Hello everyone,
I have a problem concerning the customisation of my XFCE destkop. I use Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon edition but I noticed some performence issues because the laptop I installed it on is quite old. I guess around 6 years.

So I installed XFCE 4.10 and started playing around and I'm very satisfied how things are working.
My problem is: I want to change the taskbar to a dark grey colour but then I can't read anything. Tried searching for "xfce change font color taskbar" or similar terms on duckduckgo and LQ.
I found a tutorial about changing the font color of desktop icons, tried it but i can't find the .gtk-2.0 file

Did I do something wrong installing XFCE? I installed it using the synaptic-package manager.

Hope you guys can help me. Would be much appreciated

On my system its called .gtkrc-2.0 and its in my /home/username directory.

Don't think so, if you used the package manager.

Just how are you trying to change the background, and the font colour? xfce is a little more difficult to configure than some other desktops.

I don't know the answer but will say hello and welcome to LQ.

The was I found to do this, though it may not be the best, was to install gtk-theme-config and go to "Theme Configuration" under "Settings" to use it. It's a bit clunky and I think it contradicts other settings so may not work perfectly immediately but I managed to have a dark panel and menus with white text.

Tanks jefro!

I'm sorry camorri, I did mean the .gtkrc-2.0 file and it is supposed to be in my /home/username diretory.
I was using this tutorial: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1146
Maybe I didn't understand what the author wants me to do when he requests to "click on the default directory". I don't have this directory either. (Yes I selected show hidden files.)

I change the taskbar colour by using the GUI for bar customisation. (Not 100% sure if these are the correct terms because my system language is set to german.)

273, this solution sounds nice because I'd like to have a GUI for this. But which settings does it contradict and are there more issues to be expected because of this?

I'm afraid I can just suggest you install it and try. If you turn off the settings from it it does not seem to interfere with anything after that.

I'm on my 64 bit XFCE system today. Yesterday I was on a 32 bit system.

On the 64 bit system, I did't have the gtkrc-2.0 file. I created it, copy and pasted the lines as they are shown in the link you provided. I did boot the system, just because the instructions suggested it. Not sure that is necessary.

The short story is, the file has modified the colour of the text on the icons on the desktop. Unselected, the text is white, selected ( click once on the icon ) the text turns green, and transfer focus to another application that is open, the green text turns blue.

Interesting eye candy.

The only reason to edit the file as root, would be if root owned the file. Doesn't seem necessary.

Hey,

again, I'm sorry. I totally forgot to give information about my system. Yep I'm running a 32bit system.
(But does the architecture have any influence on this sort of issues?)
From white over green to blue? "Interesting" indeed And it doesn't change the taskbar's font colour? Too bad...

I just tried the gtk-theme-configuration package as sugested by 273 and it just works nice. Only con is that the system has to be rebooted for the changes to take effect But it's ok for me because I won't use it often (I hope ).

The only "problem" (if you want to call it one) is that you have to change theme settings to system-style or otherwise the changes set in the Theme Configuration tool won't be applied.

Thanks guys for your quick help!