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I run sudo gedit but it looks exactly like another gedit I have open with normal user...

Any way to make it look diferent? but I dont mean tweaking each application preferences like background color of text; I mean the window decorations; I am unable to find a good way to work around that.

I dont want just the background because I like it dark, and at least on gedit there is not much options; anyway other applications may not have such option.

PS.: I actually run sudo -i gedit because without -i it overwrites and messes my normal user recent files history...

Folowing @Jobin gksudo tip, I got this result with kate:
enter image description here The image below the other is from gksudo kate, the above one is normal user; so basically, the window decoration of title bar did not change, both remained "radiance", but the buttons and the background are completely different themes! Unfortunately it seems kate has specific settings for at least the background color :(, I am looking for a generic solution.

Aquarius Power
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    You should actually be using gksudo gedit instead of sudo gedit. – jobin Jun 22 '14 at 08:43
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    @Jobin, I find that gksudo is not installed by default in Ubuntu 14.04. According to http://askubuntu.com/questions/313828/why-is-pkexec-preferred-over-gksudo-for-graphical-applications, we have to make pkexec work for GUI applications, individually. So perhaps the user should install gksu (which provides gksudo). – muru Jun 22 '14 at 08:52
  • @muru gksudo seems better than pkexec because it prevents loosing password prompt focus! – Aquarius Power Jun 22 '14 at 19:50
  • @Jobin kate looks a huge lot different when using gksudo! but gedit did not look too much different, but I think that may lead to something! :) – Aquarius Power Jun 22 '14 at 19:57
  • @muru just found pkexec seems safer at here, but pkexec kate cant connect to X :/ – Aquarius Power Jun 22 '14 at 20:39
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    to make pkexec run properly look at http://askubuntu.com/a/332847/46437 – Aquarius Power Jun 22 '14 at 20:49
  • @AquariusPower so have you used pkexec or gksudo finally? Did theming work? Usually, my own GTK is themed, so distinguishing apps running as root is easy for me. – muru Jun 23 '14 at 23:26
  • @muru I use unity, so compiz decorates the windows, I am getting used to the unity Hud and would prefer to not disable it, also ccsm has many cool things like woobly :); so basically, unity decorations are overriding any user preferences, so the current logged in user is the opted decorations for all windows :( – Aquarius Power Jun 23 '14 at 23:34
  • I think it's possible to turn off window decorations to specific windows in compiz according to http://superuser.com/a/195481 – muru Jun 24 '14 at 06:19
  • @muru I checked at "ubuntu unity plugin" at ccsm on the tab "decorations", unfortunately there was no filter to act over specific windows :( – Aquarius Power Jun 24 '14 at 20:09

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You could open the Settings for root:

sudo -i unity-control-center

And then change the appearance settings. gnome-tweak-tool should work too - and give slightly more control. I haven't used unity-tweak-tool, but from its description, it seems to offer the most options.

muru
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  • I am trying to put root theme as "ambiance" and normal user as "radiance", with all these tweakers, such settings are saved on root but when actually opening any app (gedit, kate) with sudo/gksudo the theme is still "radiance" :/ – Aquarius Power Jun 22 '14 at 20:08
  • at my op I found that the buttons and background could be completely different, I am still trying all these tweaks to find where it is configured, unfortunately I see no much options there.. still looking! – Aquarius Power Jun 22 '14 at 20:24