Hi, on various websites, you can see screenshots of GIMP with dark themes. Also I remember during LGM, it was said that GIMP at some point (2.10?) would be released with a dark theme as a default.
Hello GBATemp. I made a GIMP template for FBI 2.x themes, and made an example dark theme for it. Refer to the readme file on how to use themes with FBI.
So first question: is this dark theme development already started, and where can I get it? Because I can't find it in the GIMP repo. If not made yet, has anyone a link somewhere for a good dark theme for GIMP 2.8 to test out? I found some links but none very good. For instance I read (and see in screenshots) that the Win version has such a dark theme: Is there a separate package of this theme somewhere or do I have to install GIMP on some Windows VM to be able to get a hold of this theme (and install it for my GIMP on Linux)? Second question: the logics behind dark themes is apparently that they would be less a disturbance than a bright theme when you are working, if I remember LGM speech. Is it better for the eyes too?
I always thought that black on white was basically better for the eyes. Are there any actual studies explaining that dark UI are better for users, which would explain our switch to a darker default theme?
Or is it all based on a feeling that dark themes are better? Jehan gimp-user-list mailing list. I remembered for instance years ago, when everybody started to make their personal website with broken html, most were dark because it seemed cooler. Then it was told that dark websites are harder to use/read and finally are not that good for the eyes. And indeed now nearly all big websites use light colors. You don't see often website with a dark bakckground anymore, except those who are still on the 'cool' design side rather than useful side for long-reading.
This is why I am wondering about this passage to dark themes for software UI now. Even though you work on visual content, you still have menu/tool texts, icons, information texts and boxes, etc. And if you stay on this UI for hours every day, I really wonder about the good or bad of light on dark background. Or else are all the web UI thoughts about not overusing dark backgrounds wrong? Sorry, I don't get it. Are you saying that user interface elements are a long reading?
Alexandre Prokoudine gimp-user-list mailing list. Hi, On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Dominik Tabisz wrote: If You accept making this thread slightly more offtopic i would appreciate any links to this studies on workplace ergonomics from 1960s. I don't think that this went off-topic. At the contrary, I wrote the original email specifically for this kind of information too!:-) And me too I am interested in any link of a serious study, old or new. Not that I don't believe what others say, nor that studies are always right and not sometimes biased. But that's always nice to have good detailed and various info to look at.
Color of our environment affect colors in graphics we do. Any knowledge that help to use this fact consciously reduce need for trial and error.
NOTE: Greek readers may want to read the description that follows in their native language, by visiting the relative threads either at or at (follow either of those links). Update (2-Feb-2015) I'm very sorry, but due to some nasty stuff happening in my life since the last few moths, I have no longer the time or the mood to finish the announced 1.0.3 release of the themes. I really hope things will go better soon. In that case I'll finish up the next release and publish it. Update (9-Oct-2014, 5-Oct-2014) When I tried the themes on Ubuntu 12.04LTS 32-bit, installed via wubi, both Gimp 2.8.2 (default on Ubuntu 12.04) and Gimp 2.8.14 (custom installation) were crashing before even showing the splash-screen (running them from a terminal, I saw that they were 'core dumping'). This problem seems to occur only on my wubi installed Ubuntu, since other users have reported no problem with normal installations of Ubuntu 14.10, Debian and Arch Linux.
The problem is the relative paths that I'm using for including the base-themes into the 'gtkrc' file of each theme. So, I made a bash-script that changes the relative paths to absolute ones in all the 'gtkrc' files, automatically:. Extract it into the directory: /.gimp-2.8/themes, open a terminal window and type the following 3 commands: cd /.gimp-2.8/themes chmod u+x fixfornix.sh./fixfornix.sh (alternatively, you may run it form the GUI, but you may have to give it execute permissions first: right-click - Properties Permissions) Upcoming version (1.0.3) I'm currently working on the next version of the themes. Here's a sneak-peak of the Dark & Darker variants (3200x2280): Clearlooks Flat Icons Gimp Themes v.1.0.1, by migf1 More representative 1920x1080 screen-shots are available both in the zip-file of the distribution and on-line: Dark preview: Light preview: Dark Blue in action: Light Blue in action: These themes are modified versions of Andrew Pullins' brilliant collection of Gimp 2.8 themes: ' Flat Gimp Icon Theme v1.0.0'. Those original themes are available at: The original themes use orange as their main highlighting-color, including 8 variants, depending on the colorization of the remaining UI elements: Darker, Darker small, Dark, Dark small, Light, Light small, Lighter and Lighter small.
![Themes Themes](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SryEYyKQknA/V0ai9D-lr0I/AAAAAAAADjI/Ou0eWCPC8E0TXPmZyTx0JoE9fBnQhJTBQCLcB/s1600/Gimp%2BPhotoshop%2BCS6%2BTheme.jpg)
The 'small' variants use smaller icons and font. I have modified the 4 middle ones, namely: Dark, Dark small, Light and Light small. Moreover, each one of them comes in 5 highlighting-color versions: Blue, Orange, Pink, Red and Teal. This makes a total of 20 variations.
Besides the additional highlighting-colors, other modifications include a bit wider scroll-bars & dragging-handles, along with slightly altered colorization of menus, tools, panels, tabs, radio buttons, checkboxes, tool-tips, etc. I have also changed the folder structure, so common resources are shared across similar themes (no more duplicated icons in each theme's folder). There is a separate ' furthermodding.txt' file explaining it in more details, along with step by step instructions for adding new themes. I plan to modify the original 'Lighter' themes too, but not the 'Darker' ones. However, it may take a while.
Installation The themes come packed in a zip-file. Copy all the folders it contains into Gimp 2.8's ' themes/' folder. Depending on your OS this folder will be one of the following (assuming you have already installed Gimp 2.8 to the default path of its installer): MS Windows: C: Program Files GIMP 2 share gimp 2.0 themes or: C: Program Files (x86) GIMP 2 share gimp 2.0 themes GNU/Linux: home/.gimp-2.8/themes Mac OSX: If you are using a different OS, you may need to do some googling.
IMPORTANT NOTE: - The folder: ' flatgimpicons/' MUST be extracted along with the other folders into Gimp's ' themes/' directory, but it is NOT a theme. Rather, it contains all the data needed by all other themes in this collection. Put it otherwise, extract it but do NOT select it from within Gimp.
GTK2 Clearlooks Theming Engine The themes use the GTK2 Cleralooks theming engine, which is NOT available by default on Windows installations of Gimp 2.8. I have bundled it from Partha's Gimp 2.8.14 builds ( ) in both 32-bit & 64-bit versions. It comes with its own ' Readme.txt' file, with short instructions on how to install it in your current installation of Gimp 2.8 on Windows OSes. You may download the engine by following this link: There's is also a small section inside the main ' Readme.txt' file of the themes, dedicated to the Cleralooks engine. It contains hints for other OSes as well. Alternative Dowload Link For some reason, DA was not happy with the Clearlooks engine zipped inside the main zip-file of the themes.
So, by following the above link you may download a.7z file that contains everything. Many thanks to Andrew Pullins (aka android272) for the beautiful original themes.
This is my very first submission to DA, I hope you find it useful. TBH, I'm pretty new to this GTK theming thing, although I've done a fare bit of GTK2 C programming in the past (but theming was not my field). AFAIK, Inkscape does not implement a decent theming-switch mechanism yet.
I think there's only one theme that we can change, but it will stay as the default (if true, it doesn't sound like a good idea). Anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong. For the moment though, I have no intentions to deal with Inkscape.
I'm still struggling to get around Gimp and GTK2 theming for now.