Confusion running WMaker on GNOME system

[O'Brien]

Hello!

I've been using Window Maker for a week and having a really good time with it. Apps that usually crashed for me have been stable! It's great. I also love the way it looks.

Here is my problem: all of my GUI software still looks like Adwaita. When I'm in my GNOME desktop env, I can use Gnome-Tweaks to change icons and themes, and it works. When I go back to my WMaker desktop, it's still Adwaita. I imagine it's because GNOME Shell isn't running to handle the choices? But then what is managing the appearance of my icons and widgets without it?

I know this isn't a Window Maker question per se, but I'm sure others have gone through this.

Thank you so much WM Community!

P.S. for reference, I am trying to use Mint-X-Icons for icons and OneStepBack for theming widgets.

[Kostas Michalopoulos]

On 3/9/24 20:41, 'O'Brien' via Window Maker Users wrote:
> handle the choices? But then what is managing the appearance of my icons
> and widgets without it?

For Gtk2 you can edit ~/.gtkrc-2.0 to specify the theme name. For Gtk3
and Gtk4 you can edit settings.ini in ~/.config/gtk-3.0 and
~/.config/gtk-4.0 respectively.

Here is an example of ~/.gtkrc-2.0 from my PC:

gtk-theme-name="Clearlooks062x"
gtk-enable-animations=1
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=0
gtk-toolbar-style=3
gtk-menu-images=1
gtk-button-images=1
gtk-cursor-theme-size=24
gtk-cursor-theme-name="HighContrast"
gtk-icon-theme-name="breeze"
gtk-font-name="Adobe Helvetica, 9"

Here is an example of settings.ini from my PC (for Gtk3, it is similar
for Gtk4):

gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme=true
gtk-button-images=true
gtk-cursor-theme-name=HighContrast
gtk-cursor-theme-size=24
gtk-decoration-layout=icon:minimize,maximize,close
gtk-enable-animations=true
gtk-font-name=Adobe Helvetica, 9
gtk-icon-theme-name=breeze
gtk-menu-images=true
gtk-modules=colorreload-gtk-module:window-decorations-gtk-module
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=false
gtk-theme-name=cdetheme-solaris
gtk-toolbar-style=3

You can find themes at https://www.gnome-look.org/browse/ - despite the
name of the "Gtk3/Gtk4 themes" category, some themes also contain Gtk2
versions. You put the theme's directory in your ~/.themes directory and
the directory name is what you use in "gtk-theme-name" values above.

For Qt5 and Qt6 you can use the QT_STYLE_OVERRIDE environment variable
to specify a style. If you have the QGtkStyle Qt theme engine you can
set the variable value to gtk2 to use Gtk2 for drawing the theme (and
thus use the theme you use for Gtk2).

Kostas

[O'Brien]

Followed your instructions and it works perfectly. Huge thanks!