers.
I saw the new version just today and installed it right away. Great work! :-)
i like it ! Thank you for sharing :D
I really like the Metacity theme.
Window's menu font to much gray, hard to read( Anyway, thanks)
Fixed. :)
First, thanks for your great theme. I made a pkgbuild for archlinux https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=44290. I was wondering if your theme require a specific version of murrine and if there was a system wide directory where to install the chromium theme. And I also found a few glitches in the dark variant : the sound, date and weather applet http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/7697/workspace3006.png list with check-boxes http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7292/filemanagementpreferenc.png and, not your fault but the java icon is not blending well http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/976/workspace3008.png
I have not seen the first issue, although I cannot see a reason why my theme would cause it since I use no pixmaps except to make the panel handles invisible. However, as you learn when themeing GTK, it can be very unpredictable and have a mind of its own. This is also the reason for the issue with the checkboxes and radio buttons in GTK tree widgets as well. Instead of colouring them how I define them to be coloured in every other case, it treats the check mark or radio dot as text and colours it as such. So I would really love to fix this as I noticed it ages ago, but it is a limitation of GTK and the way Lucidity is coloured. The only way to "fix" it would be to change the way Lucidity looks, which would destroy the look and feel of the theme. Alternatively, the GTK+ authors could fix this behaviour so that radio and check buttons in treeviews can be themed. Oh well. As for icons, as mentioned, I cannot help that the Java icon is not made with dark themes in mind. Cheers. ;o
Actually, my Java icon has a solid white box, no problem there. Look for openjdk6.png.
Ack, it's openjdk-6.png ^^
Yes but the openjdk icon isn't used for the "official" jdk distributed by oracle.
Oh, I see. As a workaround, you could replace the "official" oracle jdk icon with the openjdk icon.
Could we have at least a one-pixel border please? (In whatever color you like.) It's difficult to distinguish the windows without it. Plus, it doesn't look neat. Example: http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/9281/lucidity0.png
I am trying to work out an idea which will sort it out in the next release but not break the look and feel of a single colour. The thing is, I have used it with shadows on at all times, and didn't realise until fairly recently that it looked that way without them. Nobody has said anything about it other than you either, which also made it harder to consider. It seems that people just like the click the '-' button for whatever reason then bugger off since I can read their minds. At the moment I am focused on finishing up the remaining icons for the 2.4 release as I am over halfway done, but I will try to work this in as a final minor release for 2.3. Thanks for bringing this up rather than marking off the theme and moving on. Cheers.
I played a little with Compiz today and found that I can create a one pixel border in any color by going to Window Decorations and setting Shadow Radius to min und Shadow Opacity to max, leaving offsets at 0. I works just fine. Thank you so much for your work! I really love your theme :-)
There are two places where the font is not readable. 1. In the network connections menu: http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/941/screenshotv.png 2. The shut down window: http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3918/screenshot1wj.png Beside these minor problems the theme is great.
I noticed that as well, although I also noticed it in other dark themes and it seems to be an issue with the fonts being set to a static colour. However, I will look a bit more into that to confirm it or fix it if possible. Cheers.
I looked into it and the colours are indeed static. The only way to resolve the issue on my end would be to make the background of the themes darker, which I may do via a swap of base and bg colours. Give thoughts if that is not in your favour. Cheers.
The smoother gradients really make it easier on the eyes. Definitely an improvement. Thumbs up :D I'd rate this up again if I could. Looking forward to 2.4 All the best.
....my autumn Wind. How many beautiful updates. Z***
But: Gtk-Message: (for origin information, set GTK_DEBUG): failed to retrieve property `GtkWidget::visited-link-color' of type `GdkColor' from rc file value "((GString*) 0x93fead0)" of type `GString' Gtk-Message: (for origin information, set GTK_DEBUG): failed to retrieve property `GtkWidget::visited-link-color' of type `GdkColor' from rc file value "((GString*) 0x9381b70)" of type `GString Fix it, please. Thank you.
I do not get this error from any of the programs I tried running in the terminal. Which program throws this error? :)
>I do not get this error from any of the programs I tried running in the terminal. Which program throws this error? :) Any program, but apparently it personally I have something in if you are okay.