I've got X working fine but I would like to change the appearance of the windows.

For example, I would like a scroll bar and the 3 buttons at the top right and the windows menu on the top left. I would also like to change the colour - fussy eh!

How do I setup the 'look and feel' of the X windows? I've looked around for some guidance but haven't yet found an article which gives me the details that I am looking for.

Any help appreciated

It would be helpful to know which desktop environment (eg KDE Gnome XFCE) or desktop manager (eg fluxbox windowmaker) you are using.

I am in the process of installing Gnome from the blfs book. I was assuming that I could tweak the look of the windows before I ran Gnome. Is this correct or not?

I'm sure there's some way, although it's much easier to tweak the look after you run Gnome since it has a configuration editor and a theme chooser.

You can actually specify what program how many terminal windows what size they are and what color background etc etc.

Example 1.
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

# start some nice programs

twm &
xclock -geometry 50x50-1+1 &
xterm -geometry 80x50+494+51 &
xterm -geometry 80x20+494-0 &
exec xterm -geometry 80x66+0+0 -name login

This starts the windows manager twn xorg default, xclock 50x50-1+1 is the size and position.
everything else is the same thing except there terminal windows.

Example 2
/etc/X11/twm/system.twmrc

TitleFont "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
ResizeFont "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
MenuFont "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*"
IconFont "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*"
IconManagerFont "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-100-*-*-*"
#ClientBorderWidth

Color
{
BorderColor "slategrey"
DefaultBackground "rgb:2/a/9"
DefaultForeground "gray85"
TitleBackground "rgb:2/a/9"
TitleForeground "gray85"
MenuBackground "rgb:2/a/9"
MenuForeground "gray85"
MenuBorderColor "slategrey"
MenuTitleBackground "gray70"
MenuTitleForeground "rgb:2/a/9"
IconBackground "rgb:2/a/9"
IconForeground "gray85"
IconBorderColor "gray85"
IconManagerBackground "rgb:2/a/9"
IconManagerForeground "gray85"
}

Everything in here is used to theme colors and fonts and just in general the way your borders etc look (themes).

And i am sure you can even have a wallpaper for your background but i have forgotten how to do that.

You could even build your own desktop with gambas or ruby/gtk or Qt and use that i forget what the command was to start up programs full screen with out useing twm. ill post how to do that when i remember.

With linux there is no end to what you can do it is just a matter of figureing out how.
So if you find your self asking i wonder if i can do that well chances are that you can.

Thanks to Comtux for the info. I have now got Gnome working so I expect I'll be posting some questions about how to configure it to my taste!