The Appearance preference tool lets you configure various aspects of how your desktop looks:
A theme is a group of coordinated settings that specifies the visual appearance of a part of the GNOME Desktop. You can choose themes to change the appearance of the GNOME Desktop. Use the Theme tabbed section to select a theme. You can choose from a list of available themes. The list of available themes includes several themes for users with accessibility requirements.
A theme contains settings that affect different parts of the GNOME Desktop, as follows:
The controls setting for a theme determines the visual appearance of windows, panels, and applets. The controls setting also determines the visual appearance of the GNOME-compliant interface items that appear on windows, panels, and applets, such as menus, icons, and buttons. Some of the controls setting options that are available are designed for special accessibility needs. You can choose an option for the controls setting from the Controls tabbed section in the Customize Theme window.
The color setting for a theme determines the color of various user interface elements. You can choose several pairs of colors from the Colors tabbed section in the Customize Theme window.
It is important to choose pairs of colors that have a good contrast with each other, otherwise text may become hard to read.
The window frame setting for a theme determines the appearance of the frames around windows only. You can choose an option for the window frame setting from the Window Border tabbed section in the Customize Theme window.
The icon setting for a theme determines the appearance of the icons on panels and the desktop background. You can choose an option for the icon setting from the Icons tabbed section in the Customize Theme window.
The pointer setting for a theme determines the appearance of and sice of the mouse pointer. You can choose an options for the pointer setting fromthe Pointer tabbed section in the Customize Theme window.
The themes that are listed in the Theme tabbed section are different combinations of controls options, window frame options, and icon options. You can create a custom theme that uses different combinations of controls options, window frame options, and icon options.
To create a custom theme, perform the following steps:
You can add a theme to the list of available themes. The new theme must be an archive file that is tarred and zipped. That is, the new theme must be a .tar.gz file.
To install a new theme, perform the following steps:
You can delete controls options, window frame options, or icons options.
To delete a controls option, window frame option, or icons option, perform the following steps:
The desktop background is the image or color that is applied to your desktop. You can open Background tabbed section in the Appearance preference tool by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing Change Desktop Background, as well as from the System ▸ Preferences menu.
You can customize the desktop background in the following ways:
You can also drag a color or a pattern to the desktop from the Backgrounds and Emblems dialog in the Nautilus file manager.
Table 8-3 lists the background preferences that you can modify.
| Dialog Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Desktop Background | Choose an image from the list. Alternately, you can use the Add button to choose any image on your computer. |
| Style |
To specify how to display the image, select one of the following options from the Style drop-down list:
|
| Add |
Click on the Add to browse for an image on your computer. A standard file selector will be presented. Choose the image you want and click Open. |
| Remove | Choose the image that you want to remove, then click Remove. This removes the image from the list of available wallpapers; however, it does not delete the image from your computer. |
| Colors |
To specify a color scheme, use the options in the Style drop-down list, and the color selector buttons. You can specify a color scheme in one of the following ways:
|
Use the Fonts tabbed section in the Appearance preference tool to choose which fonts are used in different parts of the desktop, and the way in which fonts are displayed on the screen.
The font selector button shows the name of the font and its point size. The name is also shown in bold, italic, or regular type.
To change the font, click the font selector button. The font picker dialog opens. Select the font family, style, and point size from the lists. The preview area shows your current choice. Click OK to accept the change and update the desktop.
You can choose fonts for the following parts of the desktop:
This font is used in the menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes of applications.
This font is used to display documents in applications.
In some applications, you can override this choice in the application's preferences dialog.
This font is used in icon labels on the desktop.
This font is used in the titlebars of windows.
This font is used in the Terminal application and applications to do with programming.
You can set the following options relating to how fonts are displayed on the screen:
To specify how to render fonts on your screen, select one of the following options:
Click on this button to specify further details of how to render fonts on your screen.
You can use the Interface tabbed section in the Appearance preference tool to customize the appearance of menus, menubars, and toolbars for applications that are part of GNOME.
As you make changes to the settings, the preview display in the window updates. This allows you to see the changes if no application windows are currently open.
Select this option to display an icon beside items in application menus and the panel menu. Not all menu items have an icon.
Selecting this option allows you to define new keyboard shortcuts for menu items.
To change an application shortcut key, open the menu, and with the mouse pointer on the menu item you wish to change, press the new combination of keys. To remove a shortcut key, press Backspace or Delete.
When using this feature, you will not be warned if assigning a new shortcut key to a command also removes it from another command.
There is no way to restore the original, default keyboard shortcut for a command.
This feature does not maintain shortcuts that are normally common to all applications, such as Ctrl+C for Copy. This may lead to inconsistencies in your GNOME applications.
Choose one of the following options to specify what to display on the toolbars in your GNOME-compliant applications: