This morning I read about a new theme being developed for openSUSE 11.2, called Sonar. It’s really easy to try it out in 11.1. You can download the files manually at this page– or you can add the repository to your list:
- Open ‘Software Repositories’
- Click the ‘Add’ button
- Choose the ‘HTTP’ type and click ‘Next’
- Enter a Nickname for the Repository- something bizarre like ‘Sonar’. The server name is download.opensuse.org and the directory on server is /repositories/home:/aaronbockover:/opensuse-refresh/openSUSE_11.1/ – just click ‘Next’ and finish off the wizard.
- Go into ‘Install Software’ and search for ‘sonar’ and install the packages. Make sure your Murrine gtk2 engine is up to date.
It’s just beautiful. I’m someone rarely satisfied by a theme but I have to say that I have found nothing about this one that bugs me. I love it.
Can you give a link to wallpaper, please?
Of course! I found this wallpaper at http://howdoyoulinux.com/#downloadfreebies
Enjoy!
Is is possible to override/customize the sonar scrollbar widget to use a 3D raised scrollbar element (ie: the dark portion)??
Yes you can, but not without a bit of editing. When I first saw the Sonar theme I really liked it and assumed that the fairly plain scrollbar was in-progress. Now it looks like it’s a minimalist scrollbar which is fine, but I prefer a sense of depth on widgets I drag.
The way I did it is to make a copy of the Sonar folder from either /usr/share/themes or ~/.themes depending on how you installed it. Rename this copied folder something different like ‘Ping’. Within that folder, open the index.theme file and change each reference to Sonar to Ping. Then open the gtk-2.9/gtkrc file. Find the section ‘style “sonar-scrollbar” { …’
To change the scrollbars you’ll need to change the contents of that curly brace. I just plugged in the contents of the Shiki-Brave scrollbar description:
# GtkScrollbar::trough-border = 0 # Change to a higher value for border around scrollbars.
bg[NORMAL] = shade (1.14, @bg_color) # Color for non-colored scrollbars.
bg[INSENSITIVE] = @bg_color # Color for non-colored scrollbars.
bg[PRELIGHT] = @bg_color # Color for scrollbar prelight? (probably obsolete)
bg[ACTIVE] = @bg_color # Color for scrollbar rail’s background.
bg[SELECTED] = @selected_bg_color # Color of scrollbars.
fg[PRELIGHT] = shade (0.60, @selected_bg_color) # Highlighted scrollbar button.
fg[ACTIVE] = shade (0.40, @selected_bg_color) # Pressed scrollbar button.
engine “murrine”
{
colorize_scrollbar = FALSE # Commenting this out gives you colorful scrollbars.
roundness = 0 # Scrollbar roundness.
contrast = 1.20 # Makes scrollbar’s rail borders darker.
}
As long as you copied/pasted/renamed/edited correctly, you can now select Ping in the Appearance theme chooser and have Sonar with the shiki scrollbar. Note that this probably works because they both are using the Murrine GTK engine. I don’t think it would work to get it from a different engine theme file.