Beryllium Theming

Bearded_Blunder · 2022-04-10 21:01:03

Well if you want a curve ball for all the dark themes, install VirtualBox
Then play with the appearance settings, trying to find something where a dark appearance everywhere else doesn't make the font in the UI fade into unreadability..

It's just about readable if I pick Yeti from the available choices.. but that messes up VLC... It might all be harmonious if you can find everything GTK.. but some things use QT, & those are a bit of a random mess.

johnraff · 2022-04-11 04:03:35

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

Well if you want a curve ball for all the dark themes, install VirtualBox
Then play with the appearance settings, trying to find something where a dark appearance everywhere else doesn't make the font in the UI fade into unreadability..

First off, you don't have any problems with the current dark Lithium theme?

johnraff · 2022-04-11 07:41:49

DeepDayze wrote:

2nd [black] one is good for me too maybe have a plain one for those who want to use the BL logo conky with it.

Good idea. I'm sure @hhh could easily make a plain version.

johnraff · 2022-04-11 07:56:06

eight.bit.al wrote:

The multi-colored icons in the menu clash with the theme, imho.

Agreed, but:

sleekmason wrote:

I don't think BL uses icons in their menu

Correct. Let's keep it that way for now (Beryllium) but later look at how to use custom (different from the GTK setting) icons in jgmenu. A set of grey icons might look good.

For that matter, if there's a nice grey icon set already made somewhere that could replace Papirus-grey with little or no work (important at this point in time) then we could consider it...?

Naah... my vote is not to mess with the current BL no-menu-icons style, at least for the moment.

johnraff · 2022-04-11 08:02:38

Bearded_Blunder wrote:

It might all be harmonious if you can find everything GTK.. but some things use QT, & those are a bit of a random mess.

Up to now it's been possible to get QT to co-operate on the desktop with a couple of environment variables and config packages. I do vaguely remember the Virtualbox GUI itself being difficult to read with some themes, but wonder if we have to give that high priority right now?

johnraff · 2022-04-11 08:12:18

sleekmason wrote:

I wanted to get a richer black and add some color without overwhelming the theme. Dragon, based off of Drow, so color is added enough to get a better blend, and everything is toned down quite a bit. The other is Dark-Drow Which is similar but with no extra help on the black, and a different accent color.

I guess I'll have to try the themes in a real VM to see it, but just going from the screenshots my eyes can't really see any difference between Dark Earth, Dragon and Dark-Drow. Where should I look to see where you've added colour?

As to the people who say these shots are Dark... I kind of see what you mean, but generally think the Black concept might turn out to be quite striking in its own way.

How would it look if there were a couple of small highlights in red?? Just something like the highlighted item colour for instance? Might clear the dinginess, but would it blow the harmony away?

Maybe at this point we can ship BLACK as default and also include something bright and cheerful as an alternative?

johnraff · 2022-04-11 08:14:18

unklar wrote:

Actually, I was of the opinion that you would (finally) consider the wallpaper suggestions made long ago by @ututo or @brontosaurusrex to give BL a young, fresh look. However, it must be gloomy and dark again.

again? I don't find Lithium gloomy at all! Dark and elegant.

Bearded_Blunder · 2022-04-11 13:47:37

johnraff wrote:

First off, you don't have any problems with the current dark Lithium theme?

Always been a problem, I've just either squitned, or used a light theme if I planned to work with that much.

Up to now it's been possible to get QT to co-operate on the desktop with a couple of environment variables and config packages. I do vaguely remember the Virtualbox GUI itself being difficult to read with some themes ...

Up till now VirtualBox has always been particularly uncooperative, regardless of those being set, or even any of the other tricks mentioned on the Arch Wiki in the course of digging I found a slew of bugs filed with Oracle about it, by users using various distributions.

... wonder if we have to give that high priority right now?

Turns out after some extensive searching no we don't, although I can't find a reference in the documentation VirtualBox supports a (limited) number of command-line options to change the UI style.

Anyone who has issues can be pointed at a quick menu edit or start from a terminal.

The two most useful are:

VirtualBox --style Fusion

Which makes the text readable in any theme I tried, light or dark, even though the main UI stays much the same & consequently seems slightly out of place with a dark theme.

Or to fit reasonably well with the available Bunsen darker appearance settings (or match exactly in one case):

VirtualBox --style Adwaita-Dark

That one has the reverse issue with light themes. Though it's probably what I'll be using from now on.

Probably by copying the .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications/ & making a quick edit to the copy.

Finding those has rendered the entire thing a non-issue for anyone other than the most pedantic about making things match. Even they have one option.

They'll be useful for anyone who has an issue & asks for help. Or just reads this.

If I'd started a help thread over it I'd now mark it [SOLVED].

Last edited by Bearded_Blunder (2022-04-12 04:16:42)

johnraff · 2022-04-12 02:31:51

^Thanks for the VB hints. They'll have to be added to the release notes, either copied in, or as a link to this post.

johnraff · 2022-04-12 02:43:34

unklar wrote:

@eight.bit.al, example accepts.
https://i.imgur.com/l5bQ2Tst.jpg
and, as if by magic, beryllium does everything itself
https://i.imgur.com/G7znAUSt.jpg

Even if we go with the black theme, let's ship that blue fuzzy wallpaper as an option. It really does look nice with the default Lithium theme.

EDIT: @eight.bit.al whose copyright is that image?

Last edited by johnraff (2022-04-12 06:59:29)

hhh · 2022-04-12 05:08:31

Gah, I'm glad and also sorry that I started this thread. Glad because it has everyone here involved in it, and sorry because it has everyone here involved in it. I fear we've reached "painting the bike shed" status.

@brontosaurusrex hasn't posted once, hopefully because he's too busy.

Let @sleekmason theme the release (nice work, buddy!) because I'm too busy ATM, and we can all chime in with our paint color choices, but let's push the ISO.

There are some great themes in this thread. My OP scrot...

-edit- ...

https://i.imgur.com/hzFWpMA.png

https://i.imgur.com/wd9HTmI.png

https://i.imgur.com/fvNaLRT.png

https://postimg.cc/q682vnkW

Earlier in the thread (page 2 for me) we had some consensus on this one...

https://i.imgur.com/a5ibmQV.png

More...

8bit al had one here but it's a 404 now. He came back with Garuda, though, which is very pretty...

https://garudalinux.org/images/garuda/d … nized.webp

Linked in the thread by @dolly, a PackRat theme...

https://i.postimg.cc/GpxBydm2/E5lgYN.png

One 8bit (sorry to abbreviate) really liked...

https://imgur.com/YxPjchF.png

Lillidog from 8bitAl...

https://i.ibb.co/h8BbnMW/ld.png

This is why @johnraff and I want @sleekmason to take care of it, he's a BL fan and he gets our esthetic...

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 55#p121455

And let's for sure include this wallpaper I made, if only for a reference...

https://i.imgur.com/DUwd5wv.jpg

And the @sleek themes from that...

https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 88#p121688

Anyway, let's paint this bike shed and push the bikes onto the streets.

Everyone cool with Dark-Earth as the default GTK theme? (we can tweak the icons and OB theme still if needed)...

https://i.postimg.cc/jtTGksVd/Dark-Earth.png

hhh · 2022-04-12 05:46:00

Crap, please say no. I still want the OP theme. I want some Japanese Sunrise on my desktop.

I jest, I'm too busy to contribute ATM, it's in your hands everyone.

Bearded_Blunder · 2022-04-12 06:00:49

hhh wrote:

Everyone cool with Dark-Earth as the default GTK theme? (we can tweak the icons and OB theme still if needed)...
https://i.postimg.cc/jtTGksVd/Dark-Earth.png

Looks pretty good to me. The WP ought to work with a 4:3 monitor too (people do still have those, verily I say unto thee.. even ones that max out at 1024x768).. at least it should on zoomed fill.

Last edited by Bearded_Blunder (2022-04-12 06:04:04)

johnraff · 2022-04-12 06:57:46

hhh wrote:

Anyway, let's paint this bike shed and push the bikes onto the streets.
Everyone cool with Dark-Earth as the default GTK theme?

Looks good to me too. Let's go!
@sleekmason give me a couple of days to see if I can find any nits to pick. (Possibly the scrollbars?)

side-track:
@hhh have you got gtk/ob themes to go with that sunrise pic? If so, let's ship them too, put it in the BLOB presets and have a total contrasting alternative to the black default available. Only snag I see is having to generate an ugly blue Papirus icon set... would it work with blue-grey instead?

@B_B glad you raised the question of screen resolution. Taking that we aren't about to ship wallpapers to match a variety of screen dimensions, what's the best size for our wallpapers, so that they'll look OK for the most people? Right now our most common size is 1920x1080, but there are others.

rbh · 2022-04-12 09:17:14

hhh wrote:

Crap, please say no. I still want the OP theme. I want some Japanese Sunrise on my desktop.

Sunrise from Sohut of Lappland?

Red.Morning.at.Brännland.RoadE12.South.of.Lappland-2018.11.04.png

Last edited by rbh (2022-04-12 09:17:36)

Bearded_Blunder · 2022-04-12 10:42:10

johnraff wrote:

@B_B glad you raised the question of screen resolution.

Well my opinion only shipping 1920X1080 will work for pretty much all 16x9 screens though, anyone with 1440p or 4k might prefer higher res & standard 1080p users just get it scaled down by Nitrogen.
Most of the walls in Lithium are 1920x1080.
Helium they were mostly 2880x1800

It's all been beautifully inconsistent.

Thing is when scaling for old 4x3 aspect ratio screens things like logos & text sometimes get distorted & look dead weird, & the other options lead to bars above & below.. wallpaper in "letterbox format", or chunks going off the screen edges, which isn't so hot when that's part of a logo or text.

Might be worth shipping at least a version of the default wall & maybe logo only if you're doing that again in 4x3 in maybe 1280x1024 which is the likeliest res for surviving 4x3 screens.. Nitrogen can shrink that for my rare-as-all-get-out surviving 1024x768..

Those remaining old screen users might appreciate one or two options that look right.

I guess I'll have to locate the theme & try installing it to see.. that'll be an adventure, I've never so much as tried to install one on Linux, & it's been years even on Windows.. or someone could just try looking in a VM how good/bad or indifferent it looks set to a resolution that's 4x3 aspect ratio compared to 16x9.

Hydrogen shipped a variant for extra-wide screens (2560x1080), but not 4x3 which always struck me as bass-ackwards given it got installed on lots of old machines rather than new ones with super-wide screens, & didn't have a WP to suit old stuff properly.

I don't think there's a lot of need to consider all the other aspect ratios, though looking at my LXQT VM, it appears Debian do provide for them, at least for the default wallpaper.

And after all of that long speech.. I'm not actually bothered so long as it looks ok on 4x3 & 16x9 both.. no wierd distortions or text heading off screen with the default settings.

Last edited by Bearded_Blunder (2022-04-12 10:48:54)

sleekmason · 2022-04-12 12:22:20

^ @Bearded_Blunder You are a wealth of information! Thank you for the above, and the Virtualbox notes. Good stuff.

@johnraff, sounds good, looking forward to it. We can flatten the scrollbars, recolor, resize, and more:)

DeepDayze · 2022-04-12 12:42:04

Why not offer 2 sizes of each wall as that will cover all the bases as not everyone might have a 16:9 monitor so a 4:3 option should be able to cover those with those "square" monitors.

Bearded_Blunder · 2022-04-12 13:40:00

DeepDayze wrote:

Why not offer 2 sizes of each wall as that will cover all the bases as not everyone might have a 16:9 monitor so a 4:3 option should be able to cover those with those "square" monitors.

Might not need to, since the logo & text are lowish & left there's a fair chance they look ok. Hence saying I or someone could do with having a look. If it's not actually needed, then why increase the size of the install?

Now.. going back earlier (Hydrogen & Helium), the positioning of the logo/text further right on some of the walls would sometimes mean some of it ending up under the default conky on some lower resolution "square" monitors. Which spoils the look a little.

Where the logo is relative to other things makes a difference. Something even Debian themselves tripped a little with for the Bullseye installer & positioning their name in white on the boot screen.... Try to type a preseed/late_command as a boot parameter on the BIOS booted version of the installer & you end up typing white text on the white "Debian" & can't see what you put, unless you switch to high contrast "Accessibilty" mode first, which removes the image.

sleekmason · 2022-04-12 15:33:40

As it goes, there is some 'behind the scenes' work taking place as well. All three of the darker themes: Dark Earth, Dark Drow, and Dragon, all have the scrollbars changed out to a look closer to what one might expect, and the address bar of Dark Earth has been adjusted for contrast as well.

Instructions to try the themes can be found here: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 18#p121718

#121 2022-04-10 21:01:03

Re: Beryllium Theming

#122 2022-04-11 04:03:35

Re: Beryllium Theming

#123 2022-04-11 07:41:49

Re: Beryllium Theming

#124 2022-04-11 07:56:06

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#125 2022-04-11 08:02:38

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#126 2022-04-11 08:12:18

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#127 2022-04-11 08:14:18

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#128 2022-04-11 13:47:37

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#129 2022-04-12 02:31:51

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#130 2022-04-12 02:43:34

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#131 2022-04-12 05:08:31

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#132 2022-04-12 05:46:00

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#133 2022-04-12 06:00:49

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#134 2022-04-12 06:57:46

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#135 2022-04-12 09:17:14

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#136 2022-04-12 10:42:10

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#137 2022-04-12 12:22:20

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#138 2022-04-12 12:42:04

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#139 2022-04-12 13:40:00

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#140 2022-04-12 15:33:40

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