This section describes how to use themes to customize the appearance of the GNOME Desktop.
You can use themes to modify and control the appearance of the desktop in a consistent manner. A theme is a group of coordinated settings that specifies how a desktop component or a group of desktop components appears. When you apply a theme, the system modifies many desktop components simultaneously to achieve the desired effect. For example, if you apply a theme that increases the font size across the desktop, the theme also modifies the size of panels and icons on the desktop for optimum compatibility with the font size.
The following types of themes affect different parts of the desktop:
Desktop themes determine the visual appearance of all windows, applications, dialogs, panels, and applets. Desktop themes also determine the visual appearance of the GNOME-compliant interface items that appear on windows, panels, and applets, such as menus, icons, and buttons. Some of the desktop themes that are available in the Desktop are designed for special accessibility needs.
Window frame themes determine the appearance of the frames around windows only.
To open the Theme preference tool and view the desktop themes that are available, choose Applications ▸ Desktop Preferences ▸ Theme. The Theme Preferences dialog is displayed.
The most popular desktop themes are listed on the left side of the Theme Preferencesdialog. To choose a new theme for the desktop, click on a theme in the list box. The system automatically applies the theme to the desktop. The view a longer list of desktop themes, click on the Theme Details button. The desktop themes are displayed in the Controls tabbed section of the Theme Details dialog. There are several desktop themes available that suit different accessibility needs. These themes are described in the following table:
| Theme Name | Description |
|---|---|
| HighContrast | Provides dark text on a light background using high contrast colors. |
| HighContrastInverse | Provides light text on a dark background using high contrast colors. |
| LowContrast | Uses low contrast colors for the background and foreground text. |
| LargePrint | Increases the font size to 18pt. The background and foreground colors are the same as those specified by the Default desktop theme. |
| HighContrastLargePrint | Provides dark text on a light background using high contrast colors and increases the font size to 18pt. |
| HighContrastLargePrintInverse | Provides light text on a dark background using high contrast colors and increases the font size to 18pt. |
| LowContrastLargePrint | Uses low contrast colors for the background and foreground text and increases the font size to 18pt. |
To open the Theme preference tool and view the window frame themes that are available, perform the following steps:
To open the Theme preference tool and view the icon themes that are available, perform the following steps: