Ubuntu – How to change to a theme not listed in the Appearance screen

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I've downloaded some nice themes, icon packages, and pointers from sites like gnome-look.

Now, what do I do to use this theme? Do I have to save it in /usr/share/themes?

Best Answer

It's not a problem of where they are located. It is a matter of how 11.10 and GNOME 3 have changed. For some reason (I don't know why) the GNOME developers have removed appearance properties from the system settings, under the impression that users should not have the power to choose their own theme.

The Ubuntu developers where kind enough to patch the control centre to allow for us to use Ambiance and Radiance, but if you want to use other GTK+ 3 themes you will need to install gnome-tweak-tool . After installing, you can find it by opening "Advanced Settings" from the Dash.

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Installing new themes in Ubuntu 10.10 and below

To install the themes open the Theme Manager which can be accessed from System > Preferences > Appearances then just drag the theme/icons etc on to the window.

Once installed you can either directly use the theme or modify it to use individual components like icons, borders, etc in the Theme Manager.

Ubuntu – How to add a theme to the Appearance settings tab in 11.10

I took a look at the source code for gnome-control-center (specifically the cc-background-panel.c file) and found the answer. The list appears to be hard-coded in the source:

static gchar *themes[] = { "Adwaita", "Ambiance", "Radiance", "HighContrast",
    "HighContrastInverse" };

This was added by Ubuntu (in 04_add_theme_selection.patch) to the original gnome 3 gnome-control-center source. It appears that they did not plan to allow anyone to add 11.10 themes at this time. Presumably the list will be editable or generated dynamically in future versions of Ubuntu's theme selection patch.

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Ubuntu – How to get and install more themes, icons, and pointers

Installing new themes in Ubuntu 10.10 and below

Ubuntu – How to add a theme to the Appearance settings tab in 11.10

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