Shades-of-gray-theme

Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): https://github.com/WernerFP/Shades-of-gray-theme

Description:

A flat dark GTK-theme with ergonomic contrasts. It supports Gnome, Cinnamon, Xfce4, Mate and Openbox. Theme customizations for Firefox, Thunderbird and Inkscape are additionally included. Shades-of-gray is available in 8 color variants:

• Gray
• Arch
• Cerulean
• Firebrick
• Harvest
• Mint
• Orient
• Patina

The following description is contained in the individual theme folders.

Installation:

• Arch Linux

You can install the AUR package:

• Last release: gtk-theme-shades-of-gray
• Git version: gtk-theme-shades-of-gray-git

• Manual Installation

Extract and copy the chosen theme folders either for personal use into directory '~/.themes/' or for common use into '/usr/share/themes/'.

To enjoy the latest commits, you can download and install the Shades-of-gray pre-release version from GitHub.

Customizations:

Each theme folder contains an 'app-gadgets' directory with additional theme files for Thunderbird, Firefox and Inkspape.

• Thunderbird

The folder 'assets' and the file 'userChrome.css' in folder 'Thunderbird-Shades-of-gray' contain a Thunderbird theme adapted to Shades of gray. Copy both to this location:

~/.thunderbird/name-of-your-profile/chrome/assets
~/.thunderbird/name-of-your-profile/chrome/userChrome.css

Select the default theme in the Thunderbird settings to ensure a consistent appearance.

If you change a Shades-of-gray theme color, it is not necessary to copy the file again. You can simply comment the current theme color in 'userChrome.css' (Thunderbird and Firefox) and uncomment the new theme color value.

• Thunderbird Calendar

Thunderbird‘s Calendar (formaly Lightning) uses its own bright colors in default setting. The option for using theme colors is hidden as 'Accessibility'.
Open the Thunderbird settings and activate the checkbox 'Optimize colors for accessibility' in calendar area.

Note: In Thunderbird 68 Calendar (Lightning) there are several bugs that can cause display errors. In'Shades-of-gray-Readme.html' a workaround is explained.

• Firefox

The directory '../app-gadgets/Firefox-Shades-of-gray' contains a collection of Shades-of gray theme modifications for Firefox:

userChrome.css:
This file contains modifications for the Firefox user interface.

userContent.css:
Herein are adjustments of the Firefox Home-Screen. In addition, the following customizations are imported via 'userContent.css':

about.css:
The file 'about.css' contains Shades-of-gray theme customizations for Firefox 'about:'-pages.

Bookmark search plus 2:
The file 'bookmark-search-plus-2.css contains a theme customization for the very useful add-on Bookmark search plus 2 (AMO).

Panorama Tab Groups:
This is a modification for the dark theme of the recommended add-on Panorama Tab Groups (AMO).
Note: in Panorama Tab Groups settings you can toggle between light and dark theme. The Shades-of-gray customizations only take effect with the dark theme.

Bookmarked Speed Dial:
Bookmarked Speed Dial (AMO) is an underrated add-on that offers similar functionality to Vivaldi Speed Dial.
The folder 'bookmarked-speed-dial-images' contains images wich you can choose as 'Default dial image' and 'Default folder image' in the add-on options.

To use the customizations for Firefox you can copy the contents of directory '../app-gadgets/Firefox-Shades-of-gray/' to this location:

~/.mozilla/firefox/name-of-your-profile/chrome/

Note: you should choose the dark style in Firefox to get a consistent dark appearance.

Note: As of Firefox 68/69, you must set the 'toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets' preference to 'true in 'about:config in order to load 'userChrome.css or 'userContent.css files.

• Inkscape

Original colored icons in older versions of Inkscape are hard to identify in dark themes. The file 'icons.svg' in folder 'Inkscape-icons' contains bright icons. To use them in Inkscape, the file must be stored in this directory:

~/.config/inkscape/icons/icons.svg

• Syntax Highlighting

Shades-of-gray includes the syntax color scheme Shades-of-pastel for several editors. By using pastel colors on dark background like pastel chalks on a blackboard the Shades-of-pastel scheme provides balanced and easy on eyes contrasts.

Currently Vim, GVim, Sublime-Text and editors with syntax highlighting based on 'GtkSourceView 3' or 'GtkSourceView 4' such as Gedit, Pluma. Xed and Mousepad are supported. Installation notes can be found in 'Shades-of-gray-Readme.html'.

Requirements:

• GTK+ 3.20 or above
• Pixmap theme engine
• Murrine theme engine

License:

GNU General Public License GPL-3

Issues:

Please report bugs, issues and feature requests on Github.

Last changelog:

1.3.0 4 months ago

• Gnome Shell: fixes and revisions for 3.34-3.36 (gnome-shell.css)
• Xfce: Applets closing issue fixed - issue #16 (gtk.css)
• New theme color: Mint

97 comments

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Comments/Ratings

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AV1Aca
1 month ago

10 10 the best

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tuppa
3 months ago

9 9 excellent

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redfred84
4 months ago

8 8 great

Report

ganeshedge
4 months ago

10 10 the best

Report

jdawgnoonan
4 months ago

This theme is great. In Gnome 3.36.1 I only have two issues: 1) The Ubuntu store becomes transparent for some reason with this theme turned on; 2) The text in the notification pane is black on dark gray and is hard to read.

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WernerFP
4 months ago

Please check out the Git version:
https://github.com/WernerFP/Shades-of-gray-theme
If your problem is not yet solved in the Git version (commit 82b40d1), I'd be grateful for your bugreport on Github.

Report

md93u4
5 months ago

10 10 the best

Report

amorpher
5 months ago

My favorite theme for almost 2 years.
Can you make these elements smaller in height?
https://i111.fastpic.ru/big/2020/0402/d6/4883b0c0f99c3b71f5b4ba80041551d6.png
https://i111.fastpic.ru/big/2020/0402/58/bc08adf01d64346eedc8faf06c5def58.png

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amorpher
5 months ago

https://i111.fastpic.ru/big/2020/0402/6b/8b1c8c0e5b9e129291e4b20a8d5a4c6b.png

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skijsche
7 months ago

10 10 the best

Report

skijsche
7 months ago

For me it is probably the best theme. My only issue is that notifications text color is not white (or light grey) but dark grey (almost like background) and it is hard to read. I think it is bug. I am using Pop_Os 18.04 gnome version 3.28.2. I will report this to git hub but if somebody knows how to change that color in .css file, plase let me know. Thank you for this minimalistic feel. Great work.

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Dario
8 months ago

8 8 great

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dergnome
8 months ago

9 9 excellent

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2ww2
8 months ago

one of my favorite themes for xfce: it is very clean, not to dark, and it sets the right window decorations for gnome apps, making the whole desktop look very consistent. My only issue is that the accent colors (harvest, patina and the rest ) are not getting applied to the workspace switcher on the xfce panel. Instead, selected workspace always stays dark gray, what makes it hard to see on which workspace I currently am.

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2ww2
8 months ago

workspace accent color in xfce , gtk3.css:

wnck-pager { background-color: #575757 }
wnck-pager:selected { background-color: #3C7460}
wnck-pager:hover { background-color: #d9dddd; }

This one is to match Patina.

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WernerFP
8 months ago

Please report bugs, issues and feature requests on GitHub (link above).
I've just committed relevant changes to the workspace-switcher in Xfce 4.12 and Xfce 4.14.
To enjoy the latest commits, you can download and install the Shades-of-gray pre-release Git version from GitHub.

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2ww2
8 months ago

Xfce workspace- switcher accent color is overlooked with most themes. Thank's a lot for listening to people's suggestions, and for your awesome theme.

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annoyingduck
10 months ago

Probably my fifth comment. Still the greatest theme to ever exist...period

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442206
11 months ago

10 10 the best

Report

fritz5
11 months ago

7 7 good

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fenyx
1 year ago

9 Great work, thanks a lot for sharing it with us.

Anyway I don't use it yet on my Ubuntu 19.04 because of incompatibility with my very favorite file manager (Double Commander aka. doublecmd-gtk, installed through apt, not by snap or appimage).
I don't understand what makes a dark theme work with this application or not but I see that Starlabs and Adwaita-dark are theming it perfectly. I don't know the difference with a theme like yours nor which files should be included or modified, sorry to be of no help.
Do you think that this issue with Double Commander could be fixed? I would be glad to use this theme as I really like it.

Here's a concrete example:
Shades of Gray Arch > https://i.imgur.com/7kHGd7V.png
StarLabs Dark > https://i.imgur.com/FGDgJHI.png

I've posted a message on application's forum to get more informations about the files to customize but nobody answered for now > https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5769

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WernerFP
1 year ago

Your 2nd screenshot shows a working GTK2 theme (StarLabs Dark) with doublecmd-gtk-0.9.2-1, which is part of Ubuntu 19.4.

Your 1st screenhot shows doublecmd-gtk-0.9.6-beta that is not included in Ubuntu 19.4 repositories. Here the GTK2 theme (Shades-of gray) is broken.

Is that probably the cause? Are shared libraries missing or in inadequate versions?

In Ubuntu 19.4 with doublecmd-gtk-0.9.2-1 everything is fine with me:
https://i.imgur.com/bXAisBF.jpg

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WernerFP
1 year ago

Sorry, of course "Ubuntu 19.04" ...

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fenyx
1 year ago

You're right, I've tried to update double-cmd from the developer's repository to see if it resolves the issue. But it changed nothing, same problem between 0.9.2 and 0.9.6. Anyway the Marwaita GTK3 theme dev and me are actually discussing it on his Pling theme's page and he helped me to point out in terminal output the lack of lines about theme's loading by Double Commander. So the issue seems to come from something else than the theme itself. The investigation is on the way :)

Output:
$ doublecmd
XInitThreads: 1
[lines about theme loading should be here but there's nothing]
Starting GuiMessageQueue

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fenyx
1 year ago

Do you see those missing lines in your terminal output?

Report

1.3.0 4 months ago

• Gnome Shell: fixes and revisions for 3.34-3.36 (gnome-shell.css)
• Xfce: Applets closing issue fixed - issue #16 (gtk.css)
• New theme color: Mint

1.2.1 8 months ago

• Gnome Shell 3.34: shadows notification bar fixed (gnome-shell.css)
• Xfce 4.12 and 4.14: selected workspace-switcher color adjusted
• GoldenDict: customizations added (qt-style.css)
• Firefox: search button hover color correction (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: arrowpanel-background variable added (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: bookmark menu default icons contrast reduced (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: adjustments protection-popup and megabar (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: updates up to 72 and 73 (userChrome.css, userContent.css, about.css)

1.2.0 11 months ago

• Link colors for light and dark backgrounds optimized (GTK2, GTK3 etc.)
• Evolution: workaround undeclared link color in HTML messages (gtk3.css)
• Gnome Calendar: workaround poor events contrast with dark themes (gtk3.css)
• Shades of pastel: HTML and XML syntax highlighting improved
• Thunderbird: tag indicators and notifications improved (userChrome.css)
• Lightning 68+: fixes for dark themes, improvements (userChrome.css)
• Enigmail: colors of header box labels improved (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: default scrollbars less intrusive (userContent.css)
• Firefox: new search button in BPS2 adapted (bookmark-search-plus-2.css)
• Firefox 60 ESR: Home Screen fixes and improvements (userContent.css)
• Firefox 69+: modifications QuantumBar to Megabar in FF 71 (userChrome)
• Firefox new: customizations for 'about:' pages added (about.css)
• Firefox: modifications, improvements, regressions up to FF 71 (userChrome.css)

1.1.9 1 year ago

• GTK3: Nautilus floating-bar fixed (gtk.css)
• Firefox 68+: form widgets are obsolete (userContent.css)
• Thunderbird 68+: modifications, improvements, regressions (userChrome.css)

1.1.8 1 year ago

• GTK3: Epiphany urlbar dropdown fixed (gtk-colors.css)
• Firefox: modifications for FF 68/69 (userChrome.css, userContent.css)
• Firefox: about:addons no longer customizable (about.css removed)
• Firefox: Bookmarked Speed Dial for FF 68/69 adjusted (bookmarked-speed-dial.css)
• Firefox: Bookmark search plus 2 for FF 68/69 adjusted (bookmark-search-plus-2.css)

1.1.7 1 year ago

• Thunderbird: Enigmail flat button text color forced (userChrome.css)
• Firefox add-on: background focus group header fixed (panorama-tab-groups.css)
• Firefox add-on: minor fix (bookmarked-speed-dial.css)
• Firefox 66+ home content: blue font in context menu fixed (userContent.css)
• Firefox: customizations identity-popup (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: CSS-code cleaned up (userContent.css, userChrome.css)
• New: Firefox - dark Shades-of-gray theme for 'about:' pages (about.css)

1.1.6 1 year ago

• New: Syntax scheme for Vim and GVim added (Shades-of-pastel)
• GNOME Shell 3.32: close buttons in dash overview adapted (gnome-shell.css)
• GTK3 workaround: gnome-control-center 3.32 ignores '@base_color' (gtk.css)
• Firefox add-on: 0.8.8 update (panorama-tab-groups.css)
• Firefox add-on: color '#searchtext' fixed (bookmark-search-plus-2.css)
• Firefox urlbar indicator: color for validated sites adjusted (userChrome.css)
• Firefox 66+: update CSS corrections for 'about' sites (userContent.css)

1.1.5 1 year ago

• GTK2: entry background color in HexChat fixed (apps.rc)
• GTK3: Gedit document-panel background color synchronized (gtk.css)
• Thunderbird: titles of unread messages are colored (userChrome.css)
• Firefox add-on theme: 2.0.52 update (bookmark-search-plus-2.css)
• Firefox: fallback webextension popup background added (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: width of vertical scrollbar in sidebar reduced (userChrome.css)
• Firefox add-on theme added: Bookmarked Speed Dial (bookmarked-speed-dial.css, userContent.css)
• Syntax color schemes for Sublime-Text, Gedit, Pluma, Xed, Mousepad added (Shades-of-pastel)

1.1.4 1 year ago

• GTK3, GTK2, Cinnamon, Gnome, Openbox: thin dark menu separator lines added
• GTK3: side effect Evolution-CSS in Rhythmbox fixed (gtk.css)
• Gnome: slider and barlevel fixed to version 3.29+ (gnome-shell.css)
• Gnome: better activities icon (gnome-shell.css)
• Gnome: panel less opacity (gnome-shell.css)
• Theme folder: Readme files superseded (new: Shades-of-gray-Readme.html)
• Firefox, Thunderbird: thin dark menu separator lines added (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: overflow submenu improved for add-on content (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: added options to hide context menu items (userChrome.css)
• Firefox add-on theme added: Panorama Tab Groups (panorama-tab-groups.css, userContent.css)

1.1.3.1 1 year ago

• Gnome: volume and brightness slider fixed (gnome-shell.css)

1.1.3 1 year ago

• Thunar, Nemo, Nautilus, Caja: list view improved (gtk.css)
• Firefox: minor adjustments in userChrome.css (places window)
• Firefox add-on theme added: Bookmark search plus 2 (bookmark-search-plus-2.css, userContent.css)

1.1.2 1 year ago

• Xfce4: panel adjusted to gtk3 in Xfce 4.13 (gtk.css)
• Xfwm4: window buttons supplemented (xfwm4)
• Evolution: sidebars adjusted (gtk.css)
• gThumb: sidebar and browser background improved (gtk.css)
• Calendar: gnome-calendar enhancements (gtk.css)
• Firefox: smaller identity box for extensions in urlbar (userContent.css)
• Firefox: menus in about:preferences fixed (userContent.css)
• Thunderbird, Lightning: Shades-of-gray icons added (userChrome.css, assets)

1.1.1 2 years ago

• Openbox: close button modified, window handle and menu improvements
• Thunderbird: minimum column width defined (userChrome.css)
• Lightning 6.2: bright navigation buttons (userChrome.css)
• Firefox: form widgets also adapted for moz-extensions (fixed in userContent.css)

1.1.0 2 years ago

• New: Theme for Cinnamon added
• GTK3: Minor changes
• Metacity: Updated for Cinnamon
• Thunderbird 60: Fixes and improvements
• Lightning: Theme adaptation improved
• Firefox: Fixes and further theme customizations

1.0.4.1 2 years ago

• Fix: gtk3-submenus are positioned closer to the parent menu
• New: Shades-of-gray-FAQ.html (2018-07-29)

1.0.4 2 years ago

• Thunderbird: added theme customizations for color tags in email tree view (userChrome.css)
• Borders and separators slightly less contrast (gtk-colors.css, gnome-shell.css)

1.0.3: 2 years ago

Bug fix: Window decorations of Gnome applications now correctly trigger a resize mouse pointer.

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AV1Aca Jul 30 2020 10 the best

10 the best

tuppa Jun 13 2020 9 excellent

9 excellent

redfred84 May 19 2020 8 great

8 great

ganeshedge May 09 2020 10 the best

10 the best

md93u4 Apr 14 2020 10 the best

10 the best

skijsche Feb 01 2020 10 the best

10 the best

Dario Jan 09 2020 8 great

8 great

dergnome Jan 03 2020 9 excellent

9 excellent

442206 Oct 20 2019 10 the best

10 the best

fritz5 Oct 11 2019 7 good

7 good

fenyx Sep 12 2019 9 excellent

Great work, thanks a lot for sharing it with us. Anyway I don't use it yet on my Ubuntu 19.04 because of incompatibility with my very favorite file manager (Double Commander aka. doublecmd-gtk, installed through apt, not by snap or appimage). I don't understand what makes a dark theme work with this application or not but I see that Starlabs and Adwaita-dark are theming it perfectly. I don't know the difference with a theme like yours nor which files should be included or modified, sorry to be of no help. Do you think that this issue with Double Commander could be fixed? I would be glad to use this theme as I really like it. Here's a concrete example: Shades of Gray Arch > https://i.imgur.com/7kHGd7V.png StarLabs Dark > https://i.imgur.com/FGDgJHI.png I've posted a message on application's forum to get more informations about the files to customize but nobody answered for now > https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5769

n1ghtw1ng Sep 07 2019 10 the best

My favorite theme ! I am sensitive to colors, Thank you so much for this.

hangman Jul 25 2019 9 excellent

9 excellent

rda9000 Jul 25 2019 10 the best

10 the best

marceloaguero Jul 15 2019 10 the best

10 the best

beyonderforce Jul 05 2019 10 the best

10 the best

haertie Jul 04 2019 5 average

5 average

bridnour Jul 01 2019 10 the best

This is the first "dark theme" that I can see myself using on a daily basis.

aedrasil Jun 15 2019 10 the best

10 the bestThe perfekt and completest dark-theme. Thank you for the work!

hsmmouse Apr 08 2019 9 excellent

From my point of view, it is one of the best dark theme.

fjuwoeg Mar 25 2019 9 excellent

kooijman77 Mar 01 2019 9 excellent

+Favorite dark theme

charlie-henson Feb 17 2019 9 excellent

amorpher Jan 16 2019 9 excellent

+ My Favorite Theme for the last year. I use it with Newaita icons.

mockroot Jan 16 2019 9 excellent

jocixlinux Jan 16 2019 9 excellent

celphor Dec 25 2018 9 excellent

rcrittendon Dec 18 2018 9 excellent

+Fantastic Theme, awesome work, what a joy to use, thank you!

khandakershahi Dec 16 2018 9 excellent

+Nice Theme!

Franua Dec 15 2018 9 excellent

+Great theme! Soothing for eyes... Love it!

brique Nov 28 2018 9 excellent

sunaku Nov 04 2018 9 excellent

NOMIC82 Oct 28 2018 9 excellent

kamathln Oct 10 2018 9 excellent

+Finally a sane dark theme which is 1) is elegant 2) differentiable widgets 3) Easy on the eyes. If I ever make a distro, this will be the default GTK3+ theme

AbeTheAbe Sep 17 2018 9 excellent

+Chrome theme is not working properly, I would prefer the same color as the rest of theme ( gray) for top panel instead of black and this theme desperately needs the compact version, thanks!