How to customize window borders and controls?

Question

I want to use themes from Gnome Art, but I can't find where to configure Control/Window Border/Icons in Ubuntu 12.04.

I'm not clear with your question. Do you want to customize a metacity Theme then use it or are you simply asking where to configure for use in Ubuntu 12.04? The answers are quite different and maybe you should edit your question to reflect this. If its the latter (which I suspect it is) the Gnome tweak Tool (known as Advanced Settings) is a good place to start. Type ADV in Dash for Advanced Settings — stephenmyall, Apr 23 '12 at 12:19

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 01 '15 at 18:25

4

Install gnome-tweak-tool

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
1. Download the theme from Gnome-art(make sure that it is gtk3 theme)
2. Extract the theme and copy it to the .themes(.icons for icon themes) folder in your home folder (It is hidden by default press ctrl+h to see it
3. open advanced settings from unity dash
4. Move to 'Theme' option on the left sidebar. You can now change the Window theme,icon theme and gtk theme from there by changing the options in the dropdown list

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edited Apr 01 '15 at 18:25

lindhe

682

answered Apr 23 '12 at 14:46

Tachyons

17,281

To change the shell theme you will likely need this extension. – Wilf May 21 '14 at 12:10
So how to use this to customize window borders? – Reinier Post Feb 04 '16 at 17:57
Note this answer is about Unity, not GNOME 3, which newer versions of Ubuntu use. – Flimm Nov 16 '20 at 08:02

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 23 '12 at 13:37

2

You can use tools such as:

Ubuntu tweak
MyUnity

answered Apr 23 '12 at 13:37

Sid Payton

31
1

Note that Ubuntu does not use Unity any more. Newer versions of Ubuntu use GNOME 3. – Flimm Nov 16 '20 at 08:02

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

In Gnome2 you could further customise a theme by selecting either Controls, Colors, Window Border, Icons. Under Colors-> "Selected Items", you could change the color for "selected items". This changed the Window's border color (of the active theme).

There didn't seem to be a way to do this using gnome-tweak-tool...

UPDATE: But now there does! The response to How do I change the colors of the Ambiance & Radiance themes? explains how to use gsettings to override a theme's color setting(s).

This is what I did to change the Window border color and the Window background color:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-color-scheme selected_bg_color:#5598D7;selected_fg_color:#EDE9E3"

You can find the default settings for a theme in /gtk-3.0/gtk.css amd /gtk-3.0/settings.ini. Just look for the line that starts with gtk-color-scheme =.

Note this answer is about GNOME 2. Newer versions of Ubuntu use GNOME 3. — Flimm, Nov 16 '20 at 08:02

How to customize window borders and controls?

3 Answers3

Linked