gtk3-classic-module

This project provides a GTK module for GTK+ 3.24 to restore some of the traditional look-and-feel of older GTK versions to GTK 3. It is similar in spirit to gtk3-classic, and in fact much of the code in this module was inspired by the code from gtk3-classic; however, this module does not require recompiling of GTK from source code. You only need the development files for GTK; once this module is compiled, it can be installed without replacing GTK entirely.

Installation Instructions

You will need the Meson build system and the development files for GTK 3. On Debian, Ubuntu, and their derivatives, type the following command to install the build dependencies:

sudo apt install meson libgtk-3-dev

Download the source code for this module; cd into the directory into which you downloaded it. Then create a build directory and cd into that:

mkdir .build
cd .build

By default, it is assumed that GTK was installed into a prefix of /usr. If this is the case (it usually is), then you shouldn't need to supply any build options:

meson setup ..

If GTK was installed into a diffeerent prefix -- for instance /usr/local -- add the -Dprefix=[GTK-PREFIX] option to the above meson setup command, like so:

meson setup -Dprefix=/usr/local ..

Once the module is configured, build it and then install it:

meson compile
sudo meson install

You will need to restart all of your GTK applications before the module will take effect. If it doesn't then take effect, try running applications with the environment variable GTK_MODULES='gtk3-classic-module' set.

Once installed, please check out your /etc/gtk-3.0/settings.ini file. It contains numerous useful settings which can be changed, complete with a large amount of documentation about each option.

What Does This Module Do?

• Applies stock icons to buttons and menu items which have standard text labels (example: 'Open...', 'Save As', 'Unlock').

  

  Requires setting the GTK settings gtk-button-icons and/or gtk-menu-icons.

• Always displays underlines beneath mnemonics, even when the Alt key is not being held down. Normally, the mnemonics are displayed only when Alt is held down or when a menu is open and active.

  

  Requires disabling the GTK setting gtk-auto-mnemonics.

• Displays tree views with alternating row colours ('zebra stripes') if the tree view contains more than one column.

  

  Requires copying the contents of the file data/zebra-stripes.css into your ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css file; please see the file data/zebra-stripes.css for more information, as there is a comment at the top of that file with more things you may need to know.

• Forces GTK to display normal dialog buttons at the bottom of stock dialogs (e.g. About dialog, color chooser, file chooser), instead of displaying the buttons in a headerbar at the top of the dialog -- even on Wayland.

  

• One of the settings in the installed /etc/gtk-3.0/settings.ini file, default disables overlay scrolling: Scrollbars will always be displayed, instead of only appearing when you are about to use them.

  Change the gtk-overlay-scrolling GTK setting to affect this behaviour.

• Stock icon sizes are once again modifiable. Now you can have buttons with 24x24 icons instead of the tiny 16x16 icons that GTK 3 usually uses.

  See the GTK setting gtk-icon-sizes for more information.

• Text entry widgets do not display the 'Insert Emoji' item in the context menu.

  Re-enable the menu item by setting the environment variable GTKM_INSERT_EMOJI=1.

• Various dialogs have their old appearances restored, not the least of which is message dialogs: They once again have an image next to the dialog text (if it's appropriate to include an image), the text is left- (or right-) justified instead of being centered, and dialog buttons don't appear all grouped together into one lump:

  

• The file chooser has the 'typeahead find' feature re-enabled, as opposed to the recursive search that GTK 3 normally performs. Press Alt-S to launch the recursive search instead.

  

• The sizes of some widgets (mostly buttons) in the built-in GTK themes Adwaita and HighContrast have been reduced.

There may be other changes I have applied which I have forgotten to document here.

To-Do

• When the user scrolls over the tab bar of a GtkNotebook, switch the current tab.

  My experience with the patch from gtk3-classic is that some applications (e.g. Pluma implement this scrolling behaviour themselves, and thus with the gtk3-classic patch applied, scrolling will move over by two tab positions at a time. My implementation will record the current tab before passing control over to the default handler of scroll events; only if the current tab hasn't changed after the default handler runs, will the plugin switch tabs.

• At least convert headerbars from a virtual titlebar for the window into a box at the top of the window content area.

• Maybe use simple heuristics to eliminate the headerbar entirely if it's only used as a deliberate forced-client-side-titlebar.

• Convert menu-like popovers into traditional menus.

License

GNU LGPL-2. This is the same license under which GTK 3 is released.