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Hi, Everyone, |
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As I have gotten older, reading what’s on my computer screen has become |
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more challenging. I’ve adjusted with a big, high resolution monitor, |
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bigger fonts, better fonts, and ophthalmologists. All helpful steps. |
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Recently, I’ve been playing with different desktop appearance options. I |
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run xfce, and choose these appearance options in Settings->Appearance. I |
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think I’ve explored everything relevant in /usr/portage/x11-themes but not |
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sure because it’s not clear to me what the various packages do. |
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|
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I’ve tried a number of themes and icon packages. All of them have |
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significant problems. In some combos, I lose functionality. (E.g., the |
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little up-down arrows at the top and bottom of scrollbars that allow you to |
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step up and down disappear on many combinations.) |
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The BlackMATE theme and Adwaita icon set are the most useful I’ve found. |
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But not without problems. |
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Today I was using Gnucash, and the BlackMATE/Adwaita combination presented |
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me with dark gray backgrounds on which to type black numbers. Not the |
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clearest color combination. |
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Another example: black window scroll bars on dark gray backgrounds. |
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Challenging to see. |
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There are other issues, such as websites that like to present medium gray |
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text on light gray backgrounds (sorry, can’t provide a specific example |
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right now). Firefox, in Preferences->Fonts and Colors->Colors, has some |
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limited ability to override website color schemes with other colors, but |
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that hasn’t worked well for me in general, because it often gives many |
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websites a bizarre appearance. |
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I’m guessing this group has a number of folks who’ve encountered similar |
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problems. I have several questions for you. |
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1) How do you cope with this problem? |
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2) Is there an xfce theme and icon package you recommend? Or maybe |
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something other than xfce? I like xfce, and have never been attracted to |
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integrated desktops like kde and gnome, but if they’ve got a credible |
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solution, I’m willing to try. |
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3) Are there lower level ways of tweaking my current desktop? For example, |
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changing colors in the 2 examples I gave above from black on dark gray to |
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black on white? Could that be done with a little judicious editing of |
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color settings somewhere, or adjusting colors on an icon? I don’t know how |
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desktop appearances are programmed, so I don’t know where on the spectrum |
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of trivial->apocalyptic this lies. |
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Thanks for your suggestions! |
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|
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John Blinka |