Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

hhh · 2015-03-05 02:43:13

Here's a proposal for the default LightDM theme. Something dark...

fullscreen
LightDM uses GTK3 themes plus a couple of configuration files. The one where most customization happens is /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf. Here's the one I used for the screenshot above...

#
# background = Background file to use, either an image path or a color (e.g. #772953)
# theme-name = GTK+ theme to use
# icon-theme-name = Icon theme to use
# font-name = Font to use
# xft-antialias = Whether to antialias Xft fonts (true or false)
# xft-dpi = Resolution for Xft in dots per inch (e.g. 96)
# xft-hintstyle = What degree of hinting to use (none, slight, medium, or hintfull)
# xft-rgba = Type of subpixel antialiasing (none, rgb, bgr, vrgb or vbgr)
# show-indicators = semi-colon ";" separated list of allowed indicator modules. Built-in indicators include "~a11y", "~language", "~session", "~power". Unity indicators can be represented by short name (e.g. "sound", "power"), service file name, or absolute path
# show-clock (true or false)
# clock-format = strftime-format string, e.g. %H:%M
# keyboard = command to launch on-screen keyboard
# position = main window position: x y
# default-user-image = Image used as default user icon, path or #icon-name
# screensaver-timeout = Timeout (in seconds) until the screen blanks when the greeter is called as lockscreen
# 
[greeter]
background=/home/hhh/Pictures/wall.png
theme-name=Bunsen2-Blue-Dark
#icon-theme-name=AnyColorYouLike
font-name=Open Sans Semibold
xft-antialias=true
#xft-dpi=
xft-hintstyle=hintslight
xft-rgba=rgb
#show-indicators=~language;~session;~power
show-indicators=~session;~power
#show-indicators=~power
show-clock=true
clock-format=%l:%M %p          %A, %b. %d
#keyboard=
position=5% 52%
#screensaver-timeout=

The first half is descriptions of what everything does, the second is what you edit.

As you see, the background image can be located anywhere. Fonts go in /usr/share/fonts. The theme has to be (at least symlinked) in /usr/share/themes with permissions set properly. I haven't experimented with what permissions are needed, I've just set all users as being able to read and write. (644 for permissions is needed, I believe)

The indicators are in the panel. You can change those by setting the icon theme (again at least symlink from /usr/share/icons and permissions as appropriate). I tested by setting the theme to Faenza-Dark-Crunchbang and the User Face icon went all haywire since Faenza icons don't scale. The ArchWiki page on LightDM shows how you can set Face to anything you like.

I set my clock to 12 hour format as I'm an American who's not in the military, set yours as you like. You could match it to your tint2 clock, or anything here...
http://linux.die.net/man/3/strftime

Position is the window where you enter your name and password, set it in percentages or pixels. Commenting this out centers the window.

Keyboard shortcuts in LightDm include Super ot Escape to open the panel applet menus, then arrow keys to navigate (left and right to get to the next menu), and the usual Tab to select the next field/button.

Part 2 in a few minutes...

Last edited by hhh (2015-03-05 19:24:52)

hhh · 2015-03-05 02:49:05

Of course, I'm not going to just submit a LightDM theme, so here's the rest...

fullscreen

GTK2/GTK3 Openbox and Xfce4-notifyd themes, as usual.

What's that? Your a self-centered boob who just WANTS IT NOW!!!? At least read the README if you use Firefox/Iceweasel...
Bunsen2-Blue-Dark

This concludes your day of hhh theming with a side of attitude. We apologize for the delay and now return you to our regularly scheduled program in progress...

Last edited by hhh (2015-03-05 22:47:05)

spacex · 2015-03-05 02:55:37

Well, it looks like a very productive day. The above screenshot is awesome. Now I just hope that the Bunsen-team can gather around your suggestions, and make them the default in Bunsen. It doesn't get any better than the screenshot above.

johnraff · 2015-03-05 03:28:01

Well, despite what I said elsewhere about preferring all-grey, the way those bits of blue match the blue flame is very very nice. Might be changing my mind.

+1 spacex - that last screenshot is brilliant. This could be the face of BL?

@TheSage - have you seen this stuff?

tknomanzr · 2015-03-05 03:45:58

Im liking this @hhh.

hhh · 2015-03-05 03:51:28

johnraff wrote:

This could be the face of BL?

I'd advise against it as far as GTK2/GTK3 goes. Already, Iceweasel needs a hack (see the README). Programs that have hard-coded colors with no Preference option for them also are problematic. Meld, for example, uses highlight colors that assume your text-color is dark. GIMP, Inkscape, LibreofficeWriter, etc... all use ruler markings and whatnot that are dark colored, as they assume your background color is light.

I'd suggest some version of Bunsen1 (Blue, probably) for the default GTK. This theme is good for LightDM, though maybe not impressive enough for the default. I've only just started giving some attention to LightDM theming today, and it's tedious having to logout/login to see changes.

All theming is tedious when it comes to viewing the changes, actually.

hhh · 2015-03-05 03:53:33

Thank you, tkno.

tknomanzr · 2015-03-05 04:02:19

^ No kidding! Anyway, that explains alot. Same problems that Unity had with dark themes..grrr. I ended up putting a dark theme on Iceweasel as well, namely Blackfox V2-Blue. It fixed some of the issues but some still remain. At any rate, it is something I can live with, mostly, because I just happen to like dark themes. It's a mystery to me how a GTK theme element could affect an element inside of a web page unless the web developer is not defining their css correctly. Two that immediately come to mind are: 1. Debian of all places and 2. Postimg.org. I am thinking when I get the chance to tweak my theme, I will add some application specific overrides to iceweasel/firefox.

damo · 2015-03-05 09:06:40

hhh wrote:

... and it's tedious having to logout/login to see changes.
All theming is tedious when it comes to viewing the changes, actually.

No need to log out/in. There is a test-mode I use - Arch wiki

nore · 2015-03-05 17:41:52

What do you think about that bald ball headed user icon? Would it be a crime to replace it with a Bunsen flame?

(edit: The kugelkopf is known as avatar-default.png in icon sets.)

Last edited by nore (2015-03-05 17:44:35)

damo · 2015-03-05 17:56:56

nore wrote:

What do you think about that bald ball headed user icon? Would it be a crime to replace it with a Bunsen flame?
(edit: The kugelkopf is known as avatar-default.png in icon sets.)

Hardly a crime - more of an imperative

hhh · 2015-03-05 19:23:19

The OP screenshot is not showing Open Sans in the Panel, specified fonts have to be in /usr/share/fonts.

I've updated the notification themes so the 'title' uses a bold font and the progress bar (volume/brightness) looks better.

spacex · 2015-03-06 00:39:45

Hmmm, I like the Bunsen2-Blue-Dark so much that I'm probably going to adopt it, even if it causes readability issues in some apps. The same problems that I've had with previous dark themes, so it's possible to work around it one app at a time I really really like it. It's to good not to be used. So if you aren't going to use it, then I most certainly will

hhh · 2015-03-06 01:44:33

@ew, thanks. Assuming no drastic bugs get uncovered, it should be available in Hydrogen, just not set to default for the reasons I mentioned.

hhh · 2015-03-06 07:12:02

nore wrote:

What do you think about that bald ball headed user icon?

This is not set by the GTK3 theme.

nore · 2015-03-06 13:50:38

No, it is not, it must be changed inside the default icon set. I just put it on the table because it affects the appearance of login screen.

johnraff · 2015-03-07 06:43:26

Setting Icons

Just spent most of the morning struggling with this, google wasn't over-helpful but finally got there.
No theming here (that's in your capable hands) but as proof-of-concept, a substituted default avatar:

And custom user avatar:

First, there's a bug in lightdm-gtk-greeter 1.8.5 so that when 'greeter-hide-users=true' in lightdm.conf no 'default-user-image' can be set in lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf. (Of course, to see the default user image (the baldheaded guy) greeter-hide-users must be set to true!) This bug is fixed in 1.9 upstream, but I don't know if Jessie will get the fix.

Two points:

1) To get a custom default avatar anyway, atm you have to put something in /usr/share/icons. Post#2 here suggests replacing /usr/share/icons/gnome/256x256/status/avatar-default.png (and running 'gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/gnome' as root) but that didn't fix it till I set 'icon-theme-name=gnome' in lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf so the default icon theme must be elsewhere. Better, though, this post on the Arch forums has a more elegant hack. You create a new icon theme with just one icon in it, and set that theme in lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf. (It gets missing icons for the actions in the top right from its default icon theme I guess.) I kept to the 256x256/status path from the Launchpad post instead of the Arch user's 64x64/devices, but anyway, as you can see above, no more baldy.

2) According to lightdm.conf's comments, 'greeter-hide-users=false' is the default, but that is overruled by /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/01_debian.conf, so you have to explicitly set 'greeter-hide-users=false' in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to see user names. If you then want personal avatars you need to install accountsservice (it's not that big), then see the Arch Wiki.

nicholasalipaz · 2015-03-07 07:52:58

I am loving the Bunsen2-Blue-Dark theme. Got it installed on my Jessie installation right now.

nore · 2015-03-07 07:58:26

johnraff wrote:

2) According to lightdm.conf's comments, 'greeter-hide-users=false' is the default, but that is overruled by /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/01_debian.conf

Thanks a lot, I've been struggling with that.
edit: Excellent google-fu with those bugs.

Last edited by nore (2015-03-07 08:01:09)

nicholasalipaz · 2015-03-07 08:08:30

Just a thought, but I think we might need a matching extension for chrome so we can have scrollbars that match this theme at some point. We had https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta … cajgimefed in #!

hhh · 2015-03-09 20:49:46

@johnraff, something is eluding me using solution 1 but installing accountsservice --no-install-recommends , editing the /var/lib/AccountsService folder contents and setting 'greeter-hide-users=false' in /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/01_debian.conf worked for me after a reboot (I didn't edit anything extra in /etc/lightdm)...

fullsize
I created an AnyColorYouLike compatible bunsenlabs.svg file and am symlinking that image from /var/lib/AccountsService/icons/avatar-default.svg. Changing the ACYL color scheme changes the login avatar too. I can post the image and instructions if anyone's interested. Using that theme's /scalable/real_icons/apps/debian-logo.svg looks great, too. Thanks for looking further into this.

#!# · 2015-03-09 21:33:23

hhh wrote:

Fullsize

Really beautiful! 8)

damo · 2015-03-09 21:54:09

#!# wrote:

hhh wrote:
http://s10.postimg.org/5568f8gj9/Screen_Shot.jpg
Fullsize
Really beautiful! 8)

Really really beautiful

hhh · 2015-03-09 22:59:39

Danke, doodz! Starting to get the hang of lightdm theming, this scrot has no radius on the login entries' window (same as last scrot, OP had radius: 3px), "transparent" panel background, "@theme_selected_bg_color" panel foreground color, font-size 12...

fullsize

-edit- logged in to my session...
http://s1.postimg.org/pfxa7aufz/Screens … _39_PM.png

Last edited by hhh (2015-03-09 23:11:55)

johnraff · 2015-03-10 02:26:20

hhh wrote:

@johnraff, something is eluding me using solution 1

OK so 2) worked, meaning you've got individual icons for each user (all symlinked to the default icon Iguess).

1) worked OK for me to get a default icon for anyone without displaying usernames so it is doable.

Whether BL by default wants to go with showing usernames or a slim-style type-in interface is one of those Decisions I guess...

I just tried putting the (64x64 this time) icon in 64x64/devices ala Archforum and it worked that way too. If you make an icon theme with both big & small icons in it lightdm seems to choose the bigger one.

Anyway, here's what I did. First, make a 256x256 png file. Then, make a new "lightdm" icon theme:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/icons/lightdm/256x256/status
sudo cp /path/to/myimage.png /usr/share/icons/lightdm/256x256/status/avatar-default.png
sudo nano /usr/share/icons/lightdm/index.theme

Put this code in index.theme

[Icon Theme]
Name=lightdm
Comment=Lightdm Icon Badges: Name the badge of your choice in 256x256/status "avatar-default.png"
Hidden=true
Directories=256x256/status
[256x256/status]
Size=256
Context=Status
Type=Threshold

Then:

sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/lightdm/

Edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and set 'icon-theme-name=lightdm'
Make sure 'greeter-hide-users=true' is set in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf,
and reboot. (Logout might be enough.)

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#1 2015-03-05 02:43:13

Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#2 2015-03-05 02:49:05

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#3 2015-03-05 02:55:37

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#4 2015-03-05 03:28:01

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#5 2015-03-05 03:45:58

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#6 2015-03-05 03:51:28

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#7 2015-03-05 03:53:33

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#8 2015-03-05 04:02:19

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#9 2015-03-05 09:06:40

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#10 2015-03-05 17:41:52

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#11 2015-03-05 17:56:56

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#12 2015-03-05 19:23:19

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#13 2015-03-06 00:39:45

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#14 2015-03-06 01:44:33

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#15 2015-03-06 07:12:02

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#16 2015-03-06 13:50:38

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#17 2015-03-07 06:43:26

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#18 2015-03-07 07:52:58

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#19 2015-03-07 07:58:26

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#20 2015-03-07 08:08:30

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#21 2015-03-09 20:49:46

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#22 2015-03-09 21:33:23

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#23 2015-03-09 21:54:09

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#24 2015-03-09 22:59:39

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

#25 2015-03-10 02:26:20

Re: Dark LightDM Theme (ha! dark light), MOAR

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