Hello all the VDG members I am here again with a request, my request is a little bit simple and it is if you can make a Breeze GTK2 and GTK3theme, why? well... for GTK apps such as VBA-M Chrome Firefox FCEUX Steam and many other GTK apps what needs a GTK theme, it should look exactlly like the Qt theme but also have a good look for it's client side decorations mode, my idea is use for the CSD mode exactlly the same close button of the plasma theme adapted to it and use the same design for the maximize and minimize buttons to be posible to use GTK CSD apps on KDE like elementary apps

I'd actually be very very happy if I'd see "breeze-gtk" in the update process. As an option to replace the oxygen-gtk.

The apps I use most often where the oxygen style clashes are gimp and firefox. I don't think there are any alternatives available for those two. Be it the level of expertise aquired or the syncing to other devices/operating systems and data accumulated.

I hope this happens before stable release of 15.04.

I wholeheartedly agree, this is absolutely needed in the long-term. If Plasma 5 / Breeze ever wants to reach a state where it can be used in a productive manner, the look and feel should be consistent across all kinds of toolkits - just as Oxygen does it. I do favor Qt applications but there are some GTK2/3 applications I absolutely can't abandon.

Given the more minimal/simplistic design approach Breeze is taking, I'd argue that it might be possible to sufficiently recreate Breeze in pure GTK3 and/or GTK2. However, GTK3 loves to break themes every once in a while when a new version is released.
A seperate engine (breeze-gtk) would be the best way to solve it, in my opinion.

I'm actually a bit surprised that no one seems to have done a breeze theme for gtk already... or at least I could not find it on goole *-look.org or deviantart.

But my search-foo seems to be weak today anyways.

Here is the relevant bug report on the GTK3 versions of Breeze and Oxygen. To summarize: The GTK3 lost support for the GTK theme engine Hugo was using to make his GTK themes. Unfortunately, the only solutions at this point is to use a similar GTK theme (such as Orion) as suggested in that bug report or create a new GTK3 theme based on GTK3's forever shifting theme APIs...

M4he wrote:A seperate engine (breeze-gtk) would be the best way to solve it, in my opinion.

That (an engine) is not possible anymore in gtk3 (which is why oxygen-gtk3 is now unsupported). It has to be all css, which is where my skills (and interest) stops (at least in the short/middle term). Also, from what I have read elsewhere the css theming API was at least untill recently also very unstable (if not inexistent), and the documentation very poor (especially when comming to animations, shadows and other fancy stuff)

Still, anyone willing to give it a shot is more than welcome.

hugo.pereira@free.fr wrote:

M4he wrote:A seperate engine (breeze-gtk) would be the best way to solve it, in my opinion.

That (an engine) is not possible anymore in gtk3 (which is why oxygen-gtk3 is now unsupported). It has to be all css ...

What a bummer. Thanks for pointing that out though! I'm not that familiar with the current GTK3 development.
That leaves no other option but to create a replica of Breeze in GTK3's css. Will be a nightmare supporting all those API versions (3.10, 3.12, 3.14 ...).
Many distributions are already using different GTK3 versions and the fragmentation is only going to get worse ...

Yes, it's not a nice thing to have the API breaking every release, though to be fair it has somewhat stabilized for 3.14 and 3.16. Themes however are done in SASS for 3.16 and 3.14 compatibility.

Thankfully as pointed out the design of the Breeze theme is minimal enough that it can be recreated using SASS and/or using SVG images. The issue is that once created it will have to be maintained and fixed whenever the API breaks again.

but what about gtk2?
Firefox, thunderbird, eclipse (swt->gtk2), gimp still uses gtk2 and code from oxygen-gtk can be adjusted to use breeze

Gtk2 is expected to go away soon, so the motivation for writing a theme specifically for it is understandably low. I think everyone agrees that consistency is an important thing, what we need is a person with the skill, time and motivation to write the gtk theme(s).

kdeuserk wrote:Gtk2 is expected to go away soon

No, not really. Firefox, Inkscape, and Gimp will stay on GTK2 for the foreseeable future.

KAMiKAZOW wrote:

kdeuserk wrote:Gtk2 is expected to go away soon

No, not really. Firefox, Inkscape, and Gimp will stay on GTK2 for the foreseeable future.

For the short term yes, but Firefox and Inkscape both have GTK 3 builds. Firefox even uses CSD, Gimp on the other hand.. well.

Another option for GTK2 is QtCurve with Breeze style ( http://www.iwillfolo.com/2014/07/give-k ... omization/ )

For Firefox, Thunderbird and Java apps (not swing but SWT) works quite good and feels faster than oxygen on gtk2 (no shaddows?).

wojtask wrote:Another option for GTK2 is QtCurve with Breeze style ( http://www.iwillfolo.com/2014/07/give-k ... omization/ )

For Firefox, Thunderbird and Java apps (not swing but SWT) works quite good and feels faster than oxygen on gtk2 (no shaddows?).

This might at least be a better choice than the current chosen GTK (Orion?) which is the standard for the recent Neon 5 iso IIRC.
I've played around with QtCurve before. Unfortunately you aren't able to specify things like the roundness of elements specifically for single elements of the interface but only as a general option for the whole QtCurve theme. I'd argue that QtCurve is far too inflexible to be really made to resemble Breeze closely.

For example, if you set the roundness to maximum so that the scrollbars look completely rounded (like Breeze) not like a rectangle with rounded corners, you will get buttons that are far too rounded, not resembling Breeze's buttons at all. If you get the buttons right (like in the theme you linked to) you will mess up the scrollbars.

A dedicated GTK theme might be more capable of resembling Breeze. One could even use static textures (pixmap) for things that can't be recreated using the available engines there (might have an impact on performance though).

I threw a little GTK 2 theme together in my spare time for my own use. It's still pretty hacky and unfinished, so I called it 'Breezy' but it may be enough to take the edge off for some of you.

Breezy GTK 2 Theme

Here's a short list of issues:

Scrollbars have a slight outer edge and no stoppers
Ranges within text fields are blocky
Menus have no rounded corners (impossible without a custom ARGB engine) and behave differently from Qt menus
Toolbuttons don't display the right edge properly
Tooltips are very simple without rounded edges
Buttons don't remain blue to show focus

I'm sure there are plenty of discrepancies beyond that which I've simply looked over- it's definitely not suitable for widespread distribution. I just thought someone might like to take a look in the meantime while a proper solution comes along. I think the only way to get an acceptable degree of visual parity in GTK 2 is to build something like oxygen-gtk, since the pixmap engine has some serious limitations even with the flexibility it offers.

I'm far more optimistic about getting a GTK 3 version of the theme looking similar- it may even be possible to grab KDE's color scheme. Without a custom solution like oxygen-gtk, I don't think we can expect to match colors in GTK 2. It really is too bad that things have gotten so much more complicated on this front.

Anyway, here are a few screenshots.