12 character hexidecimal color format used by Roxfiler?

[JASpup]

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root# cat /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/Options | grep -i colour
  <Option name="display_unkn_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="pinboard_fg_colour">#d999d999d999</Option>
  <Option name="display_pipe_colour">#440044004400</Option>
  <Option name="display_cdev_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_adir_colour">#000060000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_exec_colour">#000060000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_colour_types">1</Option>
  <Option name="pinboard_bg_colour">#3ae129362d1d</Option>
  <Option name="display_err_colour">#ff0000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_bdev_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_sock_colour">#ff000000ff00</Option>
  <Option name="pinboard_shadow_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_file_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_door_colour">#ff00ff</Option>
  <Option name="display_dir_colour">#000000008000</Option>
root# 

The color I am interested in is the window background, usually #FFFFFF.

[HerrBert]

the ROX-Filer window background is changed by gtk-2.0 theme.
http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/node/249.html

[BarryK]

I wonder why rox developers decided to do that?

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#000000000000 is black #000000
#00002a2a7f7f is dark blue #002a7f
#ffffffffffff is white #FFFFFF
#ffffffffd0d0 is white, slight yellow #FFFFD0

They have duplicated each RGB value.

[JASpup]

I see the GTK themes here in Xenial have 2.0 & 3.0 versions. Maybe if I edit a 2.0 theme (currently Shiny) changing the gtk-color-scheme attributes I'll have a new version with a different background?

Appears all the /usr/share/themes/Shiny/gtk-2.0/gtkrc colors are in one line:

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gtk-color-scheme = "base_color:#ffffff\nfg_color:#000000\ntooltip_fg_color:#000000\nselected_bg_color:#5598d7\nselected_fg_color:#ffffff\ntext_color:#000000\nbg_color:#ede9e3\ntooltip_bg_color:#FFFFBF"

When GTK isn't white changing the file type colors in Rox options is obligatory for visibility. When it is white, changing is mostly aesthetic comfort.

E.g., when I use Rox for launcher windows I am looking at it more like a menu than as a directory, the same way we'd change a JWM menu color. If it's always that color for normal directories that's o-kay... experimenting.

[geo_c]

I see the GTK themes here in Xenial have 2.0 & 3.0 versions. Maybe if I edit a 2.0 theme (currently Shiny) changing the gtk-color-scheme attributes I'll have a new version with a different background?

Appears all the /usr/share/themes/Shiny/gtk-2.0/gtkrc colors are in one line:

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gtk-color-scheme = "base_color:#ffffff\nfg_color:#000000\ntooltip_fg_color:#000000\nselected_bg_color:#5598d7\nselected_fg_color:#ffffff\ntext_color:#000000\nbg_color:#ede9e3\ntooltip_bg_color:#FFFFBF"

In Fossapup64 I'm currently playing around with themes also. I built a JWM theme using JWM thememaker, and then a GTK theme, which looks pretty good except ROX, Geany, etc. all have white backgrounds, and I'm trying to make them black.

I created a GTK-2.0 theme with JWM thememaker and my gtkrc does not have the lines of code you pasted here. The only color items are these:

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#template for GTK Theme Maker - Trio Tjandradjaja - GPL 2014
#USEDTEMPLATE=default

style "default"
{

# for gtk2...
  font_name="Roboto,Roboto Medium Medium,Regular 11"
	fg[NORMAL]	= "#51b86e"	#yellow. Foreground text of nearly all widgets (not editor text
	fg[PRELIGHT]	= "#31c664"	#Foreground text as you mouse-over something
	bg[NORMAL]	= "#000000"	#The background of every non-clickable/non-active element
	bg[PRELIGHT]	= "#000000"	#mouseover bg radiobuttons and checkboxes

[geo_c]

I'm having some success, but running into some bugs.

If I can remember what exactly I've done so far, it's something like:

• Create a JWM and GTK theme with JWM thememaker

• Edit /usr/share/themes/MYtheme/gtk2.0/gtkrc to assign colors by carefully examining what's going on in another installed theme.
  Edit /root/.gtkrc.mine and /root/gtkrc-2.0 to make sure they say

  Code: Select all

  gtk-theme-name="MYtheme"

  Restart Window Manager and check various applications and ROX

So far I've got ROX as well as what apparently are the gtk-2.0 applications looking pretty much how I want them. I've made ROX's background black, and the text green. I'm working on a theme called geo-console. So far ROX and gtk-2.0 are mostly what I want, except the text next to selected checkboxes and unselected tabs is not showing. Here's what a ROX window, a Viewnior viewer, and JWMdesk look like currently:

But this seems to have busted my gtk-3.0 applications and windows. Geany now looks like this, with all kinds of white bg and black fg, as well as my browser dropdowns and libre office, etc.

So now I need to find out how to set those colors back to what they were. I'm working in JackalPup remaster of Fossapup64.

[JASpup]

I created a GTK-2.0 theme with JWM thememaker and my gtkrc does not have the lines of code you pasted here.

Haha, impractically I am usually on slow 32-bit machines. That line would have been in 32-bit Tahr, where I use Rox windows as launcher menus: http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.p ... 772#p42772 We might be a little apples and oranges.

YES you can install a 2nd tray in Tahr, and YES I have launcher Rox menus in Xenial, but it's still back two major releases from yours and 32-bit world.

I've looked at Thememaker also. One thing that strikes me about it is the themes it can create are not the same as builtin versions, particularly with respect to font.

For example, I have a Xenial pupsave with a custom Sans menu font, but the default font I started with wouldn't be available as a creation.

The font is why I created it, so I am not missing anything, but it does strike me as odd.

I've created more desktops than I actually use in learning and am not remembering every detail. I haven't looked at Fossa in weeks but I think it's using the Buntoo (Ubuntu) JWM menu theme with a pink highlight color, similar to my Xenial with a sunburst highlight:

32xenial-menu.png (94.87 KiB) Viewed 865 times

They throw together a hodgepodge of defaults and usually one looks great, you can work with a couple others, and the remainders are kind of garish to people with artistic sensibilities (but you can imagine comforting to others).

Buntoo menu looks great which is probably why 666 chose it. The GTK theme I use with this is Shiny and I have never edited it with an editor, only chosen a builtin setting.

Customizability is a blessing and curse. I couldn't look at a lot of the desktops other users are content with, but fussing with customizations is a black hole of time without a productive goal.

I have made JWM themes but not GTK. This is not just JWM?:

32xenial-JWM2_2.png (56.01 KiB) Viewed 865 times

This could be a long discussion.

[geo_c]

I have made JWM themes but not GTK. This is not just JWM?:
32xenial-JWM2_2.png

This could be a long discussion.

I learn a lot from these long discussions. If you create a new theme and save it with a new name, you get this screen with the GTK Theme button that allows you to create a new GTK Theme to match the JWM Theme, and it works well for GTK-2 but then seems to affect the GTK-3 settings. They revert to some other theme apparently. I haven't figured out exactly how GTK-2 and GTK-3 are linked in the rc files, but apparently they are. And my Jackalpup themes have been tweaked by @puddlemoon , so the GTK setup might not conform to straight Fossapup. I will have to duplicate what I'm doing in straight Fossapup64 and see how that goes.

On the above window I have not created a GTK theme that matches JWM, because the menu buttons and so forth are from the installed Cayan-glass theme. If I create a new GTK theme to match, I get pretty much I want in GTK-2 windows, but not in GTK-3 windows, if I'm understanding what I'm seeing correctly.

The GTK-2 settings we're seeing here, I changed using the gtkrc script in /usr/share/themes/cyan-glass/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

[geo_c]

In order to get ROX co-operating, I also changed a few color values in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/Options

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<Option name="panel_on_top">0</Option>
  <Option name="panel_is_dock">0</Option>
  <Option name="pinboard_fg_colour">#3322CC115500</Option>
 
  <Option name="pinboard_bg_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_unkn_colour">#000000000000</Option>

Which speaks to the original topic of this post, the 12 character values. I simply double each character and it seems to work.

So to be clear, I started over, and did not use JWM theme maker to create a new GTK theme. Unlike my previous screenshot of Viewnior, ROX, and JWM Desk, my JWM Desk currently looks like this, utilizing the cayan-glass buttons and gradients, not what I'm going for though:

[JASpup]

geo_c you wrote that the GTK Theme button is dependent upon creating a JWM theme? because it is necessary or forced? If necessary I want to understand why. If forced I hope that will be overcome on the creator-side. GTK 2.0 themes are chosen independently if we could just go straight to their editor.

I know newer pup features evolve (for keeping apples to apples), but it looks like we're using the same installed utility.

In order to get ROX co-operating, I also changed a few color values in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/Options

Code: Select all

<Option name="panel_on_top">0</Option>
  <Option name="panel_is_dock">0</Option>
  <Option name="pinboard_fg_colour">#3322CC115500</Option>
 
  <Option name="pinboard_bg_colour">#000000000000</Option>
  <Option name="display_unkn_colour">#000000000000</Option>

Is this to mean that the color configuration data for Roxfiler is in two places (both gtkrc and Options)?

[geo_c]

geo_c you wrote that the GTK Theme button is dependent upon creating a JWM theme? because it is necessary or forced? If necessary I want to understand why. If forced I hope that will be overcome on the creator-side. GTK 2.0 themes are chosen independently if we could just go straight to their editor.

I know newer pup features evolve (for keeping apples to apples), but it looks like we're using the same installed utility.

Is this to mean that the color configuration data for Roxfiler is in two places (both gtkrc and Options)?

I don't know about the Rox Filer, but I believe the background color changed when I changed those values. However I'm going the whole 9 nine yards right now. I have heavily edited the cayan glass theme/gtkrc and now achieving what I'm after. But it takes more to get what I want out of that theme than editing the gtkrc. I'm also about done editing most of the relevant buttons and toolbars png files. It wasn't that hard, I used gimp and duplicated all the originals, to revert if desired. But there won't be a need for that, as I'm finishing it up it's working well.

When the option to make a matching GTK Theme comes up in JWM Theme Maker, it's just that, an option. What I'm saying happens, if you take the option, what I'm calling GTK-3.0 applications lose their color/style scheme, at least in this pup. So what I did is not create a matching GTK Theme. I say these applications are GTK-3 but I don't know exactly. They could be open box, which has a directory in the Cayan Glass Theme. These applications have menus that look like this:

I'd like to change the backgrounds to black and the font color to match the rest of the theme I'm building, but I don't know where to do it yet.

My current GTK-2 and ROX window scheme looks like this:

[geo_c]

And actually, I think I found it finally. In the Cayan Glass Theme there is also a GTK-3.20, GTK+ directory with a .css stylesheet and the colors seem to be what I'm depicting above with Geany. It's a very long file with lots of colors, and I may be opening a can of worms. But I probably will take the plunge and do it anyway in the next couple weeks, because at the moment, I'm having such success.

I just edited the scrollbars in GTK-2, now my Rox/JWM windows leave almost no footprint, except for the title bar and the much more subtle looking scrollbars.

When I was making launcher icons I finally realized I could just drag an icon into GIMP, run a few manipulations on it, then go to File>Overwrite .png, close the window without saving anything and repeat. Although now that have this all encompassing theme coming together, I'd like to re-color all my launcher/ personalized icons in some kind of batch process.

The geo-console theme is materializing. It might be worth figuring out how to export it. But first I would have to build it in Fossapup instead of Jackal I would think. Because @puddlemoon did a fine job of glitzing up the Cayan Glass Theme, and I think there are considerations in how it's all tied together. Though I never was keen on the glass icons (I switched them all out), it has served as good base for developing my own thematic aesthetic.

This GTK-3.2 style sheet is very long though. I'll need some time to tackle it. It's called gtk-drk.css

In the end my system is going to have the feel of a super-powered text based machine.

[JASpup]

Your process shows a strong vision and aesthetically it's what I like.

With this post I am mostly trying to understand hidden functionality.

For instance, I began JWM changing my desktop by changing wallpaper. I started asking around about creating new color squares to change the background.

When you learn it's a pinboard feature for Rox, that's an advance, but it's also part of ostensible/up-front configuration utilities.

When you look at other areas, say, the navigation icons in Pale Moon or this Rox background project, you realize those customizations are more hidden.

It's not terribly important, but if it's just a doubled hex code in a config file I'll do it.

To have an idea of what you did, I am going to have to try making another JWM Theme (I've done this before), and look for a surprise GTK button. Otherwise it's something else to materialize.

[geo_c]

Your process shows a strong vision and aesthetically it's what I like.

With this post I am mostly trying to understand hidden functionality.

For instance, I began JWM changing my desktop by changing wallpaper. I started asking around about creating new color squares to change the background.

When you learn it's a pinboard feature for Rox, that's an advance, but it's also part of ostensible/up-front configuration utilities.

When you look at other areas, say, the navigation icons in Pale Moon or this Rox background project, you realize those customizations are more hidden.

It's not terribly important, but if it's just a doubled hex code in a config file I'll do it.

To have an idea of what you did, I am going to have to try making another JWM Theme (I've done this before), and look for a surprise GTK button. Otherwise it's something else to materialize.

If you want to experiment with making your png theme elements, you can simply find where the files are stored in your already installed theme. Mine are in usr/share/themes/cayan-glass/gtk-2.0 and each element has it's own directory, scrollbars, backgrounds, buttons. You could find one of the obvious elements, by viewing the png's in a ROX icon view, and then duplicate it with something like -ORIG appended to the end of the name, like button-default-ORIG.png. Then edit the properly named copy in an image editor, and overwrite it. Restart the window manager and fire up applications or utilities that would have that element, and take a look at it. I basically make everything black, and buttons that are prelighted, I give a rectangle outline, as picture on the backup in the screenshot of pupsave backup above.

It's time consuming, but I did the whole cayan glass them in a short couple of hours. I've gotten pretty fast with GIMP over the years, used it A LOT.

If you don't have GTK-3.0 or GTK+ or whatever the extra GTK scheme is, then you could probably just try the matching theme option in JWM Theme Maker. It works for GTK-2.

[geo_c]

Your process shows a strong vision and aesthetically it's what I like.

With this post I am mostly trying to understand hidden functionality.

For instance, I began JWM changing my desktop by changing wallpaper. I started asking around about creating new color squares to change the background.

When you learn it's a pinboard feature for Rox, that's an advance, but it's also part of ostensible/up-front configuration utilities.

When you look at other areas, say, the navigation icons in Pale Moon or this Rox background project, you realize those customizations are more hidden.

It's not terribly important, but if it's just a doubled hex code in a config file I'll do it.

To have an idea of what you did, I am going to have to try making another JWM Theme (I've done this before), and look for a surprise GTK button. Otherwise it's something else to materialize.

If you want to experiment with making your png theme elements, you can simply find where the files are stored in your already installed theme. Mine are in usr/share/themes/cayan-glass/gtk-2.0 and each element has it's own directory, scrollbars, backgrounds, buttons. You could find one of the obvious elements, by viewing the png's in a ROX icon view, and then duplicate it with something like -ORIG appended to the end of the name, like button-default-ORIG.png. Then edit the properly named copy in an image editor, and overwrite it. Restart the window manager and fire up applications or utilities that would have that element, and take a look at it. I basically make everything black, and buttons that are prelighted, I give a rectangle outline, as picture on the backup in the screenshot of pupsave backup above.

It's time consuming, but I did the whole cayan glass them in a short couple of hours. I've gotten pretty fast with GIMP over the years, used it A LOT.

If you don't have GTK-3.0 or GTK+ or whatever the extra GTK scheme is, then you could probably just try the matching theme option in JWM Theme Maker. It works for GTK-2. Otherwise it's necessary to go into the gtkrc and enter the color values.

BTW: I added that line that you posted originally into the first section of my GTK-2 gtkrc (with my colors), and it worked. I still had to change a lot more entries down through the file though.

[JASpup]

If you want to experiment with making your png theme elements, you can simply find where the files are stored in your already installed theme.

These days it's mostly the little things. Another example: in X-Tahr most of the window title bars are blue.

Maybe changing that is as simple as downloading new themes, but I tend to like to work with what is builtin unless I see an outstanding feature in another pup and want to implement it.

I have this JWM rule of three launchers in Tray 1. I wanted to add Find-n-Run, so I removed the menu graphic taking up about the same amount of space.

I'm also having this weird moment: I started using Xenial for newer browsers, but with the dependencies that make Chromium 65 work in Tahr, I can run Vivaldi 3.3 (Chromium 85) and Iron about the same. Firefox 88 is here too. In a new Pale Moon, it's as if the work you put into an old distro makes it more usable than it was when you left it.

Alas 100-odd MB aren't such a big deal with 2gb and a slow CPU, and I could up that anti with a new +D pup and still not suffer much. Yet, +D distro glitches won't be worked out with more user involvement, and X-Tahr is sort of becoming an old shoe.

Jackal seems like a useful puplet.

More customization is bound to happen.

[JASpup]

Another irony: I stopped booting peebea's LxPups mostly due to eye strain from LXDE's fuzzy resolution (it's a little better in Lubuntu), relative size, and X-Tahr.

Alas, JWM works in LxPup, and a lot of customization options are available that do not exist in Mainline JWM, including multiple dark themes.

Here are a JWM menu, Roxfiler window, and the version of Leafpad I wrote this in:

lxpup-xenial-dark.png (95.9 KiB) Viewed 747 times

Murrina-Black Gtk 2.0 * Dark Grey JWM * Neon Icon Theme * Flat-remix Roxfiler Icon Theme

This was easy and took little time, but the resolution here in Lx's JWM is still a lttle fuzzy. I would make them look as crisp as Mainline Xenial if I knew how (unfortunately Lx blur is the same fate as Bionic).

@geo_c

[geo_c]

Another irony: I stopped booting peebea's LxPups mostly due to eye strain from LXDE's fuzzy resolution (it's a little better in Lubuntu), relative size, and X-Tahr.

Alas, JWM works in LxPup, and a lot of customization options are available that do not exist in Mainline JWM, including multiple dark themes.

Here are a JWM menu, Roxfiler window, and the version of Leafpad I wrote this in:
lxpup-xenial-dark.png
Murrina-Black Gtk 2.0 * Dark Grey JWM * Neon Icon Theme * Flat-remix Roxfiler Icon Theme

This was easy and took little time, but the resolution here in Lx's JWM is still a lttle fuzzy. I would make them look as crisp as Mainline Xenial if I knew how (unfortunately Lx blur is the same fate as Bionic).

@geo_c

Yes, that has a nice look. My main source of frustration at the moment is secondary HDMI monitors. I have two laptops both running Jackalpup and Fossapup, and two secondary HDMI monitors, and one of them is a Samsung, which looks better than the crappy Acer monitor. But both of them change the colors considerably from the laptop monitors, or perhaps it's the other way around. So with audio I'm used to dealing with the way different systems and speakers color the sound, I can get a handle on the reference, but with graphics that's whole other story.

I'm editing the final elements of the theme. The last thing to tackle is tabs, and couple other minor elements. I might try to do some gifs when I'm all done to demonstrate how the window manager interacts. I spent a great deal of time editing my custom launcher icons so that they look green on the HDMI monitors rather than yellowish, and that had mostly to with the chroma brightness.

I still haven't tackled the GTK-3 script. It's not that big a deal to edit the GTK scripts, as long as they are backed up sufficiently to revert, and caution is used in which lines are edited. It's fairly harmless unless the script somehow writes other files that break things. But I'm not seeing anything like that so far.

[JASpup]

Hmm, once these 32-bangers bite the dust or become unbearably slow, HDMI is one of my fears. My external monitor is VGA and one of the other formats, and all new laptops seem to have HDMI ports.

I notice slight color variation on my oldest Dell, but it's not too bad.

I still need to catch up -- when I look at an element, I am not sure its graphic domain, GTK 2.0, 3.0 etc. E.g., I recently created a LIVE Lx Xenial boot with demonic red Roxfiler folders, chosen as a customization in LXDE but used in JWM. PcManFM & Thunar show different folders. There are also the Rox Options folder choices which as mentioned didn't create the red. So where did it come from? I know some elements from rote but the experience evolves.

The bear now really is still figuring out how I want to run browsers. I feel like I understand what I'm doing but haven't reached the stage where we tend to feel proud of a setup.

[geo_c]

Hmm, once these 32-bangers bite the dust or become unbearably slow, HDMI is one of my fears. My external monitor is VGA and one of the other formats, and all new laptops seem to have HDMI ports.

I notice slight color variation on my oldest Dell, but it's not too bad.

I still need to catch up -- when I look at an element, I am not sure its graphic domain, GTK 2.0, 3.0 etc. E.g., I recently created a LIVE Lx Xenial boot with demonic red Roxfiler folders, chosen as a customization in LXDE but used in JWM. PcManFM & Thunar show different folders. There are also the Rox Options folder choices which as mentioned didn't create the red. So where did it come from? I know some elements from rote but the experience evolves.

The bear now really is still figuring out how I want to run browsers. I feel like I understand what I'm doing but haven't reached the stage where we tend to feel proud of a setup.

I created my ROX icon theme by hand, which is in this post: viewtopic.php?t=4429

It was a pain, but it looks great, I just used the MIME types from the Fancy-Dark collection. XFE and other file managers have their own sets and formats and names, so a universal icon change seems to be impossible.

My thought is the HDMI monitors might be more accurate than the laptops, but my DELL Precision laptop monitor looks stunningly fantastic. So I noticed it right away on first boot. It's high definition. But perhaps the nvidia drivers also have something to do with it. VGA seems to have limitations in graphics capability.

[JASpup]

I created my ROX icon theme by hand, which is in this post: viewtopic.php?t=4429

It was a pain, but it looks great, I just used the MIME types from the Fancy-Dark collection. XFE and other file managers have their own sets and formats and names, so a universal icon change seems to be impossible.

My thought is the HDMI monitors might be more accurate than the laptops, but my DELL Precision laptop monitor looks stunningly fantastic. So I noticed it right away on first boot. It's high definition. But perhaps the nvidia drivers also have something to do with it. VGA seems to have limitations in graphics capability.

Looks like the contents of a website folder and nicely conceived.

I imagine if all icon themes were derived from the same set, we'd have a common theme throughout a pup, but clearly we have multiple settings and disparate sources in contention.

This is my LxPup JWM Roxfiler mentioned last post:

lx-rox.png (32.75 KiB) Viewed 813 times

PCManFM same desktop:

lx-pcmanfm.png (54.59 KiB) Viewed 813 times

PCMan looks like the Standard set, but selected where again? The Roxfiler red/green were two different settings, red as mentioned again in LXDE. So I could fumble through it, but what I did is not rote. Even when adjusting graphical elements, there are a lot of variables to consider.

My monitor take is more like unplanned obsolescence. A mix of better/cheaper/more efficient standard comes into being at the expense of making useful older technology incompatible.

When XFCE is more vivid and crisper than LXDE I have no regrets about VGA.

[geo_c]

Puppy is a mixture of desktop elements in perhaps a way that other linux distro's are not. So there is always going to be some playing around. I have the feeling, but don't know, that if you were working with a proper XFCE desktop, then loading a standard XFCE theme would make those icons available in XFE. But like I say, I don't know. It's just my impression.

Here's a portion of my desktop with two ROX windows. As you can see, there are no borders except for the title bar and scroll bars, which are completely redone to have a black trough.

So tell me, is this green really yellowish? Because on my HDMI monitors it is, but not on my laptop displays.

[JASpup]

I have the feeling, but don't know, that if you were working with a proper XFCE desktop, then loading a standard XFCE theme would make those icons available in XFE. But like I say, I don't know. It's just my impression.

I think you're right. For mostly better and sometimes worse, there is a lot less mucking around in XFCE.

Here's the curse @geo_c , in XFCE you don't need XFE for standard use. There's the unique function of its excellent search, but for normal file management Thunar suffices as a refined tree/pane/tab file manager.

It's the same -- if you're on 3GHz quad core with 16Gb ram and didn't know the difference, if someone sat you at a standard top distro XFCE desktop one minute and Puppy JWM the next, the vast majority of average users would choose the XFCE.

XFE:PCManFM analogy is similar to JWM:XFCE

To opt standard Puppy you have to know what you're experiencing.

I have been leaning on PCManFM lately because it offers bookmarks like Roxfiler. It also offers a search function which I could not get to work properly in limited testing, but it might work.

So the only normal concern in alt-DE file managers is control of graphic elements like color theme and icons. Abnormally it's a minor fight to get them working properly in JWM.

When I started using them in JWM, Thunar seemed a little better (they look alike), but because of bookmarks and search it might be PCManFM overall.

This irony is that there is good and use in all four file managers, all essentially the same utility.

Here's a portion of my desktop with two ROX windows. As you can see, there are no borders except for the title bar and scroll bars, which are completely redone to have a black trough.

So tell me, is this green really yellowish? Because on my HDMI monitors it is, but not on my laptop displays.

To me it looks more glow-in-the-dark than neon, the more cyan appearance visible in your Geany menus. The level of brightness/intensity seems to vary also between your images and possibly between my monitors as well. I don't really think about yellow but grass which may be that yellowish tint.

[wiak]

When I started using them in JWM, Thunar seemed a little better (they look alike), but because of bookmarks and search it might be PCManFM overall.

This irony is that there is good and use in all four file managers, all essentially the same utility.

That's very true. But since different people prefer different ones of these (and others) a feasible approach is to use your experience with one to prepare an equally rewarding optional installation implementation of each of them. You don't need to do such development work straight on Puppy; sometimes it is easier to take a larger distro that has very full-featured package management and, install the alternative filemanagers in that. Part of the job becomes studying the wiki usually provided by the distro makers and/or the wiki dedicated to the filemanager, because there are often various ways to configure them. You don't need to be an 'established' developer to do this at all; the approach is one method a person becomes 'a developer', which just really means that you become expert at installation and configuration of something (or many things if building a whole distro from scratch).

So really useful to start with configuring one filemanager and learning most all the 'tricks' for that filemanager; then you can store your config recipe in various ways - even a tar.gz that most any distro developer could tear apart, integrate and use. With that one filemanager expertise under your belt, configuring a different one is very similar, but alternative config files and 'tricks', but again these can be packaged up in some shape and form (doesn't need to be as dotpet or whatever for immediate use - its the overall steps that are important - working config files that can be read, understood, and used. I think that's the kind of thing that is really required for the other thread on this forum about developing community distro (whatever shape and form that distro takes in the end); different filemanagers should be able to be integrated as alternatives, and you don't need to worry about the integration process - the lead developer of any distro can usefully use such work, and saves them a lot of effort in the process. No need to worry about git push and pull type mechanisms - again that can come later or be done by someone else.

[JASpup]

Puppy is a mixture of desktop elements in perhaps a way that other linux distro's are not. So there is always going to be some playing around.

PCMan icons and the Roxfiler control row are GTK 2 edited in the .mine file and reflecting sets in /usr/share/icons. I switched here to papirus conveniently in LxXenial.

If I choose a Roxfiler Options set the red folders set in LXDE all change to the green, so this is three icon settings.

Papirus has different colored folders in it, but I can't see how they would be chosen in JWM.

[JASpup]

That's very true. But since different people prefer different ones of these (and others) a feasible approach is to use your experience with one to prepare an equally rewarding optional installation implementation of each of them.

Peebea has the two alt-DE managers in +D ydrv, so we can see them there, yet partitions require dependencies hence all this excitement.

Really as just written in REQUESTS, if mounting works in one, it will work in the others.

Then the issue is resource consumption which other distros have made laughable compared to Puppy. I spent a little bit trying to understand the bloat. Lotsa apps alone still doesn't make sense.

I resolved to just Roxfiler & XFE in JWM, but when others mount partitions, there's rare need for either Pmount or desktop partitions.

That's why I am looking at at least three in LxPup. I got Thunar to work in Mainline Tahr but nothing later.

In use I just think about what they do, then goto that one like a untensil, with some bias caveats (e.g., I am not going to install PCManFM in XFCE when Thunar is builtin).

I am not sure how expert any user has to become at file managers specifically, but knowing how to make them mount should be a given/automatic.

I know much of what I've learned from booting different distros, and booting LxPup to mount partitions and manage icons and colors in JWM is a case in point.

[rockedge]

I for one really need some more insight into getting the Network Browsing features in Thunar going. I have not been able too in different Puppy's or currently also in the different WDL systems.

[wiak]

I for one really need some more insight into getting the Network Browsing features in Thunar going. I have not been able too in different Puppy's or currently also in the different WDL systems.

Yes, I don't know about that either. Also, I've never had time to look into it.

[geo_c]

@JASpup @rockedge @wiak

So I've played around with GTK-3.0 and GTK-3.2 .css files, which to me appear to be the equivalent settings to GTK-2.0's gtkrc file. And the bottom line is I can't get anything to change in the GTK-3.0 windows. A GTK-2.0 gtkrc file is about 2000 lines of script, whereas the GTK-3.0 .css file (in my case gtk-dark.css) is about 7000 lines of script.

Needless to say, I don't have any real handle on the syntax or structure of the .css file. The gtkrc in GTK-2.0 is actually quite easy to interpret.

I also tried using GTK Theme Builder 1.4 from the PPM to build a new GTK theme, but it only builds GTK-2 from what I can tell.

So my question is:
What's the best way to customize GTK-3 windows in Fossapup64?

It's not a matter of extreme urgency, as it's just colors and fonts, windows and buttons. However I'm really enjoying my GTK-2 high contrast theme at the moment, and if I could make the GTK-3 applications look the same, I'd be jazzed.

I can foresee developing a quick theme switch script at some point. I have three complete sets of desktop icons and drive icons developed, one in 'console green' and the other in 'cayan-dark,' and 'cayan-light.' It's relatively easy for me to switch colors. I have a directory in usr/local/lib/X11/themes for my personalized icon theme, and within that directory is an 'active icon directory' that can be loaded from the three storage directories. It's simply a copy and overwrite command, as all the png names are the same and my desktop icons link to the 'active directory.' The only extra step is copying png's to /usr/share/midi-icons to get the drive icons switched. I'm starting to realize that I can probably do the same thing in a single GTK-2.0 theme by taking the same approach with the gtkrc file, that is have one rc file for each theme, and the active one, switching by copying and overwriting the active rc file. I would also have to have different sets of theme graphic elements created and take the same approach to them to make that switching approach really work. A script to switch themes like that wouldn't be beyond me, as it really only would consist of copy commands and such.

So if it is possible to edit or create a new GTK-3 file, I don't see any reason I couldn't take the same approach. Unless there are other files scattered throughout the system that make the theme function, that have to be addressed.

[JASpup]

@geo_c you are beyond my experience but I appreciate being included. I would be interested in the GTK editor at some point. Still trying to figure out little things, like why builtin JWM themes have different fonts than we can choose in JWM Theme Maker. I.e., how could a theme use a font that is not installed?

At the moment I would change just one thing -- solid color title bars instead of a gradient.

I'm taking the active title bar and making the desktop its complement, maybe with slight adjustments (darker/greyer, etc).

So desktop colors look like this:

modcopper-desktop.png (19.24 KiB) Viewed 706 times

JWM tray is a builtin theme
Urxvt is a darkened version of active window title bar/highlight
Background is complementary color to active window title bar/highlight

I do black themes but will also use rich/vivid colors or pastels. As I haven't settled a workstation I screw around customizing the desktop each boot.

I just copied the PMaterial icon folder to use in Tahr JWM. These are the reported Properties sizes of the directory:

Roxfiler: 9682K
XFE: 3.7M (6679 files, 70 subfolders)
Thunar: 2.2 MB (6750 items)
Urxvt: 9.5M

Apparently there's some accuracy contention in alt-file managers.

The space coup is getting rid of any used size, each coming in at about 1.4M each.

Remaining is the question of where sets are used, my Tahr remaster being a JQ8raised boot.

PMaterial is in the file managers and JQ8raised desktop/menus, but apparently at about 10 MB PMaterial still does not include the icons that change the Roxfiler row as Papirus did... or I missed something:

rox-tahr-pmaterial.png (39.61 KiB) Viewed 706 times