Equinox GTK Engine

Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): Add the source-code for this project on opencode.net

Score 71.4%

Description:

A heavily modified version of the beautiful Aurora engine (1.4). Thanks to his author.

IMPORTANT! Since version 1.40, the file below contains only the engine source. You can download themes (both GTK and Metacity) from the second and third links :
- The five Equinox Evolution themes are new offical ones and will get some updates in the future. Only these themes are now included in the theme package available from the Launchpad PPA
- The original themes are no longer maintained (but still usable).

Engine installation

First of all, make sure you have installed the GTK+ library development files (libgtk2.0-dev on Debian/Ubuntu, gtk2-devel on Fedora) with your favourite package manager.

Then to compile the Equinox engine, extract the corresponding archive in your home folder. In the new directory, run the following commands:
[indent]./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-animation
make[/indent]

On Fedora 64 bits (and perhaps other distribs), compilation don't work with the options above. You must run:
[indent]./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-animation[/indent]

Finally, run this command as root:
[indent]make install[/indent]

Themes installation

To install the themes, extract the content of the other archive in your ~/.themes.

You can easily change the colour used for selected items or tooltips in Appearance preferences.

To fix the issue with the text of selected menu items in Firefox and Thunderbird, copy the userChrome.css in both ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/chrome/ and ~/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default/chrome/

To use the Equinox Evolution theme with Chromium or Google Chrome, open the browser and drag the CRX file (provided in the themes archive) into the address bar. In applications options, don't forget to enable the display of Metacity borders.

Icon theme
A (still uncomplete) version of Faenza icon theme is now available. Follow the link a the bottom of this page.

Engine options

* curvature = 2.5
* menubarstyle = 1 # 0 = flat, 1 = gradient
* menubaritemstyle = 0 # 0 = flat, 1 = gradient, 2 = inverse gradient, 3 = line
* menubarborders = 1 # 0 = none, 1 = bottom border, 2 = top half-border, 3 = bottom border and top half-border
* toolbarstyle = 1 # 0 = flat, 1 = gradient, 2 = flat without border, 3 = gradient without border, 4 = flat with bottom border, 5 = gradient with bottom border
* buttonstyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy
* menuitemstyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy
* listviewheaderstyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy
* listviewitemstyle = 1 # 0 = flat, 1 = gradient
* scrollbarstyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy, 2 = normal with grip, 3 = glassy with grip, 4 = flat
* scrollbartrough = 0 # 0 = background color of the parent widget, 1 = base color of the widget itself
* scalesliderstyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy, 2 = normal with bullet
* checkradiostyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy
* progressbarstyle = 0 # 0 = normal, 1 = glassy
* separatorstyle = 1 # 0 = solid inset, 1 = gradient inset, 2 = lighter line, 3 = darker line
* textstyle = 0 # orientation of text shadow
* textshade = 1.08 # > 1.0 for light text shadow, < 1.0 for dark text shadow
* animation = TRUE # FALSE = disabled, TRUE = enabled
* arrowsize = 0.1 # controls combo_arrow circle size. Diameter set by (11 + 2 * arrowsize)

Known bugs
* Strange progressbars in Firefox and Thunderbird
* Some ugly message areas

Launchpad PPA
Equinox is available to install for Ubuntu users via a PPA repository. Open a terminal and run :
[indent]sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-equinox equinox-theme[/indent]

Last changelog:

8 years ago

1.50
* New option resizegripstyle
* New value for menubaritemstyle option (return of the original style !)

1.40
* New options menubaritemstyle, scrollbartrough, textstyle and textshade
* Rendering of progressbars improved
* Better support of dark themes
* Some changes in displaying focuses
* FIX: some crashes with Evolution

1.30.2:
ENGINE
* Better rendering for gradient listitems
THEMES
* Windows can be dragged from menubar
* Include userChrome.css to fix Firefox/Thunderbird menu issue
* Include Chromium/Chrome theme for Equinox Evolution
* Some fixes

1.30.1:
ENGINE
* Fix missing parameters in function equinox_style_copy

1.30:
ENGINE
* New options menubarborders and listviewitemstyle
* New values for menubarstyle and scrollbarstyle options
* Some fixes
THEMES
* New themes Evolution and Evolution Light
* Fix bug with Inkscape palette
* Workspace switcher and menubar items more lighter in dark panels
* Fix bugs with some applets: CPU scaling, network monitor, dictionary.
METACITY
* Bottom border of all themes reduced
* New themes Evolution Rounded and Evolution Squared

1.20:
ENGINE
* New options progressbarstyle and separatorstyle
* New values for options menubarstyle and toolbarstyle to hide borders of menubar and toolbar controls
* Overall performance improved
* Some fixes
THEMES
* Better integration in gnome 2.30 (specially for Nautilus)
* New light theme
METACITY
* New themes Light and Light Glass in which window controls used the selected background color
* New themes Classic and Classic Glass with a red close button and others in the selected background color

1.1:
ENGINE
* Progressbars and tabs now accept curvature option
* New engine option for menuitems style
* New focus rendering for tabs[/li]
THEMES
* New Gtkrc theme with wider controls
* Gnome panel with gradient pixmap
* Correct search bar color in Nautilus
METACITY
* Title bar reduced
* Space between title and buttons (if needed)
* Various corrections on windows controls

257 comments

1
2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Comments

Please login or register to add a comment

LaCiccia
5 years ago

Hi!
I have Debian 7.3 Wheezy, KDE desktop. How do I remove the engine? I followed your instructions when you said to do the following:
./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-animation
make
make install
and everything installed correctly (at least so I think). But now that I have experimented with it, how do I uninstall it? What commands do I have to give in the terminal?

Report

Thrasher
6 years ago

Best GTK2 theme. I just realized this is made by the same person who made Faince theme and Faenza icons. Every theme he or she makes is the best available!

Report

hellokitten
7 years ago

I had only used Murrine-engine and Pixmaps before my most recent endevour. I just have never liked working with murrine...So I took the leep with Equinox, and Its the best themeing experience I have had with gtk2. Its cleanly designed, It is elegant in appearence, and most importantly it doesn't get in the way. I guess what I am trying to say is, Great Job! ThankYou

Report

Vampire466
7 years ago

I'm using Backtrack gnome and when i tried to download the gtk+ develoment files using this command

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev it shows the following error

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libgtk2.0-dev: Depends: libgtk2.0-0 (= 2.20.1-0ubuntu2) but 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1 is to be installed

I'm a beginner to Linux.........plz help me

Report

DDZ
7 years ago

Hello!

Is it possible to port your great engine to GTK3?
I think it will be very nice :

- to harmonize different toolkits themes (GTK2 and GTK3)
- to get GTK3 applications appearance much better.

Thank you in advance for your answer!

Report

metalchef
8 years ago

move over Aurora, there's a new kid in town!

thanks (I didn't realize Faenza was your work too? Nice!)

Report

trollonrent
8 years ago

Nice tutorial dude. Also anyone who needs further help on installing themes could search youtube. There's a very good channel on youtube on tutorial giving introduction and installation procedure on different types of Linux themes. I think you'll find that helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/wethepenguins01

Report

victorct83
8 years ago

Hi tiheum,

First of all thanks a lot for make this theme and Faenza icons, it's a truly great work. I've a little problem, buttons on window list applet don't show bottom side. Please take a look to the next screenshot (comparison with Clearlooks theme)

http://tinypic.com/r/15q7p7k/5

This happens in any variant of Equinox theme. How can I fix it in the gtkrc file?

Thanks in advance!

Report

kido666
8 years ago

Hello, I've created a theme which uses some rounded widget with your engine. But I have a big issue when I use a GtkEntry placed in front of a particular color...
Screenshot: http://hpics.li/7a8a5ac (that's more visible with my home-made theme which has rounded entry)
As you can see the background of the Entry is not painted as it would be with a Button etc... it use the window's background color and not the color behind it.

So please could you fix it, that's realy important for me. :( Thank you in advance (sorry for my bad english, I'm french)

Report

twa022
8 years ago

Absolutely my favorite theme. Any plans to make a matching GTK3 theme. My system looks awkward now with mostly Equinox but the occasional Adwaitha. (Arch is quick to adopt the next version)

Thanks.

Report

shalnark
8 years ago

This is pretty cute, but why I can see buttons like arrows (folder to folder), just I can get this:

http://i51.tinypic.com/sm8rvt.png

help me please ><.
thanks you very much.

Report

alexfpms
8 years ago

Just change your icons theme ;)

Report

frostwyrm333
8 years ago

hi, I'm using Equinox Evolution 1.50 and I can't see text on panel applets due to low contrast. The color is modifiable but that option changes color of all text.

Report

solartis
8 years ago

I generally hide my menubar, but when I do that with this theme the gradients on the titlebar and toolbar don't match. Any tips on how I could solve this issue. I already figured out how to remove the border, so I just need to know how to match the gradients up.

Report

inizata
8 years ago

hi Tiheum,

I have a question for Equinox engine,
How do I add border (boundaries) on progressbar?? I can't find option to do that, is Equinox supported it?

Report

win2lin
8 years ago

The only reason I've been using this theme pack and your PPA was for the original Equinox Glass. It looked sexy and matched with any wallpaper and icon set. The Variance themes restrict the types of wallpapers that can complement it.

After upgrading to 1.40, all of a sudden my favorite theme was gone!

I have read you reason for doing this, but I'm surprised you chose to abandon the glass theme in favor of the others, such as Evolution, which is one of the less interesting ones of your set.

Any plans to bring back Equinox Glass into the main pack? I understand I can copy the contents to ~/.themes/, but I prefer to stick with my package manager and PPAs, instead of resorting to the old fashioned method of installing themes.

I implore you to seriously consider this.

Report

dsuruagy
8 years ago

I've tested the ubuntu Natty and saw that the scrollbars are thin, but the system is prepared to work with it, showing buttons that do the right job.
But I still use Lucid and this looks very strange. Hope that the 1.30 version still looks great!

Report

cotc180690
8 years ago

When I followed the steps of the terminal Installation threw me the following error:

Assembler messages:
Fatal error: can't create .libs/equinox_rc_style.o: Permission denied
make: *** [equinox_rc_style.lo] Error 1
cotc180690@cotc180690-Studio-XPS-1340:~/equinox-1.40$

Can anybody help me?. I really like this theme. Something more, the theme does not appear like in the screenshots you showed, nautilus looks how looks common. P.S. Im an inexpert user of linux. P.S.2. Im ubuntu 10.10 user.

Report

DiEOrLivE
8 years ago

Did you think you gonna make Equinox GTK3 Engine ??

Report

DDZ
7 years ago

Report

etyrmi
8 years ago

If you don't know how to "go to" places in terminal, simply type:

cd equinox-1.40

That is: "cd", short for "change directory", followed by space and the actual name of the folder.

Just in case you are as ignorant as me.

Report

Triceratops
8 years ago

Hi,

The Equinox Evolution series look weird. In the screenshot, can you please show a screen having a scrollbar?

I test Equinox 1.40 on LinuxMint 10 (based on Ubuntu 10.10). The scrollbar is minuscule. It's a gray thin line. Is it intentional or is it a bug? Because the scrollbar in Equinox Evolution 1.30 looks thicker.

Please put Equinox original back, especially the Equinox Light and Equinox Glass.

Report

tiheum
8 years ago

Please read my comments on the previous page about Equinox original themes.

And for the scrollbars, it's the flat style which is already present in 1.30 (but not used in original theme). The sliders are as wide as the others style but less visible. Elementary GTK theme use this style of scrollbar but they are displayed inside the list.

Report

fsando
8 years ago

A minor issue for LibreOffice Calc especially in the evolution series is that the narrow vertical scrollbar leads to narrow tabs for the sheets.

I'm perfectly willing to live with this but if it could be corrected for LibreOffice it would be nice.

And a question: Is there a comprehensive documentation for the equinox engine?

Report

oneleft
8 years ago

I only used your theme for the Equinox Glass theme and am very disappointed that you have decided to remove the best part of your theme package. In fact, I registered on gnome-look.org just so I could tell you how disappointed I am. Could you kindly tell me how to "downgrade" to the previous version?

Report