Xfce for Slackware Users

Originally Posted by Lysander666 Right, partly solved. I did what you said and saw that it had a gtk-3.0 folder already, which was odd. So I went back to the install instructions for the theme. Now I see that didn't install it properly. The theme was in .local/share/themes when it should have been in the .themes folder. That also explains why some of my other themes aren't working properly! The only issue is that now all the menu titles are squashed together as below. I'll look into this. For now the window manager looks great, it would be good to get the overall themes working properly too. The stock Xfce themes work great with gtk3 apps, whereas the one I've tried from xfcelook others don't.

the squashed menus result (most likely) from an incompatibility between the GTK3 theme and your GTK3 version. I gave up on trying to set a custom GTK3 theme and just stick to the default one: Adwaita. I may not particularly like it, but at least it works fine.

Originally Posted by Lysander666 Both nice, Black Pearl is definitely the better of the two. Not quite there though, I would hope that compatibility would be improved in 15.0. Still, there's no rush, I love 14.2.

Here is another dark theme that looks promising,

https://www.xfce-look.org/p/1279257/

cwizard - this one is nearly perfect and the best so far. It's also the first one to display a dark theme properly when attaching a file through a browser. But for one small issue - it cuts off the top and bottom of the Slackware logo to the left and puts a grey border around the notification area to the right of the panel. Very close though. Thank you for suggesting it.

Weirdly enough it says it supports GTK 3.24. Hmm and I thought it would only work with 3.18.

Does increasing the size of your panel fix the cut off of the Slackware logo issue? If you don't want it bigger you may need to use a slightly smaller image.
As far as the grey border around the notification area, are you sure that the border is not ticked on in the properties?
Admittedly I haven't checked out this theme yet, just throwing out a couple ideas while I'm at work. ;^)

Originally Posted by solarfields so true. Otherwise Xscreensaver is great. I actually really like the lock screen of xlock.

If anyone needs a screenlocker without a screensaver and lots of other junk, slock is great. When I do a Slackware installation, I forgo xscreensaver and xlock/xflock entirely, and install slock afterward, and then map control-alt-L to lock the screen with slock.

It's coded by the good people over at suckless.org, who have a very Slackware-like philosophy.

One of the first things I typically do in xfce after an installation is turn on "CanChangeAccels" in Settings Editor > xsettings, so that I can use the forward and back keys on my ThinkPad keyboard to navigate in Thunar, instead of using a two-key combo (Alt+Left/Right).

This works fine in 14.2, but not -current. Anyone else experience this, and know the solution to make this work again?

Originally Posted by Lysander666 cwizard - this one is nearly perfect and the best so far. It's also the first one to display a dark theme properly when attaching a file through a browser. But for one small issue - it cuts off the top and bottom of the Slackware logo to the left and puts a grey border around the notification area to the right of the panel. Very close though. Thank you for suggesting it. Weirdly enough it says it supports GTK 3.24. Hmm and I thought it would only work with 3.18.

Here is another GTK3 theme called, Shades of Gray,

https://www.xfce-look.org/p/1244058/

Originally Posted by cwizardone Here is another GTK3 theme called, Shades of Gray, https://www.xfce-look.org/p/1244058/

Thanks again, cwizard, this is great because it's a collection with several themes to choose from.

This is nearly there, but it has a few oddities. For instance, some menu items won't highlight themselves during mouseover, e.g. in the Vivaldi menu. So I may not make a permanent move to this theme but it's damn close. If it weren't for its glitches with highlighting it would be 'there'.

For now the dark theme with the most compatibility for Xfce in 14.2 is Delorean Dark Inspired:

https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1259813

which does everything. It's a little too 'light' grey, but part of my problem is that I'm too much of a perfectionist.

EDIT:

I've just tweaked it and now it's much better.

.themes/DeLorean-Dark-Inspired/gtk-2.0/gtkrc and changed the main base colour from 747475 to 383838 and the menu header colour [nbtn_bg_color] from 848484 to 585858.

Comparison attached. The darker one is the amended one.

Many thanks!
As I've probably said before, my favorite, to date, is leather-dark. There are one or two things that bother me, but overall I like the dark backgrounds with the warmer brown tone highlights that "brighten" it up, so to speak.

You'd probably like Shades of Grey [harvest] then, though it may be a bit too flat for you.

On another note, I had to share this. I've come across a designer called killhellokitty who's made some seriously dark themes which are completely compatible with Xfce in Slackware 14.2. The user hasn't been active in theme-making for a couple of years now, but there's still a trove of stuff available for themes and icons.

DeLorean Dark 3.12/3.18, Cloak and Dorian Slate are particularly good, especially when used with their corresponding window managers. Or you can mix and match.

DeviantArt
Github

Many thanks!
I will take a look.
Everyone has different tastes, but I still just don't see the appeal of the flat colors and childishly simplistic icons. Every time I see a ms-windows-10 screen I have flashbacks to the stuff my children use to bring home from kindergarten.

Originally Posted by cwizardone Everyone has different tastes, but I still just don't see the appeal of the flat colors and childishly simplistic icons. Every time I see a ms-windows-10 screen I have flashbacks to the stuff my children use to bring home from kindergarten.

I've never seen my brother get so annoyed as when he started talking about the Windows 10 flat UI. He detests it.

I used to be vehemently against flat themes and icons, until I found that it's about types of flat themes and icons. They are - literally - not created all the same. I come from the generation of when cool desktop themes were all about glass and bevelling, so many flat themes look infantile to me. However, some modern flat themes are really good and are worth experimenting with. It's worth shopping around.

Originally Posted by cwizardone Many thanks! I will take a look. Everyone has different tastes, but I still just don't see the appeal of the flat colors and childishly simplistic icons. Every time I see a ms-windows-10 screen I have flashbacks to the stuff my children use to bring home from kindergarten.

I also really hate flat design.

...and to add to my post above, so it is not just a blatant statement: I want to know what is a button, what is clickable and what is not. This flat-design fashion is everywhere nowadays. With the newest version of Gmail, I am even having a hard time trying to find the "Reply" button. Ridiculous.

Originally Posted by solarfields ...and to add to my post above, so it is not just a blatant statement: I want to know what is a button, what is clickable and what is not. This flat-design fashion is everywhere nowadays. With the newest version of Gmail, I am even having a hard time trying to find the "Reply" button. Ridiculous.

You may prefer to switch to HTML view. I've been using this for years since I find the standard version aggravating.