jpilot ... gtk-gnutella ... plucker desktop ... even the gimp has gui problems ...

everytime I load a gtk application I see from my cpu monitor that's 100% used, it takes longer than usual to load and when it does, the layouts are messed up. The buttons are just too big that it doesn't fit my screen anymore. I had to alt+drag to view the bottom part.

anyone had the same problem? how do I fix this? the last time I installed some kind of galaxy theme and all was fixed.... but the next time I logged on everything' s all trashy again.

Screenshots:
http://photos21.flickr.com/27427289_c1bc331888_o.png
http://photos23.flickr.com/27427290_4aced1c2b2_o.png

i was gonna ask if it is all java-based apps.. but you gave a list, and i dont use any of the apps, but i would bet j-pilot is java-based.. which would be a reason for the big buttons (the way the program was designed, whoever designed the programs layout managers).. java usually resizes buttons and everything to fit to the window.
but for the other apps, i dont know.. is there a setting for your GUI for text size, or text padding for buttons? or button sizes? sorry i dont know

umm... no jpilot is not a java app, it's in gtk. I dunno why they named it "J"pilot in the first place

changing themes from the gnome controls and the theme switcher isn't helping a bit

Elijah,

I had a similar issues recently and traced it down to the way KDE interoperates with the GTK apps.

My resolution was to remove the gtk-qt-engine package and delete any instances of .gtkrc* file from my home dir.

This (i think) effectively makes the GTK apps use configuration information from the GTK engine only.
I had to run the gnome control center to set the font sizes and misc eyecandy.
(of course the related gnome components need installed if not already)
gtk-engines
gtk2-engines
control-center2
gtk2-themes
any dependencies for the above.

Try googling around a bit for more details.

Dave