Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 106620
A way to start OOo with a custom GTK+ theme
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:42:27 UTC
So far OpenOffice is able to take over behaviour of the Theme which is set through the environment, no matter if you were in Gnome/XFCE/... So far it does pick up what is set up globally, well no problem here. But what, if I want to start it with a custom GTK+ theme, like I already can do with plenty of apps? For Pidgin for example I modified the desktop entry (aka shortcut) with this line: Exec="env GTK2_RC_FILES=/usr/share/themes/Xfce-dusk/gtk-2.0/gtkrc pidgin" and it works as suspected like in this screenshot: http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8523/68366264.png Sadly, this ain't possible with OpenOffice. And people having a dark theme have reasons using custom themes for thertain apps, as sometimes dark themes aren't appropriate, like you might see here (barely readable,and this applies to menus, too): http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/2953/77144494.png For things like Browsers and Office-Suites, much people using dark desktop themes prefer "normal" themes, like this: http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/4126/26669009.png ... this is obviously a better working environment but this isn't working without an impact on all GTK+-Apps. I would expect that OpenOffice takes the Environment Variables as near to all GTK+-Apps would do. env GTK2_RC_FILES=/usr/share/themes/Xfce-dusk/gtk-2.0/gtkrc ooffice -calc should work and for me this is clearly a bug with OpenOffice.org. Sadly, I found no workaround or hack, nor I am able to find the lines of code which should be changed. The only thing i found was this blog where it was discussed before (firefox seems to have the same problem): http://urukrama.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/setting-a-custom-gtk-theme-for-specific-applications/ Would love to see that fixed as I depend on OOo thanks :-)
Reassigned to Requirements
For now, you just have to decide which is more important, using a cool-looking theme or using OOo effectively. Style or substance, that is the question. Is this a duplicate of issue #103999?
Created attachment 65973 [details] OOo renders is as dark text on a dark background
Created attachment 65974 [details] OOo renders is as dark text on a dark background
> For now, you just have to decide which is more important, using a cool-looking > theme or using OOo effectively. Style or substance, that is the question. The point was that I >don't< want to use dark themes for OOo. As for Xubuntu Karmic, Albatross as a dark theme is the default. Now it is to the user to make exceptions and for now, the standard way to do so is due the mentioned environment variable > Is this a duplicate of issue #103999? No, as I attached the pic, this is one problem related to it, but has nothing to do with this. Fixing #103999 would help, indeed, as OOo is indeed not working like the rest of GTK userland apps here.