changing fonts and icon theme in gnome-shell

[RahulSundaram]

Hi

Modifying CSS is not necessary. dconf commands and UI can be used here. Upstream afaik has already introduced a UI for font changes that is not yet pulled in Fedora 15.

[DCOH]

Doesn't work to bad if you use Gnome3/openbox then you do have a little control of Gnome shell.

Originally Posted by RahulSundaram

Hi

Modifying CSS is not necessary. dconf commands and UI can be used here. Upstream afaik has already introduced a UI for font changes that is not yet pulled in Fedora 15.

will that get into F15 before it goes final?

[vallimar]

Played around a little today, figured out how to change the icon theme, at least somewhat.
You need to install dconf-editor and gconf-editor. In dconf-editor, change the key
"org.gnome.desktop.interface.icon-theme" to the name of your theme. I chose "Faenza-Dark".
I changed it under gconf too to be safe "desktop.gnome.interface.icon-theme".

You can manually tweak the fonts as well. Have the latest F15 gnome-shell, 2.91.91-2 and
still no sign of any font config settings.

---------- Post added at 07:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:17 PM ----------

Also, saw a tip on webupd8 before about how to get the minimize/maximize buttons back.
Change the key "desktop.gnome.shell.windows.button_layout".
I changed mine back to "menu:minimize,maximize,close".
I also had to logout and back in for it to take effect.

---------- Post added at 07:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 PM ----------

Okay, last thing.. if you want to change the mouse cursor as well, in dconf
"org.gnome.desktop.interface.cursor-theme". And in gconf, also change
"desktop.gnome.peripherals.mouse.cursor-theme".

You can find out the name of the theme by looking at the "Name=" value inside the
index.theme file. Set both keys to the same value, should take effect immediately
if you have done it right if I recall, else try a relog. I went with "Protozoa-Blu".

[twohot]

Thanks vallimar, that was very helpful

... what is the difference between dconf and gconf and when should each be used? I'm looking for ways to tweak the 'selection' colours on GTK3 ... want to darken the blue background so the white texts can stand out. If someone wanted to change the colour of the titlebar, where does he/she go? Those things used to be easy to manipulate in Gnome2. What about font hinting ... my monospace font looks distorted. Is that Deja-Vu? It can't be.

[calanor]

Thanks vallimar, dconf works. I am using Faenza dark and droid sans without changing anything in gconf.
Thanks once again

[vallimar]

Originally Posted by twohot

Thanks vallimar, that was very helpful

... what is the difference between dconf and gconf and when should each be used? I'm looking for ways to tweak the 'selection' colours on GTK3 ... want to darken the blue background so the white texts can stand out. If someone wanted to change the colour of the titlebar, where does he/she go? Those things used to be easy to manipulate in Gnome2. What about font hinting ... my monospace font looks distorted. Is that Deja-Vu? It can't be.

The Fedora default fonts have always been lousy by my estimation. If you poke around
the dconf-editor, you'll see font and colour settings.. the colours are usually prefixed with
gtk_ if I recall, I cannot check currently. Font hinting I think was located underneath
gnome-settings-daemon, xsettings -- or something non-obvious.

As far as the difference, dconf uses the new gsettings method, which seems to mostly
be the same as the old gconf system with a different name, api and organization.
The way it saves settings is different too, a binary config file instead of readable flat
files. I don't troll the gnome mailing lists, so other than "why not?", I have no reason to give
you for the change. As to why you need both for some things, that is because gnome
has done their typical botch job and didn't manage to get everything converted, so they
are just going to release Gnome3 with some on gsettings, the rest on gconf and they'll
update as they go along.

[RahulSundaram]

Originally Posted by detox

will that get into F15 before it goes final?

Sure.

[megaloman]

Originally Posted by twohot

Coming from Leigh, this has got to be serious. But how can you have a DE and not be able to tweak fonts and icons?

A Fedora ambassador will have a hard time propagating gnome3 because modifying css is not exactly user-friendly. Looks like gnome3 is another synonym for geek3

it looks like, gnome 3 is for newbies - for people who play with their computer, who spent time on facebook, youtube, etc. it's definitely not for people who work with computer.

I loved gnome 2.x because it made my work easy - I could set it up the way I wanted, switch pidgin to silent mode and just carry on working. Gnome 3 makes simple tasks difficult, quick things to take much longer and does not allow you to simply configure.

At the moment I am disappointed and frustrated - probably won't upgrade F14 on my work computer for a couple of months and see how it goes. XFCE is an option, but is very limited and not exactly what I want. EXDE is promising but don't know how long it's going to take them to release version 1.

[fpmurphy]

The gnome-tweak-tool v2.91.92 RPM is now available for download. (gnome-tweak-tool-2.91.92-3.fc16.noarch). Use Applications to select or the search tool.

[bruce89]

Originally Posted by vallimar

As far as the difference, dconf uses the new gsettings method, which seems to mostly
be the same as the old gconf system with a different name, api and organization.
The way it saves settings is different too, a binary config file instead of readable flat
files. I don't troll the gnome mailing lists, so other than "why not?", I have no reason to give
you for the change.

The reason is because gconf depended on a load of deprecated libraries (ORBit). Also, having GSettings in GLib is good because other desktops can use it (they don't have to use the dconf backend).