[Pan-users] Re: How can I set pan2 to show white letters on black backgrounds on all panes?

[Duncan]

SciFi <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Mon, 23 Apr 2007
22:35:06 +0000:

[Duncan wrote...]

>> As for the gtkrc files themselves, initially, my colors were set (and
>> at least one of my files created) when I checked the box in KDE to
>> export my prefs to non-KDE apps.  However, I've modified them a bit
>> manually since then.  If you have no such files to serve as a starting
>> place or otherwise might find mine useful, ask, and I'll post them. 
>> (One of the reasons I prefer KDE to GNOME is that the KDE settings are
>> easier, both in the GUI and to set manually, than GTK/GNOME.  Some of
>> the GTK settings can be rather obscure and aren't so intuitive, at
>> least to me, so a file to start on can be quite useful.)  My background
>> isn't black; I prefer a bit of color, but it's a middle-dark cadetblue,
>> a bit darker than the named cadetblue4 but about the same
>> blue-green-gray hue. Default text is white.  However, it should serve
>> as a starting place, if you wish to edit them manually.
> 
> I've skimmed the provided html docs (I didn't want to scour all the
> requisites for the gtk-doc pkg).  It's overwhelming -- what widget do I
> modify for pan2 to get the colors I want, while not inadverently
> changing other things ... etc. ...  ;)

As I said, "Some of the GTK settings can be rather obscure and aren't so 
intuitive, at least to me", and it would appear you agree.  =8^\
"Overwhelming" as you said.  However, to try and concentrate on solving 
the immediate problem rather than pointing fingers, since it's not like 
we could do a lot about that anyway...

> I do see pan2's color settings for various "scores".  It'd be real nice
> if Charles would put in some settings for the panes in general.  ;)  I'm
> not too keen on the kind of programming needed, else I'd take a stab at
> it myself (I get deep into the system stuff).

In older pan, there were a couple more settings.  However, I understand 
Charles' motivation in not including them again.  pan under Charles' 
leadership has had a reasonably strong anti-code-bloat policy, and from 
time to time he has removed features or minor options that not enough 
people use, thus keeping the code easy to work with, both adding new 
features and exterminating bugs.  While I'm not a major GTK/GNOME user, I 
agree with him that this falls in that category, particularly since 
there /are/ other ways to set it.  By contract, I did ask for and get a 
few more color settings, where choices were originally hard-coded in new-
pan.  URL and sig color, in particular, were originally hard-coded, but 
difficult for me to see because the defaults simply didn't contrast 
sufficiently with my standard scheme color background.  Hard-coded 
foreground colors simply don't work when the background color isn't 
controlled by the app in question.   Luckily, Charles saw my point and 
added config options for them.
 
> So I wonder if you wouldn't mind posting enough to get started? I'd
> really appreciate it.

Below my sig you'll find my user's gtkrc-2.0 file (attached as text/
identity using my pan-attach-kd script, see the archive or my web page,
listed below, if interested).  It's all KDE's doing, and looks to be all
color save for the button-order thing.  I believe GTK's default button
order is the same as Apple's, however, so you'll probably want to comment
or delete that.

Below that is my system defaults gtkrc-2.0 file, which simply includes 
two others, so they follow in turn. (JED are my initials, which I 
frequently use to denote heavily customized files or backups thereof, 
knowing nothing else uses that extension so they aren't likely to get 
overwritten or whatever.)  The font file simply sets a font for the menu 
and etc that I find more workable.  You'll likely want to set something 
usable on your system for it.  The tooltips file is a workaround for a Qt 
issue (KDE's built on Qt, a toolkit much like GTK).  Qt seems to have 
hard-coded their tooltip background color to yellowish-white, and KDE 
didn't seem to allow for that, so with its settings, I was getting white 
text on the yellow-white background in tooltips, and that simply wasn't 
readable.

BTW, OT for pan but as a fellow light on dark preferences guy, you've
likely been as frustrated as I was with web pages, either glaring white
or worse yet, setting one of either foreground/text or background without
setting the other, thus producing invisible text in many cases.  If so,
you may wish to find and install privoxy, set your web browser to use it,
and then run the privoxy filterset I've developed over the years to
(normally) enforce a sane light text on dark background page scheme,
without killing color entirely.  Basically, if a background is too light,
it darkens it while keeping somewhat the same color, while doing the reverse
for foregrounds/text that are too dark.  A bright red background will
therefore end up muted dark red, while navy text will become ligher, toward
robin's egg blue.  The biggest problem now is that privoxy just does an
unchanged pass-thru on secure connections, thus killing the filters, so
secure pages don't get run thru the color mod filter.  Anyway, I posted
the filter online, but don't update it there all that frequently.  So...
if you use it, simply check back every few months and see if I've
increased the version number.

http://members.cox.net/pu61ic.1inux.dunc4n/


-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

# created by KDE, Tue Apr 24 18:41:58 2007
#
# If you do not want KDE to override your GTK settings, select
# Appearance & Themes -> Colors in the Control Center and disable the checkbox
# "Apply colors to non-KDE applications"
#
#
style "default"
{
  bg[NORMAL] = { 0.114, 0.188, 0.200 }
  bg[SELECTED] = { 0.267, 0.000, 0.000 }
  bg[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.114, 0.188, 0.200 }
  bg[ACTIVE] = { 0.094, 0.157, 0.165 }
  bg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.114, 0.188, 0.200 }

  base[NORMAL] = { 0.125, 0.212, 0.224 }
  base[SELECTED] = { 0.267, 0.000, 0.000 }
  base[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.114, 0.188, 0.200 }
  base[ACTIVE] = { 0.267, 0.000, 0.000 }
  base[PRELIGHT] = { 0.267, 0.000, 0.000 }

  text[NORMAL] = { 0.992, 0.992, 0.992 }
  text[SELECTED] = { 1.000, 0.000, 0.000 }
  text[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.094, 0.157, 0.165 }
  text[ACTIVE] = { 1.000, 0.000, 0.000 }
  text[PRELIGHT] = { 1.000, 0.000, 0.000 }

  fg[NORMAL] = { 1.000, 1.000, 1.000 }
  fg[SELECTED] = { 1.000, 0.000, 0.000 }
  fg[INSENSITIVE] = { 0.094, 0.157, 0.165 }
  fg[ACTIVE] = { 1.000, 1.000, 1.000 }
  fg[PRELIGHT] = { 1.000, 1.000, 1.000 }
}

class "*" style "default"

gtk-alternative-button-order = 1

style "ToolTip"
{
  bg[NORMAL] = { 1.000, 1.000, 0.863 }
  base[NORMAL] = { 1.000, 1.000, 0.863 }
  text[NORMAL] = { 0.000, 0.000, 0.000 }
  fg[NORMAL] = { 0.000, 0.000, 0.000 }
}

widget "gtk-tooltips" style "ToolTip"

style "MenuItem"
{
  bg[PRELIGHT] = { 0.267, 0.000, 0.000 }
}

class "*MenuItem" style "MenuItem"

---------------------------------

include "/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.jed/gtkrc.tooltips"
include "/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.jed/gtkrc.fonts"

---------------------------------

# This sets a black tooltip foreground color, since otherwise this
# doesn't work

style "tooltips"
{
        fg[NORMAL] = "#000000"
}

widget "gtk-tooltips*"          style "tooltips"

-----------------------------------

# This sets default fonts

gtk-font-name="Sans 8"