Hi guys,
I’ve spent the last few days playing with Gtk+ 3.0… you know, next months are going to be reeeally interesting! 
Murrine and light-themes for Gtk+ 3.0
After much more than 2000 lines of “git diff”, murrine was successfully ported to the new APIs. But, is there a reason to port an engine without a great theme to run? Of course not! So, I’ve started porting light-themes as well! 
I’m planning to make their gtkrc more modular, in order to share common code and add support for dark variations. Do you know that Gtk+ 2.22 and newer lets application developer to load a dark variation of the current theme? A developer could just set the GtkSettings “gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme” to true and Gtk+ will load gtkrc-dark, if present.
That’s great! Imagine totem, shotwell, f-spot, gimp, etc etc using a dark colorscheme!
So, I’m sure you’re wondering: where’s the code?
Code!
You can grab the murrine “gtk+3″ branch here: http://git.gnome.org/browse/murrine/log/?h=gtk%2b3
You can grab the light-themes “gtk+3″ branch here: https://code.launchpad.net/~cimi/light-themes/gtk+3
If you want to play with some Gtk+ 3.0 apps, install the official Gtk+ 3.0 examples, or compile my experimental port of the widget factory to Gtk+ 3.0.
PPA for Ubuntu Maverick 10.10
If you are lazy and you’re running Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 - and you should, because it’s cool - I’ve just created a PPA with both packages compiled.
The PPA is available here: https://launchpad.net/~cimi/+archive/theming but remember that you must add the Gtk+ 3.0 PPA by my French friend Sebastien Bacher: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-desktop/+archive/gnome3-builds
Enjoy!
Now that you have a working (and nice, thanks to murrine and light-themes) Gtk+ 3.0 environment, you can start migrating your app to the new APIs!
Spend a great weekend… and for the guys coming to Orlando, see you next week or at the UDS!
Posted in Common, English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes, Ubuntu | 31 Comments »
Ubuntu 10.10 is OUT NOW!
Enjoy the new features and the new graphical theme by Andrea Cimitan and Otto Greenslade
See its features and go downloading it!
Posted in Common, English, Themes, Ubuntu | 1 Comment »
Hi guys!!!
Time for a murrine release… really, really? Yep!
Code is stable and we are reaching, day by day, continuously evolving, release 1.0!
So, here you can grab 0.98.0!
So, what’s new?
Overview of Changes in 0.98.0 (since 0.90.3)
============================================
Changes in this release:
- New supported widget: GtkExpander is now themed by the engine.
- New supported widget: GtkIconView is now themed by the engine.
- New supported widget: GtkInfoBar is now themed by the engine.
- New option: arrowstyle = 1 to draw filled arrows.
arrowstyle = 2 to draw fat filled arrows.
- New option: border_shades = { 1.0, 1.0 } to draw a gradient on the border.
- New option: border_colors = { “#ffffff”, “#ffffff” }
to set the colors used on the border of many widgets.
border_colors = FALSE to disable.
- New option: cellstyle = 0 to remove the border around the selected cell.
cellstyle = 1 for the border around the selected cell (as before).
- New option: comboboxstyle = 1 to colorize the GtkComboBox below the arrow.
- New option: default_button_color = “#ffffff” to specify a 2px border for the
default button.
- New option: disable_focus = TRUE
- New option: expanderstyle = 0 to draw arrows.
expanderstyle = 1 to draw circles with plus and minus.
expanderstyle = 2 to draw buttons with plus and minus.
- New option: focusstyle = 0 to disable focus drawing.
focusstyle = 1 to use dots.
focusstyle = 2 to use a small colored rectangle.
focusstyle = 3 to use a colored rectangle that touches the borders.
- New option: gradient_colors = { “#ffffff”, “#ffffff”, “#ffffff”, “#ffffff” }
to set the colors used on the gradient of many widgets.
gradient_colors = FALSE to disable.
- New option: handlestyle = 0 for three simple lines.
handlestyle = 1 for three simple lines with inset.
handlestyle = 2 for three near simple lines with inset.
- New option: prelight_shade = 1.0 to select the shade level used in the
scrollbar’s slider, GtkComboBox with comboboxstyle = 1 and
in the prelight state with gradient_colors.
- New option: separatorstyle = 1 to draw smooth separators.
- New option: shadow_shades = { 1.0, 1.0 } to draw a gradient on
the shadow of some widgets.
- New option: spinbuttonstyle = 1 to add a separator on the GtkSpinButton.
- New option: textstyle = 1 for a shadow at the bottom of the text.
textstyle = 2 for a shadow at the top of the text.
textstyle = 3 for a shadow at the bottom right of the text.
textstyle = 4 for a shadow at the top left of the text.
- New option: text_shade = 1.0 to specify the shade effect of the text’s shadow.
- New option: trough_border_shades = { 1.0, 1.0 } to draw a gradient on
the border of the trough of GtkScrollbar and GtkProgressBar.
- New option: trough_shades = { 1.0, 1.0 } to draw a gradient on
the trough of GtkScrollbar and GtkProgressBar.
- Changed option: glowstyle = 5 for a glow around the edges.
- Changed option: listviewstyle = 2 for a solid line.
- Changed option: menustyle = 2 for a bright glow inside the menu.
menustyle = 3 for a dark glow inside the menu.
- Changed option: reliefstyle = 3 for a gradient on shadow.
reliefstyle = 4 for a stronger shadow.
- Changed option: stepperstyle = 2 for squared steppers with a rounded slider.
- Deprecated option: gradients, please unset the other options instead.
- Deprecated option: profile, please manually adjust the other options.
- Deprecated option: scrollbar_color, please use a custom bg[SELECTED].
- Improved rendering: rounded GtkScale trough.
- Improved rendering: disabled GtkScale trough.
- Improved rendering: contrast function in GtkButton.
- Improved rendering: draw lightborder with on menubar (with menubarstyle = 1).
- Improved rendering: draw lightborder with on toolbar (with toolbarstyle = 1).
- Improved rendering: better GtkTooltip theming.
- Improved rendering: use bg[GTK_STATE_PRELIGHT] on the scrollbar’s slider
with colorize_scrollbar = FALSE.
Bugfixes in this release:
- Fix a potential endless loop in draw_progressbar_fill and draw_menuitem.
- Support for automake-1.11.
- Some minor fixes on big-endian systems.
- Fixes transparent WebKitGtk window with RGBA colormaps.
- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=554871
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gtk2-engines-murrine/+bug/624901
- Minor fixes and maybe more bugs I forgot to link.
Many, many, many thanks to Canonical and their Design Team for having sponsored the development.
Stay tuned with the development following me on twitter and becoming a fan of Murrine on facebook!
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 4 Comments »
Here I wrote about the latest changes to the Ubuntu Light themes. Please send your feedback to the design blog (not here!)
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes, Ubuntu | 8 Comments »
Carlos Garnacho is definitely my hero for today.
You can start imagining myself playing with that stuff in the next months, it deserves love from a new gtk+ engine
EDIT: Maybe not only today, eventually tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after the day after tomorrow and so on…
Posted in English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 4 Comments »
I’ve just published the Official Facebook Murrine Fan page, I guess it could be useful to share updates as well as requesting new features
Just another way to connect!
Become Fan and suggest to your Linux friends!
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 3 Comments »
It’s time to write documentation for the Murrine’s options: the development version in git is really advanced and could emulate an enormous number of styles thanks to the new options and features over the previous 0.90.3 stable release.
But, my time is precious and, as I am not payed to do it and the donations stopped 
, I can’t invest the same efforts I did in the past.
So, waiting better days, I decided with Kenneth from Ubuntu to open a page in the Ubuntu Wiki (later to be moved on live.gnome.org and on the official Murrine website), where themers could help writing a great documentation of this amazing (not because I am the author 
) GTK+ engine.
Other major tasks before a new release is to improve RGBA support on few sides… I will definitely look into it in the future, when it will be possible!
If you want to support me in the development of the engine and new themes you could always sponsor me I am thinking about writing down a list of the donors, what do you think?
Posted in Donations, English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 2 Comments »
Small post, just for the guys who don’t follow me on twitter.
For Ubuntu Lucid the desktop team started working on a patch which enables RGBA colormap by default, and adds client-side window decorations capabilities as well.
That means transparency to your applications and much more
Murrine will try to follow this trend, maybe slowly because I’m busy with other things, but something will happen.
For the braves, here’s the link to the bug.
Of course, donations to Murrine are always welcome!
Posted in Compiz, English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 10 Comments »
UPDATE: should be out soon http://download.gnome.org/sources/murrine/0.90/
I’m still not sure but maybe I will publish a Murrine development release in this weekend (with development I mean it won’t be called 1.0, maybe 0.90 or similar).
I’d like to have it included in Jaunty, because ubuntu is actually shipping an old bugged svn snapshot and I’m a bit tired of closing bugreports about that obsolete version.
If you have some last requests, please take a look at that post.
Posted in English, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 2 Comments »
I’ve sad news for you all.
This year I will be at the university during the weeks and, since I don’t have a laptop, I’m actually forced to stop the development of Murrine, Clearlooks and all other projects in which I put my effort. I hope you can help me to not have to stop working on Gtk+ software.
Please Help Me
At the same time, being a student, I don’t have the means on my own to buy a laptop, even a cheaper one. So I am asking for your help by means of a donation. Only with a laptop I can continue to organize the work needed for a fully functional system-wide transparent RGBA mode in upcoming GNOME release as well as following your requests and adding features.
So, if you enjoyed my work these past years and you want to keep these things alive, or if you just want to give me your personal *thank you for creating Murrine* or *thanks for the Clearlooks restyling* please consider a donation. All funds received will be used only for supporting the development of my free software projects.
I don’t know how much I can achieve from this, netbooks start at 400$ and if I get more I can hack on more advanced effects
I’ve opened a new section in the Murrine’s website, Feature Requests, where the most popular features could become a reality when I can code again. It is like my thank you for your donations. In that way you’re sure you’re donation will be used to the development. And after donating you can see some of your dreams implemented
By the time I’m writing the post there are seven pending features:
But these are just a few, with your donations I can implement them and what you like!
I would like to thank everyone will help me.
Status of the Gtk+ RGBA support
For the guys who missed my
first RGBA revolutionary post, they could see
how a Gtk+ engine could be transparent
Enabling RGBA
inside applications was a test, but the real goal is to set RGBA system-wide, so
every Gtk+ interface will have this channel and all of its benefits (
not only transparency, but also rounded menus, fancy tooltips, notifications and visual effects…).
- To achieve this there was a bug in the system tray which was fixed in trunk few days ago, and another patch pending in gnome-panel that needs approval.
- Got it, the next step is to write a small patch for Gtk+ in order to give the user a xsetting or an environment variable to enable/disable the RGBA visual/colormap. There was a discussion months ago, I ask Gtk+ devs for their opinion on this topic.
- Reached this point, we need to start testing applications, and submit patches to the applications that behaves in a wrong way (for example Gnumeric or Abiword), or poke Xorg guys if we will find new Xorg bugs.
If everything is ok, GNOME will be fully capable of using RGBA colormaps for its themes (wow a rounded gnome-panel!)
Summary of Murrine Projects
One of my dreams is to involve more and more people, and coordinate a group of talented themers/artists with the common goal of creating visually-satisfying and high-quality themes using and improving Murrine engine to its best.
- Murrine: Since the latest stable release (0.53.1) I’ve rewritten the code two times, I’ve fixed bugs, I’ve simplified the code improving the rendering speed, I’ve added a huge number of new options and now, thanks to the Clearlooks style code it is really modular and supports different styles like Glossy, Classic, Gummy, Inverted for Clearlooks. For example: writing a new style for next Ubuntu releases is possible without a rewrite, I just need to add the new drawing code, choose a name for the gtkrc option, and map it If we ever had released a 1.0, this would definitely qualify for a 2.0.
- Website: First of all don’t forget to register to the Murrine Website, a place where you can easily submit your themes, send your mockups, request your features, download per-application RGBA patches, ask questions to themers, vote your favourite contents! More sections could be added, email me if you have an idea.
- Murrine-Themes: From September I’ve asked lucazade to start developing a high quality set of themes for the next-gen Murrine release, using options to achieve original looks while providing an usable everyday visual experience. This project, called murrine-themes and hosted on launchpad, it is still far from being high-quality, but I’m sure that in his hands and in your hands (if you want to participate) it will be a must-have complement to the engine.
- Contest: The best themes published in the Murrine Website could be part of Murrine-Themes!
- Murrine Configurator: Two Australian guys started developing a new kind of configurator, hosted on launchpad, compatible with every engine, that will make Murrine theming fun as a video game If you are interested in joining the development or starting a configurator optimized for Murrine (it will be better of course, seen the high number of options), ask and you’ll be part of this great theming crew.
- Bazaar Playground: Murrine is first of all free software, why don’t play with the source code? There’s also a launchpad mirror, where you could play with your own branches! And why not, good modifications could be merged!
If you want to talk directly with the few guys that populates the chat, if you want to keep track of the development, don’t forget to join! We are (well, there are just few guys actually) on Freenode, channel #murrine. Add it to your autojoin!
Status of the Official GNOME Theming Projects
The “Clearlooks restyling” you’ve seen from 2.19 was done to achieve an enjoyable professional look, while being original (Clearlooks is not a copy of OS-X or Vista). A theme that could be used for years without getting annoyed
I don’t have in mind another restyle for Clearlooks, but there are a lot of minor things that require always a bit of work: starting with bugfixing to some gnome-panel theming (which will require more work). Two things that were planned for 2.24 are a compact theme (for small screens) and a dark theme for Clearlooks. I would really like to help more Benzea on this side, he is totally praiseworthy.
I would like to provide another good set of free wallpapers, at least in the gnome-themes-extras package.
Another thing in mind, but I won’t personally code for this, is colorscheme support for Gtk+ themes! You choose a theme, click on the color section of the appearance capplet, and select through a combobox or a listview the colorscheme you like. As well as storing a new one.
Donations are important to keep me inside the GNOME Art Team.
Spread the Voice
This post is really important because it’s a summary of the future Gtk+ theming, where I consider Murrine as a great tool for artists and themers. Please spread the voice on Digg and other social websites so everyone could learn from this.
Posted in Donations, English, GNOME, GTK, Murrine, Themes | 16 Comments »
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