Zorin OS Dark Theme

I'm loving Zorin OS and especially the sort of "x-ray" look you get with the dark theme and the blue or green highlight. However, there are some rough edges I'd like to comment on.

1. When the light theme is in use, there is a slight drop shadow around the windows, and it's easy for the eye to pick out the window you want to activate in a group of overlapping windows. With the dark theme turned on and several overlapping windows, it's hard to pick out individual windows you might want to activate, especially for programs like the text editor or terminal which adopt the same background color as the header bar. Perhaps this could be helped if the outermost 1-pixel outline around the windows was the bright accent color instead of a dim gray; or maybe there's some other solution.

2. When the light theme is in use and you click on an icon in the icon view, say a folder or document in the file manager, the icon darkens to show it is selected. Unfortunately the same thing happens in the dark theme, so most icons seem to disappear. It looks at first like you've done something wrong and accidentally deleted a file or something with one click! I'm having a difficult time getting used to icons that vanish when I click on them. Perhaps in the dark theme, the selected icon should brighten instead of darken?

3. When the either the light or dark theme is in use and you click on a folder icon in the list view, the row fills with an accent color which is almost exactly the color of the folder, drowning the folder icon out and once again making it appear as if something undesirable has happened.

Here are a couple of screenshots showing what happens to the .config folder icon when I select it with the dark theme active.

These are very good points. I have always thought the dark theme in Zorin was too dark. I prefer dark themes in general, but often run into trouble with them, Zorin or not, even.
For example, I created my own dark theme... well... created is a strong word. I patched together a dark theme based on the elements I want and other peoples work... that functions well over-all, but on (Firefox) Waterfox, entry fields blanked out and I could not read the contents of the entry field. It took me an embarrassingly long time to solve that one.
Those colors in your screenshot definitely do not work well together.

Perhaps the Zorin team can adjust the colors in their theme to be a bit less dark.
In the meantime, I can show you how to change the colors (base, bg, etc) in your Zorin-Dark theme .css file.
I do not use the Zorin themes much so I am not fully familiar, I think your screenshot is showing Zorin-Blue-Dark.
First, opening your file manager as root,
If Zorin 15:

Code:

pkexec nautilus

Or, Thunar, Nemo or Caja, whatever file manager floats your baot that you have installed and primarily are using.
If Zorin 12.4

Code:

gksu nautilus

same caveat of using your preferred file manager-
then, navigating to /usr/share/themes/Zorin-Blue-Dark/ gtk-3.0 You will see the following:

Code:

/* default color scheme */
@define-color bg_color #020E12;
@define-color fg_color #8EDBF2;
@define-color base_color #020E12;
@define-color selected_bg_color #8EDBF2;
@define-color selected_fg_color #020E12;
@define-color highlight_bg_color #8EDBF2;
@define-color highlight_fg_color #8EDBF2;
@define-color tooltip_bg_color #FFFFFF;
@define-color tooltip_fg_color #555555;

/* misc colors used by gtk+ */
@define-color info_color #8EDBF2;
@define-color warning_color #EFB379;
@define-color question_color #8EDBF2;
@define-color error_color #EB6D55;
@define-color destructive_color #EB6D55;
@define-color success_color #55EBC2;

The items like #8EDBF2 are html color codes which you can look up the ID's for the colors of your choice,:
https://htmlcolorcodes.com/
#ffffff is white, I think. Black trans would be #000000
I use #474747 a lot which is a dark gray color.

So, for @define-color-Base, you would see that color displayed in Entry, Comboboxes and things like that. Your search bar is an Entry, for example. The background in that search bar is defined by the Base Color. Changing that color where it is defined above will set that new color all across the theme for all functions that reference the color Base.
The color definition for bg defines the color used for background, such as the back of open windows- the color you see in the background behind all the files and folders in your file manager window.
The same for fg which is for foreground.
If you click on an active entry box that was defined @base, it will then define @selected. So on and so on. Highlight usually refers to options and buttons that have been activated. I think.

For a bit of fun as well as seizing control of your system, you can play around with the theme and see what you can create from it that suits you the best, as well as suits functionality. Toning down some colors or highlighting others. SAVE A BACKUP COPY OF THE .CSS FILE FIRST.
That way if you nuke the machine, you can un-nuke it easily.
And always stay on your toes when in Root.
But - if you so choose, you could have fun with it and maybe develop an interest in making your own themes, too.
Or simply tailor yours to work as you prefer the most.

This is something you can easily do, but by no means that your feedback on the Zorins work is not appreciated by them- I am sure that it is.

Interesting! I'll give it a try!

more...color codes