Backgrounds and themes

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From the applications menu item "Appearance", customizing Window Maker becomes quite easy.
Themes, styles, icon set, backgrounds can be defined as soon as they are installed in the right place.
Usually they are found in ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Directory_name (Directory_name should be replaced with Themes, Backgrounds...) or in /usr/local/share/WindowMaker/Directory_name.

  • Backgrounds

    Backgrounds can be selected among solid, gradient or images menu items. They can be accessed from the root menu item Appearance/Backgrounds or can be defined within the config file, that is ~/GNUstep/Defaults/WindowMaker.
    Selecting the menu item runs the supplied program wdwrite to write the selection into the above mentioned config file.
    The syntax of the config file looks like:
    WorkspaceBack = (solid, gray) or (solid, "#333340")
    The last specifies the color name in standard X format.
    This allows to define the default background.
    A background can be set for every workspace.
    To give each workspace a specific background, the syntax is almost the same. WorkspaceSpecificBack has to be used instead.
    Example:
    WorkspaceSpecificBack = ((solid, red), (cpixmap, ship.jpg, gray), (), (dgradient, red, blue)
    This sets the background of workspace 1 to solid, of workspace 2 to jpeg image ship.jpg, and of workspace 4 to a gradient. Workspace 3 gets the background defined by WorkspaceBack.
    These settings use quite a lot of resources.
    The solid backgrounds are strongly recommended for 8bit display to reduce the number of used colours.
    Six solid backgrounds colours are available by default.
    The gradient backgrounds are very nice looking but should be used on 16 or 24 bit display.
    The images background is the place to select personal pictures as soon as they were put in the backgrounds directory above mentioned.
    Usually the JPEG format gives the best compromise between size and quality. Other images format can be used as soon as Window Maker was compiled with the corresponding libraries.
    An image background should'nt be used on an 8bit display, especially if it is a "plenty of colour" picture.

  • Themes

    Themes give the ability to save the whole GUI appearance.
    Background image, menu texture, titlebar can be saved as a theme.
    Selecting Themes from the root menu item Appearance runs the supplied program setstyle.
    The syntax of setstyle is quite obvious: setstyle mytheme.themed.
    Eight themes are provided with Window Maker if the archive WindowMaker-extra-0.1.tar.gz has been downloaded.
    They all deserve a try.
    Once again, themes should'nt be used on 8bit display.
    More information about themes can be found in the README.themes file in ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker.

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