OneStepBack

Summary

• 1 OneStepBack
• 2 Version
• 3 Screenshots
• 4 Installation
• 5 Author
• 6 Licence
• 7 Web pages
• 8 Color variations
• 9 Known Bugs
• 10 Changelog
• 11 Version numbering
• 12 Download

1 OneStepBack

OneStepBack is a Gtk 2, 3 and 4 theme with some colors and embossed widgets inspired by the good old NeXTSTEP look. I'm old.

It is developed from scratch, is light and minimal, uses only three shades of grays and one color. That was the challenge.

It has been tested on Arch Linux with Gnome-Shell, Gtk+ from 3.16 to 3.24 and Gtk+ 4.12.4, a good amount of Gtk2 and Gtk3 applications and a very few Gtk4 applications. A lot of widget controls are still missing (but the defaults should be good enough) and it is not tested at all with unity or xfce.

[If you're a WindowMaker user, you might also be interested in TwoStepsBack.]

2 Version

Current version is 0.997, released in March 2024.

3 Screenshots

The screenshots show OneStepBack theme and a slightly darker and contrasty variation : OneStepBack-wm2. They show also : Ubo Icons Theme with personal additions, Dash to Dock and Dynamic Top Bar Gnome Shell extensions.

4 Installation

To install the theme, unzip the archive and copy the theme in your theme directory, usually ~/.local/share/themes. There is no need for any extra engine.

To make the change effective, right now in January 2024, you will have to :

• put export GTK_THEME=OneStepBack in your ~/.xprofile file;
• use the application gnome-tweaks and select OneStepBack in Appearance/Legacy Appplications.
• then, log out from your XWindow or Wayland session and restart it.

I know, this is now ridiculously complicated.

Tip : QT applications can use some base colors of the gtk theme after installing qt5-styleplugins and qt6gtk2, for a more consistent overall appearance.

5 Author

The author is Jean-Pierre Bucciol.

6 Licence

This is a GPL 3 free software. Feel free to change and share the code.

7 Web pages

• OneStepBack theme main page
• OneStepBack at gnome-look.org

8 Colors variations

The dominant colors of the theme are easy to change. They are defined in the first lines of files gtk-2.0/gtk2rc, gtk-3.0/gtk.css and gtk-4.0/gtk.css. For example, for a WindowMaker-like version, try to change in gtk-2.0/gtk2rc :

gtk-color-scheme = "white_color:#ffffff
lighter_color:#eeeeee
base_color:#888888
darker_color:#666666
black_color:#000000
scale_color:#4b6983
"

gtk-color-scheme = "button_selected_bg_color:#686868
text_selected_bg_color:#686868
text_selected_fg_color:#ffffff
menuitem_selected_bg_color:#efeeed
menuitem_selected_fg_color:#000000
listitem_selected_bg_color:#686868
listitem_selected_fg_color:#ffffff
"

In gtk-3.0/gtk.css and gtk-4.0/gtk.css :

@define-color white_color #ffffff;
@define-color lighter_color #eeeeee;
@define-color base_color #888888;
@define-color darker_color #666666;
@define-color black_color #000000;
@define-color scale_color #4b6983;

@define-color headerbar_bg_color #000000;
@define-color button_selected_bg_color #686868;
@define-color text_selected_bg_color #686868;
@define-color text_selected_fg_color #ffffff;
@define-color menuitem_selected_bg_color #efeeed;
@define-color menuitem_selected_fg_color #000000;
@define-color listitem_selected_bg_color #686868;
@define-color listitem_selected_fg_color #ffffff;
@define-color text_view_bg @lighter_color;

9 Known Bugs

• LibreOffice : black color on black background in some widgets : unfortunatly, nothing I can do. Workaround : please try to put "export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=kf5" in your ~/.xsessionrc file (or ~/.xprofile, or ~/.bashrc) and restart your X session.
• Firefox, Thunderbird and QT applications : arrow buttons shape and colors, color of active menu items : unfortunatly, nothing I can do.
• gtk4 port is very experimental !

10 Changelog

Version 0.998, working version

• gtk3-4: correct a bug in color of close button, introduced by the new version of mutter

Version 0.997, March 2024

• gtk4: improve button image:active
• gtk3: fix a bug in background-color of headerbar button:active:hover
• gtk4: fix a bug in headerbar color name
• gtk4: improve switch widget in list
• gtk3: fix inconsistencies in outset and inset widgets
• gtk3: fix a color bug in switch widget
• gtk3: fix a bug in label of disabled combobox button
• gtk4: improve listview widget
• gtk3-4: all headerbar widgets turn gray when backdrop
• gtk4: improve spinbutton text widget

Version 0.996, February 2024

• gtk4: improve progressbar and scale widgets
• gtk4: improve embossed widgets
• gtk3-4 : add minimal support of tooltip widget
• gtk3-4: improve separators; remove vertical separator in headerbar
• gtk4: improve arrows in menus
• gtk3-4: improve notebook top and left tabs borders
• gtk3-4: fix color inconsistencies in disabled labels and spinbuttons
• gtk3-4: the close button in headerbars now turns red or orange when hover
• gtk3-4: add a gray change on buttons in headerbar when hover.
• gtk3: fix some inconsistencies in label of disabled menuitems
• gtk3-4: fix a color bug in the label of disabled check buttons.
• gtk3-4: lower the minimum height of the headerbars
• gtk4: improve some calendar widgets
• change slightly the base and lighter colors
• gtk3: fix a mismatch of the different versions where the derived colors were harded coded

Version 0.995, January 2024

• gtk3: fix a bug with the height of titlebar
• gtk3: fix a bug in radius of titlebar
• modify the colors of the darker variant for more contrasts
• gtk4: reworking of the windows shadows
• gtk3: fix a wrong foreground color in thunderbird titlebar
• gtk4: add some calandar widgets
• gtk4: works now with mutter, but it's crude. Problably needs some reworking.
• gtk3: foreground selection color hack for evince.

Version 0.994, February 2022

• gtk4: bug introduced with the new version of gtk4 : color of the window title : fixed
• gtk4: genuine version was using the darker colors ! Fixed

Version 0.993, November 2021

• gtk3: change behaviour for label disactived color
• gtk4: first very experimental port

Version 0.992, November 2020

• keep only one variant, slightly darker.
• gtk3: fix a color bug in message dialog headerbar
• gtk3: fix a color name bug
• gtk3: improve color selection of button:active:hover and button:checked:hover.
• gtk3: remove some obsolete tweaks
• gtk3: compatibility with gtk 3.24 checked
• add a darker variant: OneStepBack-darker
• gtk3: hack fix a color bug in gnome terminal 3.36.2

Version 0.991, July 2018

• change the grey-brown color variant for a grey-brown-green-blue color variant
• gtk2: improve generation of the derived colors
• gtk2: improve colors of progressbar label
• gtk3: improve color backdrop color in headerbar
• gtk3: improve button color consistency in headerbar
• gtk3: fix a bug in toolbar button hover
• gtk3: fix a color name bug
• improve differentation of selected text, menuitem and listitem colors

Version 0.99, April 2018

• gtk3: improve spacing for icons in nautilus sidebar
• gtk3: fix a color name bug
• add a grey-brown color variant

Version 0.98, March 2018

• gtk3: fix a color bug when toogle button in hover
• fix a bug in the headerbar roundness
• fix a color bug in the windows shadows
• improve design of the thumbs on scales and scrollbars
• improve colors of arrows and scrollbars
• improve support for easy color changes
• change colors of the variant color version: the colors are inspired by the earth-brown gtk3 theme

Version 0.97, January 2018

• gtk3: fix a color bug in the flotting bottom information bar in nautilus
• add a color variant
• gtk3: fix a color bug in popover (modelbutton:active)
• gtk3: drop support for gtk 3.16 and 3.18

Version 0.96, July 2017

• fix a color bug for mouse color selection in caja (mrnhmath)

Version 0.95, July 2017

• fix a color bug for background in icon view in caja (mrnhmath)
• fix a color name bug

Version 0.94, July 2017

• fix a color bug for selected and unfocused wxgtk items

Version 0.93, May 2017

• gtk3: fix a color bug in nautilus for selected and unfocused icons
• gtk3: fix a color bug for selections in firefox gtk3
• change for a blue-gray color for progress bars and switch

Version 0.92: November 2016

• gtk3: fix a color bug in headerbar pathbar
• gtk3: add a left margin to arrow in menus
• gtk2: fix wrong background color in rox when switching theme
• gtk3: improve css syntax for font definitions

Version 0.91, September 2016

• gtk3: disable the GtkWidget-window-dragging function that breaks things in gnumeric (thanks Ingo S.)

Version 0.9, August 2016

• add support for easy color changes
• gtk3: add a minimal lenght to the scrollbar sliders
• gtk3: improve arrows design in scrollbar when disabled

Version 0.8, April 2016

• gtk3: fix a bug in desktop borders when nautilus manages the desktop
• gtk3: more consistant design of the scrollbar arrow buttons
• gtk3: add support for scale indicators
• gtk3: fix bug for scale sliders overpassing trough
• gtk3: fix a bug with labels of scale bars
• gtk3: add support for arrows in popover menus
• gtk3: change behaviour of the checked button in hea.derbar
• gtk3: add basic support for calendar and iconview widgets
• gtk3: fix a color bug for radiobutton label when disabled in list
• gtk3: add support for expander arrows when active

Version 0.7, April 2016

• gtk3: port to gtk 3.20: gtk3 part rebuild from scratch !
• orange progress bar color
• gray active widgets
• no more highlight on hover

Version 0.6, November 2015

• gtk3: improve borders of menus (thanks behrz)

Version 0.5, October 2015

• gtk3: improve borders/shadows to better match the gtk2 part (thanks behrz)
• gtk3: improve switch borders
• fix some colors and rocking in toolbar buttons
• change borders of scrollbar sliders to match the new button shadows
• gtk2: better centering of the scrollbar thumb
• gtk3: fix a padding problem in gedit open document popover (thanks to bd209ocp)

Version 0.4, October 2015

• gtk3: fix some color and padding tweeks for nautilus 3.18
• add arrow buttons to scrollbars
• gtk3: test with gtk 3.18: ok

Version 0.3, October 2015

• gtk2: fix shadow glitchs in the scrollbar design
• add a shell script to easily change the colors of the theme
• gtk3: improve calculation of shadows on buttons

Version 0.2, September 2015

• gtk3: fix borders glitchs in menus
• gtk3: improve borders of the embossed widgets
• gtk3: define help colors for borders
• gtk3: fix :hover colors on switchs
• gtk3: add support for gnome-logs selections
• fix color of insensitive combobox and check and radio buttons labels
• gtk2: fix color of gimp loading bar

Version 0.1, August 2015

• initial version

11 Version numbering

Version 1 will be the definitive version...

12 Download

Current version:

• OneStepBack-v0.997.zip
• OneStepBack-wm2-v0.997.zip

Older versions:

• OneStepBack-v0.996.zip
• OneStepBack-wm2-v0.996.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.995.zip
• OneStepBack-darker-v0.995.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.994.zip
• OneStepBack-darker-v0.994.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.993.zip
• OneStepBack-darker-v0.993.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.992.zip
• OneStepBack-darker-v0.992.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.991.zip
• OneStepBack-grey-brown-green-blue-v0.991.zip
• OneStepBack-green-brown-v0.991.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.99.zip
• OneStepBack-grey-brown-v0.99.zip
• OneStepBack-green-brown-v0.99.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.98.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.97.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.96.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.94.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.91.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.9.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.7.zip <--- Last version for Gtk+ 3.16 and 3.18
• OneStepBack-v0.6.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.5.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.4.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.3.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.2.zip
• OneStepBack-v0.1.zip