Re: [gentoo-user] Slightly OT: favorite window manager/desktop environ?

[Holly Bostick]

Martin S schreef:
>
> The main problem I feel is that lots of apps are written for a
> specific WM rather than a generic non-WM/DE-dependent API. Which
> makes the entire desktop look like bits and pieces the cat draged
> home (run Gimp, Kontact and Scid under KDE and you'll know what I
> mean). There was (is?) a setting in KDE to force *some* apps to bend
> to the theme of KDE, but that was buggy when I tried it last time.

Actually, I use(d) the setting (kcontrol=> Appearance and Themes=>
Color=> Apply KDE colors to non-KDE apps, which I still have set), so
colors always matched across both toolsets (except for Firefox, where
most themes don't pick up system colors), which is a big step in the
right direction.

But now I use:

x11-themes/gtk-engines-qt
     Available versions:  0.6-r1
     Installed:           0.6-r1
     Homepage:            http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/gtk-qt
     Description:         GTK+2 Qt Theme Engine

This package

1) adds a setting to Kcontrol to tell KDE to use either use the KDE
theme and fonts for GTK apps, or you can specify theme and fonts what to
use for GTK apps, the benefit being you can do this in Kcontrol, rather
than having to get a GNOME theme switch application (though I had one
anyway, and this function seems to apply only to GTK2, not GTK1, which
was a problem for me--but I solved it);

2) provides an engine for the various KDE themes that have been 'ported'
to GTK (2), such as Liquid, I think Baghira's been done, basically
search 'GTK' on KDE-Look.org, and you'll find a bunch.

But this didn't help me with GTK1 apps, of which I have several, notably
multi-gnome-terminal. But I was able to conform them as well by doing
the following:

Found a theme on KDE-Look org which was for all three toolsets: KDE,
GTK2, and GTK1 (there are not many, but there are a couple), namely QTCurve.

Set all three toolsets to use it (KDE in Kcontrol, GTK2 in either
Kcontrol, Gnome Control Center/Themes, gtk-chtheme, or gtk-theme-switch
(version 2, called with 'switch2'), and GTK1 in gtk-theme-switch
(version 1, also installed, called with 'switch').

I'm sure that many would consider this overcomplicated (and it probably
is), but the hardest part was finding a theme (that I liked) that was
designed for all three toolsets. Once I had done that, setting it up was
pretty simple, and it works well; all applications (except those which
do not use system themes, which on my system is essentially Firefox and
OO.o) use the same theme and colors, from The Gimp, to Krusader, to
gnotepad +. So my desktop looks quite consistent in that respect,
despite the fact that it is neither KDE nor GNOME.

Fonts are a bit of a problem, though-- font sizes seem to change if I
'mix' apps from KDE (specifically, I don't think this happens if I run a
QT-but-not-KDE app) on my primarily GTK-based desktop. The fonts and
sizes are set to the same in both GNOME and KDE, but if I open a KDE
app, they seem to display as smaller, and then newly-opened GTK apps seem to
display the fonts as slightly bigger. I suspect that this is a bit of
fallout from the lack of interoperability/lack of conformance to the
freedesktop.org standard, and neither DE is quite sure who's supposed to
be controlling the font size once both DEs are controlling a portion of
the open applications on the desktop, so they have a minor conflict
about it.

It's an annoyance, not really a 'problem', and overall, the system works
well.

Holly





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