changing desktop theme color in xfce

Skaperen · 07-17-2021, 06:16 PM

years ago i configured my desktops for all the users i use on my laptop (about 18 of them) to use the same setup. i do not remember the specifics but i do remember that i did it manually for each user through whisker settings. none of this was done through text editing. i was all done through GUI user interface, even though i am a very text editing oriented person.

last week i noticed that the color of the window decoration for one user, that i don't use so often, was slightly different. of course i want to fix this. but i have not been able to recall or find how to do this. searches are giving me instructions on how to edit theme files. these are not one user specific but affect all users the same, so i know that cannot be it. it has to be something specific for that users. comparing files between users is finding almost everything is different, so that is offering no clue.

i am currently using:
xubuntu 18.04.5
xfce 4.12.3

i originally set this up when i was using ubuntu 14.04 with xfce packages installed on it (whatever version came from the repository). i had all user home files in a separate partition and they continued to work through the upgrades and still do so today. my backups only go back about 3 months. as far as i know, i just tweaked that user wrong way back then.

anyone know where to go change this (in whisker settings), or what the terminology would be to search for it?

shruggy · 07-24-2021, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skaperen

comparing files between users is finding almost everything is different, so that is offering no clue.

How did you compare them? I presume something like

Code:

xfconf-query -c xsettings -lv
xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -lv

Skaperen · 07-25-2021, 07:04 PM

i compared them with the cmp or diff command.

shruggy · 07-26-2021, 01:37 AM

Can you compare output of the two commands listed above between those users?

Skaperen · 07-26-2021, 01:32 PM

the method i used to compare those commands is:

on each user "forums" (the user i am posting this with) and "sr" (the one with the different color) i ran each xfconf-query command, saving the stdout to file "1" for the 1st command and file "2" for the 2nd command. then i ran sha256sum to compare them:

Code:

lt2a/forums /home/forums 31> sha256sum /{home/forums,home2/sr}/1
321aba86cb9c079b3f51b48a342a143bd447c4d46cea0e2277a9c2c65d3b0a59  /home/forums/1
321aba86cb9c079b3f51b48a342a143bd447c4d46cea0e2277a9c2c65d3b0a59  /home2/sr/1
lt2a/forums /home/forums 32> sha256sum /{home/forums,home2/sr}/2
620e942711776fa2cee0127c793925a0c885a7c706bf618733112a2cc79ddb45  /home/forums/2
620e942711776fa2cee0127c793925a0c885a7c706bf618733112a2cc79ddb45  /home2/sr/2
lt2a/forums /home/forums 33>

it looks to me that outputs are the same which suggests to me that these settings are the same and thus not the setting that was changed for user "sr".

Skaperen · 07-26-2021, 06:37 PM

i ran this big shell command on users "forums" and "sr" to get as many settings as i could and compare them:

Code:

(xfconf-query -l|fgrep -v :|cut -c3-|sort -u|while read n;do xfconf-query -c $n -lv|prefix $n/;done|sub // /)

i often do big commands like this, usually involving one or more of my hundreds of scripts.
the command prefix prepends one argument to each line copied from stdin to stdout.
the command sub substitutes each string matching argument 1 with argument 2 on each line copied from stdin to stdout.
the objective was to prepend the xfconf channel name to each setting path as seen in the output.
the following are the differences:

Code:

12a13
> ristretto/window/navigationbar/position  left
14a16
> thunar/last-window-maximized      true
45c47
< xfce4-desktop/backdrop/screen0/monitor0/workspace0/last-image   /usr/share/xfce4/backdrops/xubuntu-wallpaper.png
---
> xfce4-desktop/backdrop/screen0/monitor0/workspace0/last-image   /usr/share/xfce4/backdrops/xubuntu-artful.png
84,90c86,93
< xfce4-desktop/last/window-height                                608
< xfce4-desktop/last/window-width                                 880
< xfce4-mime-settings/last/default-width  142
< xfce4-mime-settings/last/mime-width     300
< xfce4-mime-settings/last/status-width   75
< xfce4-mime-settings/last/window-height  400
< xfce4-mime-settings/last/window-width   550
---
> xfce4-desktop/desktop-menu/show                                 true
> xfce4-desktop/desktop-menu/show-icons                           true
> xfce4-desktop/last/window-height                                639
> xfce4-desktop/last/window-width                                 836
> xfce4-desktop/windowlist-menu/show                              true
> xfce4-desktop/windowlist-menu/show-add-remove-workspaces        false
> xfce4-desktop/windowlist-menu/show-icons                        true
> xfce4-desktop/windowlist-menu/show-workspace-names              true
132c136
< xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/blank-on-ac                        15
---
> xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/blank-on-ac                        60
133a138,140
> xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/brightness-level-on-ac             100
> xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/brightness-level-on-battery        34
> xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/brightness-on-ac                   120
135c142
< xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/brightness-switch-restore-on-exit  1
---
> xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/brightness-switch-restore-on-exit  0
138c145
< xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/dpms-on-ac-sleep                   20
---
> xfce4-power-manager/xfce4-power-manager/dpms-on-ac-sleep                   60
168c175
< xfce4-settings-manager/last/window-width   644
---
> xfce4-settings-manager/last/window-width   716