Port for GTK+

[insunaa]

I really like the nord theme, it looks great!

I was wondering if a nord GTK+ theme is something that's possible?

[arcticicestudio]

I also thought about a custom GTK+ theme which would fit perfectly with all the other port projects 😄
But a well designed quality theme coded from scratch needs a lot of effort.
I'm using the awesome Arc theme on my systems where I changed the colors of to my Nord palette, but this is currently private only.

There are two possbile ways to realize a Nord GTK+ theme:

1. Create the port project based on the Arc project and recode it to fit Nord and my UI style guide
2. Create a patch for Arc that only changes the colors, but this must be done every time the user updates Arc and could only be applied when the user compiles it from the source instead of installing the precompiled CSS code

I'll think about it and see which way to go, but I'd really like to go the first way.
This would also allow me to create a light variant which I planned for all other port projects too spoiler 😆

[arcticicestudio]

I've added this to the epic issue #18 in the UI Libraries section as a planned official port project 😉
I'll notify you as soon as the specific backlog issue is created so you can track the progress or contribute ideas for this port project.

[lokesh-krishna]

I'm using the awesome Arc theme on my systems where I changed the colors of to my Nord palette, but this is currently private only.

Could you please share what colors it is that you changed so that I (and anybody who is interested) could try out what it looks like?

[lokesh-krishna]

I too use Arc along with Nord for all the apps on my system for which a Nord port exists. I use Papirus as my icon theme and came across this issue there: #705.

Would you perhaps be interested in forking Arc like you said you would like to and resurrect it as Nord GTK/Shell? I am sure a lot of people would be really grateful. It is a beautiful theme and I for one would like to see it live on.

[arcticicestudio]

As already mentioned in the linked issue it's hard to maintain such a project if the platform (GTK) almost breaks with every update. I think they try to solve this with GTK4 so it might be a better time to build a Nord GTK theme on top of this.

Currently I'm really busy and don't have much time to spent it on my projects, but I'll note down to check if a Arc fork would work as indented in the meantime until stable GTK4 releases are available.

[lokesh-krishna]

Thank you so much for replying :)

I think this might be pertinent in this discussion: Versioning and long term stability promise in GTK+

GTK 3.22 should be a pretty stable platform to theme on for the next couple of years if I am reading that blog right.

[lokesh-krishna]

Arc has now been forked in order to continue maintenance: New repository for Arc

Here's the relevant discussion from the original Arc repository: soft fork arc-theme for future maintenance.

I think this would be a better base for Nord GTK for compatibility purposes. Depending upon just how much in alignment with or divergent from Arc your own UI guidelines are, it would be nice if you could look into contributing to this effort itself. Ideas in alignment, if implemented here itself would reduce the work needed for your fork. That way, the Nord theme would benefit from all the effort put into this by not just you but other contributors as well, reducing the maintenance overhead so that you can focus on only the differences while working from a stable and up-to-date base.

[arcticicestudio]

Well there are 455 in this moment which tried to be the next active fork. If this really works and they can keep the theme up-to-date it should be left "untouched" with the meaning of the design so it would not be appropriate if I'd try to change it to the Nord UI design principles, but thank you for notifying me about this fork 😄

[raskyld]

Still hyped by the project :)

[svnset]

Hey, since good generic themes are hard to find I switchted to Nord yesterday with almost all my stuff. You did a great job and I already feel home :)

Maintaining a theme can be quite tiresome. So patching one of the advanced themes like arc, adapta, materia etc. to our needs is a good solution. After trying different approaches, the most easy one I like to share here is to use materia with oomox (if you need eg. gnome-shell support). Providing one or more oomox templates would be super easy.

Example oomox-theme based on materia with nord9 and nord10 as unobtrusive highlight colors: https://ptpb.pw/sMiq

Keep up the good work :)

[Ragnar770]

@svnset Can you share the theme? I'd love to use something more boxy after using Arc for so long.

[svnset]

Sure. Create a file in ~/.config/oomox/colors with the content: https://ptpb.pw/kVX1
Remember that it's just an example. You should experiment yourself with the colors especially with the bg colors nord0 and nord1. You can ignore the icons and terminal settings, at least I do.

Unfortunately the approach with oomox is not ideal and there are a few issues. For example choosing different colors to rerender the gnome-shell assets is not included. So a better approach atm would be to write a little script to change the colors of the gnome-shell assets (eg. the close button color to nord11) plus using the exposed change_color.sh script like described here: https://github.com/nana-4/materia-theme/blob/master/HACKING.md

This approach would be more generic and we could just provide patching scripts for a few themes instead of maintaining one. Doing the same thing for arc though is harder. Someone would have to write a script like the one from materia to change the gtk colors. As a starting point I would volunteer to nordify the materia theme.

EDIT: It seems rendering the gnome-shell assets is also included in oomox and the materia script but not complete. I have to see if this can be solved upstream by improving the change_color.sh script. As it is for now, we just have to change the close-button color to nord11 and its fg color to nord6 . I have to check which colors mentioned in https://github.com/nana-4/materia-theme/wiki/Theme-Colors get actually changed by the script and which not. tbc

[svnset]

An example how to quickly nordify the materia theme.

Create the materia-nord color palette (modify this file to your own needs, e.g. you can change the panel opacity from 0.0 to 1.0 by edititing the GNOME_SHELL_PANEL_OPACITY value)

EDIT: updated the example config to reflect latest script changes. A few things like changing WM_BORDER_* values is not implemented yet. Related Post

# ~/.colors/materia-nord
BG=353B49
FG=e5e9f0
BTN_BG=3b4252
BTN_FG=e5e9f0
MENU_BG=2e3440
MENU_FG=e5e9f0
ACCENT_BG=88C0D0
SEL_BG=5E81AC
SEL_FG=ECEFF4
TXT_BG=3b4252
TXT_FG=e5e9f0

HDR_BTN_BG=3b4252
HDR_BTN_FG=e5e9f0

WM_BORDER_FOCUS=88C0D0
WM_BORDER_UNFOCUS=2e3440

TERMINAL_COLOR4=81A1C1
TERMINAL_COLOR5=B48EAD
TERMINAL_COLOR9=BF616A
TERMINAL_COLOR10=A3BE8C
TERMINAL_COLOR11=EBCB8B
TERMINAL_COLOR12=5E81AC

GRADIENT=0.0
GNOME_SHELL_PANEL_OPACITY=0.0
MATERIA_STYLE_COMPACT=True
MATERIA_COLOR_VARIANT=dark
UNITY_DEFAULT_LAUNCHER_STYLE=False

NAME=nord

clone the materia theme

cd ~/.themes
git clone https://github.com/nana-4/materia-theme.git

create a new theme based on the materia-nord color scheme we created

cd materia-theme
./change_color.sh -o materia-nord ~/.colors/materia-nord

navigate to the new theme in ~/.themes/materia-nord

cd ../materia-nord

execute custom seds to change some assets. E.g. close buttons:

sed -i -e 's/#FF5252/#BF616A/' -e 's/#3b4252/#ECEFF4/' -e 's/opacity="0.3"/opacity="0.2"/' gnome-shell/assets/window-close-active.svg
sed -i -e 's/#FF5252/#BF616A/' -e 's/#3b4252/#ECEFF4/' gnome-shell/assets/window-close.svg

new theme ready to use :)

@arcticicestudio Would be nice to hear your opinion if it's worth to go any further here. In my opinion, a wiki hint on how to accomplish this could be already enough. But if you want to, we can create a gtk-repo with the materia theme as a starting point. The approach described here is easily scriptable with minimal effort. If we want to improve ./change_colors we should do it upstream though. After testing this theme combo for a few days now, I am quite happy with the result so far. Would be nice if someone else volunteers to test this theme and looks for major flaws or elements which do look annoying or/and inconsistent. I personally like to have the material color fallbacks, which was for me before I switchted to Nord my main color palette for everything anyways.

[arcticicestudio]

@svnset Thanks for your effort and the detailed building instructions 👍
I'll create the port project repository and copy your post over into the wiki. I think it's a good starting point to provide a nordified theme based on another advanced and stable project.

[svnset]

@arcticicestudio Hey, could you create the port project? We make great progress with the change_color script in upstream materia and the result looks fantastic now. The color scheme from 2 weeks ago is deprecated now and the new one looks better and many issues got resolved. More colors are exposed to change like minor colors. Here is a little preview: https://imgur.com/a/KYtnj

I can create a new post on this if you tell me where :D

Colors which are included now:

(can be all switched to personal preferences of course but to see how many already)

• nord0
• nord0.5 (50% nord0 50% nord1)
• nord1
• nord5 normal foreground
• nord6 selection foreground and secondary
• nord8 primary color
• nord9 link color
• nord10 selection color and info
• nord11 error and windowclose
• nord13 warning
• nord14 success (or eg. battery in gnome-settings)

[jderose9]

@svnset Could you post here in the meantime? Thanks!

[Ragnar770]

@svnset This looks amazing. Are there any plans for xfce support or is this something that depends on the mainline materia dev?

[Drakulix]

@svnset Could you post your material-nord color palette for the change_color script somewhere? (maybe a gist?)

So those that want to compile it on their own could do that more easily. I am having troubles replicating your exact theme (which looks awesome btw).

[svnset]

Hey guys sry for the late reply. So yeah I am waiting for the new gtk+ repo to provide a little more detailed guide to accomplish this. In the meantime I adapted the example from above to reflect the latest changes. Here.

@Ragnar770 Well the materia theme's main support is towards gtk3 related DE's. It works in gtk2 but does not look too good in my opinion.

@Drakulix , @jderose9 I updated the example post above with my current config. Feel free to test it.

[Ragnar770]

@svnset That's strange. The only problem with Materia + XFCE is the panel, which is actually gtk 3 now...

[svnset]

@Ragnar770 Report and ask upstream about xfce support here nana-4/materia-theme#60

[lokesh-krishna]

@arcticicestudio I understand that you are busy presently but if you could just create a test repository for the GTK theme where @svnset could host it, it would make it a lot easier to test and provide feedback.

Once you are satisfied with the quality of the project, you could make things official.

If that workflow isn't okay with you then @svnset, could you make a test repo yourself and then let it be merged into the official one when the time comes?

[gijsrrr]

Any update on progress on this? If there is an official fork i'd be happy to contribute to make Nord-Dark and Nord-Darker schemes like with Arc. Default 'Nord' scheme maybe a little bit too dark for some folks.

[arcticicestudio]

@lokesh-krishna I've thought about the repository again and I think it might be indeed a better idea to create a repository on your own or @svnset creates one. Should be easier to setup push/merge permissions.

[bino-faata]

Good news earthlings!
Found on gnome-look Nordic
User @EliverLara created a Nord-color based gtk theme
Watch here: Link

[svnset]

Hey guys I was very occupied with my job the last months sry.

I would say creating a repository for this is not necessary since it is merley a tweak of the materia theme and not a native theme solution.

I am currently using the suggested Nordic theme and I like it alot. So from my perspective, helping in improving the Nordic theme further makes more sense atm.

[r2binx]

Hi, the nord color palette is so awesome I'm using it anywhere!
Just wanted to let you know that I got a bit too bored and created another GTK+GNOME shell theme.

It's based on warnai (love the simplicity) and materia for the latter.
feel free to check it out :) would love some feedback as well!

https://github.com/r2binx/NordGTK

[Kabouik]

Thanks @r2binx, just started using your theme on Solus Budgie.

[ghost]

There is https://github.com/EliverLara/Nordic

[zoddDev]

I made a GTK+ Nord theme with oomox, which also supports Openbox WM, take a look if you want:

https://github.com/zodd18/openbox-nord-theme

[schemar]

I created a solarized version of the Arc theme here: https://github.com/schemar/solarc-theme

It works with a simple solarize.sh script to change the colors. You could update the solarize.sh script to use the Nord color palette, run it, and voila you have a Nord themed Arc. There may be edge cases, but it works overall quite nicely.

You only need to replace lines 94 - 112 in https://github.com/schemar/solarc-theme/blob/master/solarize.sh

[arcticicestudio]

It finally happened 🎉
https://blog.gtk.org/2020/12/16/gtk-4-0

This finally merges a lot of features and stability improvements for GNOME projects.

[axelitus]

So I'm guessing an official GTK project for Nord is on the way? This would be awesome! (although Arc is certainly a great looking theme which probably 90% of us that like the Nord theme are using currently)

[sharpenedblade]

Add a theme which is just adwiata with the _colors.scss changed. This would be the easiest to make and maintain, and it would have the least bugs with other apps.