Mint 19.3 Xfce THEMING

I'm still playing around with Mint 19.3 and there's a new release due next month with some exciting features like a simple file transfer system that was tested a long time ago and is being revived.

I think I have ironed out most of the wrinkles in my move from KDE based Linux back to Xfce using Mint although I'm sure I have more stuff to work out, but the basic aims were:

1 - Move from KDE Plasma back to something that 'feels like' it has less overhead (even it doesn't really).

2 - Retain some of the playful stuff I like such as transparency in some apps and the ability to use Kvantum styling on as many of my qt apps (from KDE) as possible.

3 - Find a theme I like for the GTK stuff.  Preferable not one of the new modern 'flat' themes, and preferably a 'dark' theme to be easier on the eyes with the 55 inch monitor.

4 - Said theme must have big enough borders to grab easily with the mouse, because I am constantly resizing programs to make best use of the large screen.

While I was playing with the wider borders thing, which looked decidedly ugly, I discovered that drop shadows achieved the same thing.  The area of the shadow provides the exra pixel area to grab with the mouse cursor.  I might look weird and playful to have coloured drop shadows - bu tit tells me at a glance which windows are focused at the same time.

5 - I must be able to run xwinwrap for video.


6 - I would 'like to have' have the compositing features I had in KDE/Plasma.

For some reason kwin killed my Mint Xfce.  So I reinstalled Mint 19.3 Xfrce and played with Compiz, and after a few fails, I modified a Metacity theme to give me decent min/max and close buttons on the Title Bar.

Still Playing with Mint 19.3 Xfce and Compiz

Compiz is still throwing some challenges at me.  I was warned that it has a few 'quirks' and I'm finding some of them.
I've played with quite a few of the weird things it can do, and now the novelty is wearing off I am settling back into a combination of the things I actually like about what it can do, and the things I used to like about KDE.

Finding out just which underlying GTK themes from xfwm4 work well in conjunction with the Metacity themes in Compiz.  Some of my favourite themes look fine, then I find something broken.

Like the GT3 theme I was using.  It worked nicely and looked good, but interfered with Thunar's ability to select text in various operations like 'Rename' for example.

I think I sorted it out though.  In the mean time my Cube has eight faces, six sides plus a top and bottom, instead of being a cylinder.

A Compiz/Xfce/Mint 19.3 Update - 2020 May 04

I've been playing with Compiz and working out a few changes to make it more stable.

Compiz uses Metacity for theming and there some really annoying things that Compiz does when it is working with Mint 19.3 Xfce that are worse than simply annoying.
Other things that 'are simply annoying' are the result of the themes for Window decorations clashing with GTK themes for Xfce.  Things like tiny or otherwise unreadable control buttons on the Titiebars for example. 

In a couple of themes I do like a lot, Compiz does strange things. The DarkCold theme for example, looks nice and works well, until I try to use the mousewheel on the Titiebar to shade the window. If the window is not Maximised, it works perfectly.
If the window IS Maximised, and I scroll the mouswwheel on the Titiebar to shade the window - I lose all Titiebars on ALL windows!

 I managed to find a little script on the web that allows me to select a Metacity friendly theme (out of those installed in Xfce) to use with Compiz. Running the script brings up a Zenity Dialog that lets me select from available themes easily.

As you can see from the Titiebar in the image, while it is still pretty plain, it is easy to see and the Buttons on the right for Min, Max and Close in the 'Human' theme are clear and big enough to use. 
In some of the other themes the buttons are almost impossible to see or to find with the mouse.

Having this script makes it simple to test which Window Decoration themes look ok and 'work', and which ones don't.

I found the Theme Selector script at:
Metacity Theme Selector

The script for the Theme Selector is:
<code>
#!/bin/bash

SAVEIFS=$IFS
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")

if [ ! -f /usr/bin/metacity ]; then
  zenity --warning --text="<b>You do not appear to have Metacity installed.</b>\n\nThe Compiz GTK window decorator uses Metacity libraries to operate. The Metacity theme is what this tool adjusts.\n\nInstall the metacity package if you would like to use the Compiz GTK window decorator."
fi

main_window() {
  selection=$(
    zenity --height 450 --width 320 --list --ok-label="Apply" --cancel-label="Close" --title="Metacity themes" \
    --column="Current theme: $( if [ $(gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme) == "''" ]; then
        echo Default
      else
        gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme
      fi)" \
    "Compiz GWD default" \
    $(
      for d in /usr/share/themes/*/metacity-1; do
        echo $d | sed 's:/usr/share/themes/::' | sed 's:/metacity-1::'
      done
    )
  )
}

while [ $? = 0 ]; do
if [ "$selection" == "Compiz GWD default" ]; then
  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme ""
elif [ "$selection" != "" ]; then
  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme "$selection"
fi
main_window
done

IFS=$SAVEIFS

</code>