Xenophilia Theme

Overview

Xenophilia is a theme engine for GTK+. Its look could be described as a mix of NextStep, Windows 95 and Amiga, or in other words: plain. Xenophilia was made this way because the default look of GTK (author's opinion) was worse than any of the ones mentioned above, and it was also lacking in a few areas which could be improved upon through the application of common user interface design principles.

By the way, both Windows 95 and Amiga are borrowing much of their visuals from NextStep to begin with.

Configuration

Introduction

When a GTK+ program is loaded, the GTK library parses the file $HOME/.gtkrc, any application-specific style files and any files that they refer to. These files are in the same text-based format and consist of two types of paragraphs: styles and application of these styles onto widget classes and named widgets. More about the format of these files can be found in the GTK+ documentation and in a tutorial at gtk.themes.org.

Xenophilia is a theme engine. In order to activate the engine and bind it to a style, the style's definition must include a specific clause: engine "xeno" { }. The quoted name tells GTK to use the engine with that name. The curly brackets are mandatory, and any engine-specific options should be placed within them.

The options are in the form option = value. If you do not define an option, the default or inherited value for the option will be used. You always override an inherited value if you define it defined, even if the new value is true and the inherited value was false.

By the way, you should not put a semicolon at the end. =)

Scrollbar

The Xenophilia theme engine applies a few patches to the scrollbar widget which can be configured using the options below:
scrollbar_knob = ( none | dimple | lines | holes | buds | box )

If the option is set to anything but none, an image will be drawn on the center of each scrollbar to indicate that it can be moved.
A dimple is a little hole as found on the NextStep scrollbars.
The lines are drawn as the lines on the scrollbars in MacOS.
holes, and
buds are also common patters used to indicate movable objects.
A box is an etched in box. Looks better on other widgets though.

scrollbar_width = integer_number

Sets the width of the scrollbar in pixels. Default is 15.

stepper_arrows = ( true | false )

If true the stepper arrows will be drawn in the default GTK style, i.e. they will be bevelled and drawn without any surrounding box. The default is false.
stepper_arrows = false
stepper_arrows = true

stepper_ends = ( true | false )

If true the steppers will be placed at either end of the scrollbar instead of in the corner, which is the default.

stepper_box = ( true | false )

Draw boxes around the stepper arrows. This option is per default set to the inverse of the option stepper_arrows, but can also be set explicitly. Having no boxes around black arrows is rather ugly, but some people (especially old Amigans) like to put boxes around bevelled arrows.=)

scrollbar_flush = ( true | false )

If true then there will be no inset border around the scrollbar and its buttons. This will look better when the scrollbar is used for scrolling another widget that does not have any inset border, e.g. X-Chat and gnome-terminal text windows.

Other widgets

paned_knob = ( none | dimple | lines | holes | buds | box)

The Xenophilia theme engine patches the GtkVPaned and GtkHPaned widget classes to make the resize-knob into a resize-bar that spans the entire length of the gutter. This options define how this resizebar should be drawn. Default is box, which means that the resizebar should be drawn with an etched-in frame, in the style of previous versions of Xenophilia.

handle_knob = ( none | lines | holes | buds | box)

The default (none) is to draw the handle like ones Netscape 4.x have. If it is set to buds or holes, the buds will be organized in a regular grid. If you set it to lines it will be drawn like handle boxes in Windows 95. The box option makes it look like a resizebar.

button_default = ( in | thin in )

Sets the frame that is drawn around buttons who are automatically clicked when RETURN is pressed.

popup_arrows = ( true | false )

Changes the tab on the GtkOptionMenu (popup menu button) to a pair of solid arrows.

General options

thin = ( true | false )

If thin is set to true, then all frames for the style will be drawn with thin frames. Also, the border thickness of the widgets will be one pixel instead of the default two pixels, which means that the widgets could also be smaller than otherwise. I propose that you set thin = true for GtkFrame and other widgets that use the etched-in frames extensivelly.

Syntax				Default
shine [ [ state_type ] ] = real_number				1.0
shade [ [ state_type ] ] = real_number				0.66667
white [ [ state_type ] ] = real_number				2.0
black [ [ state_type ] ] = real_number				0.0

These values are shading factors used to blend the background color into the colors used to draw the frames. State_type must be one of NORMAL, PRELIGHT, ACTIVE, SELECTED and INSENSITIVE as usual. A value of 0.0 gives black, 1.0 gives the background color, and a value of 2.0 give white. The values will be clamped so that white > shine > 1.0 > shade > black. If state_type and its brackets are omitted, the factors will be set to all previously set states except for the INSENSITIVE state, whose factor will be set to the medium of the NORMAL factor and 1.0 if unset.

flat_windows = ( true | false )

If true no bevel is drawn in the window and the menu bar will only be underlined. This will make Xenophilia themes look better together with a window manager theme that does not give windows any inner bevel or black border.

bg_style = ( none | gradient ( horizontal | vertical ) shade_factor )

Specify how the background should be drawn. The shade_factor for gradients is interpreted just as the values for shine and shade.