Tbox -- A Portable Theme Collection

[geo_c]

Tbox is ready as a release candidate. It only gets better from here, and right now it's looking pretty good.
(link updated 2023-01-22_7:00PM US-Eastern Time)
https://mega.nz/file/CeAxxATQ#XYqZmwOn_ ... xNaDkuPgjI


The compressed archive is 362M, pretty good for the enormous volume of bling involved. Uncompressed it occupies 878M of disk space.

It contains:
57 gtk2 themes
148 gtk2/3 themes
91 gtk3/4 themes
68 sets of pup standard icons
78 jwm themes
21 jwm button themes
301 desktop backgrounds
337 Xfce xfwm4 themes

With builtin Links to:
225 gtk themes tested in KLV-airedale
213 gtk themes tested in Fossapup64_9.5
185 gtk themes with Xfce desktop window manager integration.
337 Xfce xfwm4 themes

This theme collection is portable

To use this vast collection of themes, simply uncompress the directory to /mnt/home. It can be located anywhere, but it makes sense to locate it where your system resides. Much like a @mikewalsh portable, the themes will be linked to their respective directories by running one of the gxmessage scripts named FOSSA-CONTROL-PANEL or KLV-CONTROL-PANEL. (recently tested for vanilladpup and works flawlessly. A VANILLA-CONTROL-PANEL script has been added to this post until the next tbox update)

Untar the file in /mnt/home and navigate to the /mnt/home/tbox directory which will look like this:

/mnt
. . |__ home
. . . . . . . |__ tbox
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ backgrounds
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ gtk2
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ gtk3
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ gtk4
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ gtkFOSSA
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ gtkKLV
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ gtkXFCE
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ icons
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ jwm
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ xfwm4
. . . . . . . . . . . |__ xfwm4KLV
. . . . . . . . . . . FOSSA-CONTROL-PANEL (gxmessage gui script)
. . . . . . . . . . . KLV-CONTROL-PANEL (gxmessage gui script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . link-Airedale-GTK (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . link-Airedale-ICONS (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . link-Airedale-XFWM4 (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . link-Fossa-GTK (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . link-Fossa-JWM-sans11 (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . link-Fossa-JWM-sans13 (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . load-Fossa-ICONS (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . unlink-Airedale-GTK (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . unlink-Airedale-ICONS (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . unlink-Airedale-XFWM4 (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . unlink-Fossa-GTK (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . unlink-Fossa-JWM (shell script)
. . . . . . . . . . . . unload-Fossa-ICONS (shell script)

If you are using Fossapup or KLV-airedale, click on and run the appropriate CONTROL-PANEL. They look like this:



Edit: added a gxmessage VANILLA-CONTROL-PANEL for vanilladpup with a fake .gz extension attached to this post until the next update.

VANILLA-CONTROL-PANEL.gz

(575 Bytes) Downloaded 69 times

The gui buttons will do what they say. They will link the themes located in /mnt/home/tbox to your system's /themes directory. Choosing the 'Unlink" option will remove the links. Your original files will remain intact. The tbox can be deleted at any time, but it's advisable to use the unlink scripts before deleting it, so you won't have dead links cluttering up your system directories.

If you're not running Fossapup, Vanillapup, or KLV-airedale, the theme collection can always serve as a library archive, and themes can be copied to your system the usual way of course. The FOSSA-CONTROL-PANEL and VANILLA-CONTROL-PANEL will most likely work for most pups, but until I test them, that would be try at your own risk, though using the unlink button will undo any changes and shouldn't pose a real credible risk.

Also once the links are created, if you'd like to access only your favorite themes and get rid of others, the unwanted theme symlinks can be deleted manually from your /usr/share/themes or /root./themes directory.

The beauty here is that it's an open ended system, easy to update. Which I will definitely be doing as time goes by, and adapting the install gui to other Pup Distros.

Note:
KLV's icons will be symlinked very smoothly, but they aren't included in tbox. For those you will have to download tbox's cousin: TCONS, which a can be found here:
https://mega.nz/file/La40XJJL#fHOFxmF1H ... u_-ADJzjxY

It occupies a whopping 4.7GB of disk space, which is why it's in it's own folder. I've done the heavy lifting of downloading and organizing both the themes and icons. These icon sets are complete desktop sets. There are 148 sets. The beauty here though is once the folder is unzipped along side tbox, the KLV-CONTROL-PANEL gui will link all of those icons to KLV without growing the system directory. The links are created instantly and can be removed instantly.

If you choose the "Link-Icons" button in the KLV-CONTROL-PANEL without downloading tcons and placing it at the same directory level as tbox, it won't do anything. No harm.

For KLV icons to be linked from the /tcons directory using the KLV-CONTROL-PANEL the /tbox and /tcons folders should be located like this:

/mnt
. . |__ home
. . . . . . . |__ tbox
. . . . . . . |__ tcons

NOTE: The CONTROL-PANEL gui will re-launch after choosing an option until you choose "cancel". This is so you can do more than one operation without having to launch the script several times.

You can have fun with this. Link the gtk themes, choose one of the tbox themes with your usual theme chooser, then unlink the themes, and your gtk will instantly reset to fall-back. Choose the Link-gtk option again, and the previously chosen theme will re-appear.

[geo_c]

Compatibility log:

updated 2023-03-10

F-96_CE-2
fossapup64_9.5
vanilladpup_9.2.34
S15Pup64-22.11-RC:

• symlinking gtk theme folders individually to /usr/share/themes works flawlessly. Pup-standard-icons are linked by Tbox scripts as the entire /usr/local/lib/X11 themes folder. /usr/local/lib/X11/themes is created as a link and the system's original icons stored in a folder called /usr/local/lib/X11/themes-USER to be restored when tbox is unlinked. The same technique is used for /root/.jwm/themes. Works smoothly to link the portable tbox themes and also to unlink themes and restore original settings.

KLV-airedale:

• symlinking gtk theme folders to /root/.themes works flawlessly, and because KLV doesn't use pup-icons all Xfce icons sets can be symlinked to /root/.icons and works seamlessly as well as xfwm4 window manager themes linked to /usr/share/themes.

KLA-xfce-1.1:

• The KLV-CONTROL-PANEL scripts work in KLA-XFCE, but first they need the directories /root/.themes and /root/.icons created. I will add these lines to the scripts along with a separate KLA-CONTROL-PANEL. Besides that small addition the tbox works equally well in KLA-xfce as it does in KLV-airedale.

SYNOPSIS:

• Tbox is working smoothly and completely as expected. The only thing noticed is a 5 second delay in loading gtk theme choices in the Xfce Appearance GTKtheme chooser using KLV-airedale. The Vanilladpup, F96-CE, fossapup64_9.5, and S15-pup choosers (ptheme and JWMdesk) all display theme choices more less instantaneously.

• Tbox so far as tested in the above mentioned distros, seems thoroughly compatible with P-Theme, JWMdesk, and Xfce.

[geo_c]

Tbox Themes included (2022-01-22)

GTK2

GTK2/3

GTK3/4

Pup Standard Icon Sets

JWM themes included

Xfce window manager themes (xfwm4) included (which don't fit on my screen)

Please feel free to make suggestions and offer links to more themes. These particular themes I have chosen because they work for 98% of the desktop elements and buttons, and there is variety, a good amount of light and dark, classic-skeumorphic, and modern-flat, while trying not to be too redundant.

Classic Looks is a good collection of traditional light themes that look nice. ChromeOS themes are colorful. Midnight Themes are dependable dark themes, Windows and Mac knock-offs for variety, etc. The JWM themes are a few included built-in Fossapup, and the rest I have made to match the kinds of looks found in the GTK collection. I could always use more of these along with pup-icons if you know where to find them.

I envision this being a repository of eye-candy to be used when developing new pups and OS's to give them a more polished look OOTB.

[geo_c]

*reserved

[geo_c]

I've been upgrading my themes tbox, and I'm ready to make a decision on how to construct scripts so that the box can be downloaded and linked to the themes directories in distros. Right now I'm concentrating on KLV and fossapup.

Below is a screenshot giving an idea of the directory structure. Ideally, the tbox can be downloaded pretty much anywhere and linked, but it's adviseable to do so on the /mnt/home drive for obvious reasons. The themes are stored in the gtk3, gtk4 directories and relative symlinked to the gtkFOSSA, gtkKLV, and gtkXFCE directories. All the script has to do to install the themes is create absolute or relative symlinks to /usr/share/themes or /root/.themes from one of those 3 direcories.. My one concern is the install and uninstall script. I'm thinking since most people won't have their other themes linked, uninstalling could be a command that looks for symlinks in the /usr/share/themes directory and removes them. Another thought I had is to prepend or append the links with the characters "tbx" so that the uninstall script could simply find those.

Any thoughts are appreciated:

[Burunduk]

uninstalling could be a command that looks for symlinks in the /usr/share/themes directory and removes them. Another thought I had is to prepend or append the links with the characters "tbx" so that the uninstall script could simply find those.

The GNU find can read links. This command will delete symlinks in the directory /usr/share/themes if they point to files or directories that have "tbox" in the path: find /usr/share/themes -lname "*tbox*" -delete

[geo_c]

The GNU find can read links. This command will delete symlinks in the directory /usr/share/themes if they point to files or directories that have "tbox" in the path: find /usr/share/themes -lname "*tbox*" -delete

Awesome, that's exactly what I need. Thanks!

[geo_c]

This command will delete symlinks in the directory /usr/share/themes if they point to files or directories that have "tbox" in the path: find /usr/share/themes -lname "*tbox*" -delete

This command works perfectly and deletes the links in /root/.themes in KLV.

I combined the find --delete with a command to create links from where this /tbox directory is located, And it works well.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

HERE="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")"
filename=$HERE

find /root/.themes -lname "*tbox*" -delete

ln -s $HERE/gtkKLV/* /root/.themes

This allows the tbox to be added to and changed, and then update the distro themes directory links with a quick click.

tbox will be ready for a re-packaging and upload soon, and the first post has been updated to reflect the numbers of theme elements contained. A link to the download will be incluced shortly.

[geo_c]

@Sofiya @rockedge @mikewalsh @Clarity @dancytron @bigpup @Burunduk @fredx181 see post one and maybe give this a test spin if you have the time; https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=7229

[rockedge]

@geo_c Great timing! I have downloaded and will begin to play with Tbox on KLV later on. I am also experimenting with /root/Templates files so the themes are the next step. Add this to a KLV repo is my plan.

[geo_c]

@geo_c Great timing! I have downloaded and will begin to play with Tbox on KLV later on. I am also experimenting with /root/Templates files so the themes are the next step. Add this to a KLV repo is my plan.

None of my images from postimg.cc are displaying on the forum at all. Did they delete my uploads or something?

edit: actually I can't upload anymore images, so I don't know if they blacklisted my browser or ip address, perhaps I overstayed my welcome there.

[rockedge]

@geo_c I tested a url for an image because the page wouldn't parse and resolve completely so it kept spinning, and it was the image URL wasn't loading or doing anything.

There was an image from @mikewalsh on another recent post that also wasn't loading at all and kept the page spinning.

Something going on with postimg.cc??

[mikewalsh]

@rockedge / @geo_c :-

Mm. I think there may have been a brief glitch on their servers earlier on, Erik. When I was posting my last reply to @Jadm , I'd had to click the 'Copy' button for the live GIF link several times before I got a 'Copied' confirmation.....and that's the first time I've ever had to do that.

I've deleted & re-added the link to that post. ATM, it seems to be holding.... We'll see.

----------------------------------------------

(Try the site again, George. You might have to re-add links again, like I just did.)

Mike.

[geo_c]

The JWM themes and pup icons were a little tricky and I used the concept of backup folders to restore and combined the system directories with the tbox directories.

In fact, this unload-Fossa-ICONS script I included is problematic, and dangerous in that if it's used more than once without running the load-Fossa-ICONS script, it will in fact delete the /usr/local/lib/X11/themes directory entirely. So I need to fix ASAP.

[geo_c]

In fact, this unload-Fossa-ICONS script I included is problematic, So I need to fix ASAP.

@rockedge
Here's the fix:
These two scripts need to be replaced in the /tbox directory. Just copy them in and overwrite the old ones. It fixes the problem nicely, combines the pup icons present on the system with the tbox icons, and restores the originals when unloaded. The unload script can be run over and over and nothing will be lost. And it truly links the tbox icons rather than copy them into /X11/themes. I used the same technique for jwm, because fossa wouldn't read the files/folders as symlinks, but it would see the whole /themes directory symlinked both in /root/.jwm and /usr/local/lib/X11. At least the JWMdesk switchers would not read the theme folders and files as links, only the entire /theme directories. I'm not sure why that is.

scripts:
https://mega.nz/file/6X5miZxB#acim3kXcy ... rsCVYLEOG8
https://mega.nz/file/fe5mFTpR#V6A_az_8e ... kf9m8Ix8n8

I will re-upload the whole tbox shortly.

[geo_c]

@rockedge @fredx181 @bigpup @Clarity @mikewalsh @Burunduk @dancytron @Sofiya

bumping the post because I just updated with cleaner scripts for fossapup, and centered the titles on the gui, etc. If you just want the improved scripts, they're in the first post of the topic.

Link to entire tbox download as reflected in the top post of the topic.
https://mega.nz/file/CeAxxATQ#XYqZmwOn_ ... xNaDkuPgjI

Links to the improved scripts:
https://mega.nz/file/6X5miZxB#acim3kXcy ... rsCVYLEOG8
https://mega.nz/file/fe5mFTpR#V6A_az_8e ... kf9m8Ix8n8

[Sofiya]

Link to entire tbox download as reflected in the top post of the topic.
https://mega.nzhttps://mega.nz/file/CeA ... xNaDkuPgjI

Unable to connect to the site

[geo_c]

Unable to connect to the site

Me either, just now. I've been connected to it for the past few hours. So I guess we can wait and see?

Interesting because the postimg.cc website was acting buggy today also.

https://mega.nz/file/CeAxxATQ#XYqZmwOn_ ... xNaDkuPgjI

Try it now, I logged out and this link works.

[geo_c]

Link to entire tbox download as reflected in the top post of the topic.
https://mega.nzhttps://mega.nz/file/CeA ... xNaDkuPgjI

Unable to connect to the site

This link works, but it looks exactly the same, the other one didn't. I don't know:
https://mega.nz/file/CeAxxATQ#XYqZmwOn_ ... xNaDkuPgjI

[Sofiya]

This link works, but it looks exactly the same, the other one didn't. I don't know:
https://mega.nz/file/CeAxxATQ#XYqZmwOn_ ... xNaDkuPgjI

working https://mega.nz/file/CeAxxATQ#XYqZmwOn_ ... xNaDkuPgjI

[geo_c]

working

On closer inspection you may have added an exta //https in there before.

[mikewalsh]

@geo_c / @Sofiya :-

My MEGA a/c is up-and-running just fine. No probs here, ATM..... (*crosses fingers AND toes... *)

P'raps it depends where you're connecting FROM.....as to which section of the world-wide web you're actually employing?

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[rockedge]

F96 host system using Tbox with QEMU running KLV-Airedale-rc8:

Screenshot(10).jpg (35.6 KiB) Viewed 2637 times

[geo_c]

Visual table of contents for both tbox and tcons on the third post:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 236#p71236

[geo_c]

Tbox tested on vanillaDpup9.2.34 and the scripts work nicely.

I made a separate gui for vanilla pup which is attached with a fake .gz extension until the next update.

It goes in /mnt/home/tbox

[geo_c]

Tbox tested and running smoothly on SC-15pup, F-96_CE-stable, fossapup64_9.5, vanilladpup_9.2.34, S15Pup64-22.11-RC, and KLV-Aireldale-RC10.

Compatiblility log found here: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 237#p71237

Next I think I'll give it a whirl on fatdog-8.11 since I have it installed.

From all appearances these portable theme scripts should work well as-is on most pups that store gtk themes in /usr/share/themes, jwm themes in /root/.jwm/themes, and icons in /usr/local/lib/X11/themes.

KLV is laid out a little differently with window managers being in /usr/share/themes, gtk being in /root/.themes, and icons being in /root/.icons. I'm wondering if most Xfce desktops take that same approach, or if it's particular to Void Linux.

Because the pups all seem to be working with the same scripts as opposed to the FirstRib disto, I will be renaming the scripts and making one PUP-CONTROL-PANEL, so there will be two: PUP-CONTROL-PANEL and KLV-CONTROL-PANEL.