GTK

If you have GTK and Qt (KDE) applications on your desktop then you know that their looks do not blend well. If you wish to make your GTK styles match your Qt styles please read Uniform look for Qt and GTK applications.

To manually change the GTK theme, icons, font and font size, add the following to the configuration files, for example:

• GTK 2:

• GTK 3:

If the theme is not applied for GTK 3, use gsettings in addition:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme Pop

Some GTK 3 themes contain a dark theme variant, but it is only used by default when the application requests it explicitly. To use dark theme variant with all GTK 3 applications, set:

gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme = true

For GTK 4, use:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme prefer-dark

Keyboard shortcuts (otherwise known as accelerators in GTK) may be changed by hovering the mouse over the respective menu item, and pressing the desired key combination. To enable this feature, set:

gtk-can-change-accels = 1

To have Emacs-like key bindings in GTK applications add the following:

~/.gtkrc-2.0

gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"

For GTK3 also run:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-key-theme "Emacs"

XFCE has a similar setting:

$ xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Gtk/KeyThemeName -s Emacs

The configuration files in determine what the Emacs bindings are, and can be changed. Copying sections to the users file allows for changes on a per user basis.

This setting controls the delay between pointing the mouse at a menu and that menu opening. This delay is measured in milliseconds.

gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0

If you have a small screen or you just do not like big icons and widgets, you can resize things easily.

To have icons without text in toolbars (valid values), use

gtk-toolbar-style = GTK_TOOLBAR_ICONS

To use smaller icons, use a line like this:

gtk-icon-sizes = "panel-menu=16,16:panel=16,16:gtk-menu=16,16:gtk-large-toolbar=16,16\

 :gtk-small-toolbar=16,16:gtk-button=16,16"

Or to remove icons from buttons completely:

gtk-button-images = 0

You can also remove icons from menus:

gtk-menu-images = 0

See also and .

To remove the client-side decorations (CSD) minimize and maximize buttons from gtk3 windows:

gtk-decoration-layout=menu:close

See GTK docs.

To turn off pasting on middle mouse button click (aka PRIMARY):

gtk-enable-primary-paste=false

Open the file-chooser within the current working directory and not the recent location. Normally the current working directory is the Home directory.

GTK 3

Change setting with the following command:

$ gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.FileChooser startup-mode cwd

GTK 2

Add the following to :

StartupMode=cwd

Prior to GTK 3.6, clicking on either side of the slider in the scrollbar would move the scrollbar in the direction of the click by approximately one page. Since GTK 3.6, the slider will move directly to the position of the click. This behaviour can be reverted in some applications by creating the file with the content below:

Since GTK 3.15, overlay scrollbars are enabled by default, meaning that scrollbars will be shown only on mouseover in GTK 3 applications. This behavior can be reverted by setting the following environment variable: . See Environment variables#Graphical environment.

Alternatively, overlay scrollbars can be disabled in the GTK 3 settings since GTK 3.24.9. To do so, the value of gtk-overlay-scrolling has to be set to false in the [Settings] section of the settings file:

~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

[Settings]
gtk-overlay-scrolling = false

GTK 4 will no longer support . It has already been dropped from master. As of GTK 4, the overlay nature of the scrollbars is part of the toolkit. The blanket toggle has been removed to prevent developers from breaking applications that have not been tested with both combinations. To allow application developers to decide what their applications should look like, the toolkit instead provides a mechanism to opt-out or add a setting for users. The function gtk_scrolled_window_set_overlay_scrolling() can be used to enable/disable overlay scrolling on a per-application basis. Application developers can optionally use GSettings to have a user setting bound to the property.

The positions of the overlay scrollbars are indicated by thin dashed lines in the application window. These dashed lines will be present even when overlay scrolling is disabled using the environment variable discussed in the section above. To remove the indicator lines, create the following file:

GTK example configurations:

The GDK Wayland backend is supported only by gtk3 and is the default backend when using Wayland display server.

Applications that use versions of GTK prior to gtk3 do not have Wayland support, and need to use Xwayland in order to run on a Wayland session using the X11 backend.

When using the Wayland backend, some variables are not sourced from . Any key that is present in the GSettings schema are read from there instead of .

An example of such variables are and , which must have their keys set with GSettings in order to theme GTK Applications under Wayland. Alternatively, if only the theme needs to be customized, the environment variable can be set.

If Xorg display server is in use, the backend defaults to x11 automatically.

It is possible to force GTK3 applications running on a wayland session to use the X11 backend through Xwayland by setting the environment variable GDK_BACKEND=x11.

The GDK Broadway backend provides support for displaying GTK applications in a web browser, using HTML5 and web sockets.

When using broadwayd, specify the display number to use, prefixed with a colon, similar to X. The default display number is 0 (zero).

$ display_number=:5

Start it.

$ broadwayd $display_number 

Port used by default

port = 8080 + $display_number

Point your browser to http://127.0.0.1:port

To Start applications

$ GDK_BACKEND=broadway BROADWAY_DISPLAY=$display_number <<application>>

Alternatively can set address and port

$ broadwayd --port $port_number --address $address $display_number

In general, if a selected theme has support for both GTK 2 and GTK 3, the theme will be applied to all GTK 2 and GTK 3 applications. If a selected theme has support for only GTK 2, it will be used for GTK 2 applications and the default GTK theme will be used for GTK 3 applications. If the selected theme has support for only GTK 3, it will be used for GTK 3 applications and the default GTK theme will be used for GTK 2 applications. Thus for application theme consistency, it is best to use a theme which has support for both GTK 2 and GTK 3.

You could find what themes installed on your system have both an GTK 2 and GTK 3 version by using this command (does not work with names containing spaces):

find $(find ~/.themes /usr/share/themes/ -wholename "*/gtk-3.0" | sed -e "s/^\(.*\)\/gtk-3.0$/\1/") -wholename "*/gtk-2.0" | sed -e "s/.*\/\(.*\)\/gtk-2.0/\1"/

As user theme files (, ) are not read by other accounts, the selected theme will not apply to X applications run as root. Possible solutions include:

• Create symlinks, e.g

# ln -s /home/username/.gtkrc-2.0 /etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
# ln -s /home/username/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini /etc/gtk-3.0/settings.ini

• Configure system-wide theme files: (GTK 3) or (GTK 2)
• Adjust the theme as root

# lxappearance

• Use a settings daemon (this is what most desktop environments do). A desktop-agnostic variant using XSettings is available in the AUR under .

GTK 3.12 introduced client-side decorations, which move the title-bar away from the window manager. This may present issues such as double title-bars, no title-bar at all, double shadows with compositing enabled, or being unable to move a frozen application.

To remove the shadow and gap around windows (for example in combination with a tiling window manager), create the following file:

Note that if visual problems persist, you may want to use the GTK Inspector to find the offending elements as explained here .

To adjust the buttons in the header bar, use the setting. The below examples removes all buttons:

To remove client-side decorations altogether, it is possible to use a patched library like or .

See , and for a workaround using Xcompose (US international layout).

If you do not use any Gnome Accessibility features, you may receive warnings like:

WARNING **: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus:

To suppress these warnings, execute programs with NO_AT_BRIDGE=1 or set that as a global environment variable.

If you are using a window manager which uses a window decoration theme that mimics the GTK theme background color, you may find that the titlebar color no longer completely matches the application color in some GTK 3 applications. As a workaround, create the following file:

Define GDK_CORE_DEVICE_EVENTS=1 to use GTK2 style input, instead of xinput2.

Install and to have the option to view files as thumbnails instead of list in the GTK file chooser.

For some applications in GNOME's Wayland session. Your file is misconfigured. This can happen if you try other GTK based desktop environments. These are the offending values:

Simply set them to 0 or remove the whole file to use GNOME defaults.

GTK3 depends on polkit through colord, which is required for printing. However printing works fine without polkit installed; at least with a monochrome printer and package versions gtk3-print-backends=3.22.19-2 and colord=1.4.1-1.

Depending on the theme of choice's support for GTK 2, UI controls may still have the default Raleigh appearance, possibly with a different color palette. This is due to these themes requiring the GTK 2 Murrine engine, which is missing (GTK 2 programs should complain about it on their standard error output). Install the package.

GTK file chooser uses the same type-ahead-find feature as GNOME/Files. This can be very jarring and does not fit in very well with other desktop enviroments.

Some applications support XDG-desktop-portal which allows application to use the native file chooser. If that does not work you can restore type-ahead functionality by using a patched GTK, for example .

GTK 4 switched to grayscale antialiasing without hinting when rendering fonts. A setting is available that will restore some of the GTK 3 behavior . Subpixel antialiasing is not available.