Re: [gdm-list] GTK theme for thegreeter screen?

[Sebastien Bacher <seb128 debian org>]

Le jeudi 09 février 2006 à 14:37 -0800, Brian Cameron a écrit :
> Sebastien:
> 
> > gdm.conf has that comment:
> > "# If to allow changing the GTK+ (widget) theme from the greeter.
> > Currently
> > # this only affects the standard greeter as the graphical greeter does
> > not yet
> > # have this ability."
> > 
> > Is there any technically reason that applying a theme works for the
> > standard banner but not the greeter one? Do you have any idea of what
> > change would be required for that?
> 
> Currently the only way for gdmgreeter users to change the theme
> using a GUI is to run gdmsetup from the login screen, although you
> need to know the root password and GDM's configuration has to be
> setup to allow running gdmsetup from the login program.

Hum, so you can change the GTK theme for the greeter? I've just tried to
run the "configure login manager" option and gdmflexiserver just closes
or crahs, I'll open a bug about that later.


> The reason that we support changing themes for the gdmlogin program
> is that some users require the accessibility themes (high-contrast,
> low-contrast, etc.).  These themes only have meaning when using gdmlogin
> which uses GTK+ widgetry whereas gdmgreeter uses libgnomecanvas and
> does not really use GTK theming much, if at all.

Right, the concern is to have the colors of the F10 menu matching the
theme


> 1) gdmgreeter has no real mechanism to support switching the theme to
>     high-contrast/low-contrast/etc. and even if it did support this
>     feature, gdmgreeter does not yet have any high-contrast/low-contrast
>     themes.  So they would need to be designed and included with
>     GDM as well.

But the theme would apply to the GtkMenu no?


> It would be cool if people were interested in improving gdmgreeter so
> it could be used by accessible users, but I think the above issues
> is enough work that it will probably take a good while before
> gdmgreeter is a real option for such users.  And since they can just
> use gdmlogin today, perhaps there isn't a real need here to make
> gdmgreeter accessible.

All what you describe makes sense but is not trivial and would require
some work. My question was basically about setting a GTK theme so the
new menu can have colors matching the theme used by example.


> Enhancing gdmgreeter so users can switch the theme would get us one
> step closer, but probably isn't as hard as dealing with issues #2
> and #3 mentioned above.

Is there any way to set a GTK theme for the gdmgreeter at the moment?
The gdm.conf comment suggests that's not implemented, or is that a
different configuration key?


> Hope this helps explain why the code works as it does.

Yeah, thanks for the clear and detailed reply as usual :) There is some
extra material compared to what I was looking for, but the explanation
are interesting and there is some ideas that could be worked for the
next cycle!


Cheers,

Sebastien Bacher