ROX Desktop - Theming

XPlanet

kerofin — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:47:45 +0000

Summary:

pinboard backdrop application

Current stable version:

0.0.2

Home page:

http://www.kerofin.demon.co.uk/rox/xplanet.html

Primary author(s):

Stephen Watson

Zero Install URL (drag link to AddApp to install):

http://www.kerofin.demon.co.uk/2006/interfaces/XPlanet

Downloads:

http://www.kerofin.demon.co.uk/rox/xplanet.html

Summary:
pinboard backdrop application

Current stable version:
0.0.2

Home page:
http://www.kerofin.demon.co.uk/rox/xplanet.html

Primary author(s):
Stephen Watson

Tango Theme

KenHayber — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 16:20:26 +0000

Summary:

the Tango icon theme (adapted for ROX)

Current stable version:

065-1

Home page:

http://www.hayber.us/rox/Themes

Primary author(s):

The Tango Team (I ain't takin' credit for this)

Downloads:

http://www.hayber.us/rox/themes/Tango-065-1.tgz

Summary:
the Tango icon theme (adapted for ROX)

Current stable version:
065-1

Home page:
http://www.hayber.us/rox/Themes

Primary author(s):
The Tango Team (I ain't takin' credit for this)

Icon themes

Thomas Leonard — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:14:01 +0000

Icon themes provide icons for all the different types of file. The current series of ROX-Filer (2.2.x) supports freedesktop.org icon themes; install new icon themes in your ~/.icons directory, and then select it in your Options dialog's 'Types' panel.

Themes are listed in the Themes block on the left of the page, or you can browse the list of themes.

In The Future, we hope to be able to share icon themes with other desktops.

Does the filer support SVG icons?

The filer uses GTK to load images. As long as you have SVG support in GTK, ROX-Filer will load them fine. To test for SVG support execute:

Theming panels

Thomas Leonard — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:09:18 +0000

How do I set a font, colour or background image for the panels?

Put something like this in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file:

style "panel-style" {
  bg[NORMAL] = "#efb47c"
  font_name = "Sans 5"
}
widget "rox-panel.*" style "panel-style"

Theming the background of filer windows

Thomas Leonard — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:07:45 +0000

My GTK theme makes my filer background a different color; how do I make it white again?

Put something like the following in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file:
Note: to prevent this file from being overridden when changing themes use ~/.gtkrc.mine
instead

How do I set the background image?

Thomas Leonard — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 19:15:31 +0000

Right click on the desktop background. Choose Backdrop... from the bottom of the menu. Drag an image in.

If no background image is set, the colour set in the Options box is used (choose ROX-Filer/Options... from the menu).

You can use Wallpaper to select a random backdrop image at regular intervals, and for other interesting effects.

Note that the pinboard is actually a screen-sized window that covers the real root window completely. Therefore, programs that try to draw on the root window directly won't have any effect.

File types and icons

Thomas Leonard — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 19:45:52 +0000

How does the filer decide what icon to show for a file, and which program to use to open it?

For each file, the filer starts by working out its MIME-Type, as follows:

If the file's user.mime_type extended attribute it set, then that is its MIME type.
If the file's name matches a pattern in one of the globs file (usually, /usr/share/mime/globs) then the line in that file gives the type.
If the contents of the file match a pattern in one of the magic files (usually, /usr/share/mime/magic) then that gives the type.

Set As Wallpaper menu item

Thomas Leonard — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 19:29:22 +0000

Call I make a Set As Wallpaper menu item appear for images?

Right-click on an image and choose Customise Menu....
Drag Wallpaper (version 2.1 or later) to it.
Right-clicking on another file of that type will show a Wallpaper menu item which sets that image as the backdrop.

Using SOAP

You can also use the SOAP method (see the manual for ROX). You can make a small script that takes a file argument and call ROX to set that image as background on the pinboard. You can't use the rootwindow for background, the pinboard is actually one big window that covers your desktop!

Example script (untested, but should work):

Fonts

Thomas Leonard — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 21:49:30 +0000

How do I change the default font?

If you're using ROX-Session then run Look And Feel (for newer versions), or click on Session Settings and select the Display page in the options box (older releases).
Otherwise, if you're running some other XSettings manager (eg, gnome-settings-daemon), you'll have to set it with that (using gconf-editor in GNOME's case).
If you're not using ROX-Session or any other XSettings manager, you'll need to create a .gtkrc-2.0 file in your home directory containing something like:

Theming

Thomas Leonard — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 18:58:42 +0000

There are several different parts of the desktop that can be themed, as shown in the picture below.