Icons - filling in some gaps

Well, I went on an Azenis kick. I did manage to get the basic theme running on my system but I had noticed that I lacked many icons.
Digging through the web, I find J.J. Yings original Azenis set which is quite very different from JamesHardy88's.
JamesHardy had adapted dar0ckx's icons for windowblinds: "The Preface of the Cyan Magic." JamesHardy88 combined J.J. Yings window theme with dar0ckx's Preface Icons.
In my aged opinion, I can see why. But I was bothered when in Settings Control Panel, I lacked mouse, Keyboard, and so on. I also preferred that the downloads folder went in only one direction- Down. Having it in two directions would mean it was an "Upload and download" folder. So, made a modification, there.
Original work by dar0ckx, slightly modified by me: The Firefox Logo at the bottom was made by TechnoShaun. Work in progress as I change my mind, modify, scrap and start over again...
NOTE: The screenshot added a Purple color that is not present in the actual images. I have no idea why,

I can only think of two possibilities, either it's an effect of Zorin themes or possibly graphics driver?

Swarfendor437 wrote:I can only think of two possibilities, either it's an effect of Zorin themes or possibly graphics driver?

I would bet on the graphics driver. Or... all my fiddling with things.
You can see 4 different Icons I modified here; Displays, Zorin Appearance, Power and Users. The Firewall config icon is in post above, as well as mouse and keyboard.

You can also see another artifact that has me stumped. Firewall Configuration and Notifications both are offset from the icons, cutting off the "n." I did not change the notifications Icon.

EDIT: Also, just fixed the keyboard icon. Noticed it looked a bit crooked. Added keys for the number pad side, too.

Looking good.

Thanks. It is strictly amateur, but not too bad for a noob.
It got me thinking about .svg files. Scaled Vector Graphics are preferred over .png, now. Of course, I traversed the internet looking for software to use to convert .png to .svg for a long time before I found I could do it in terminal with

Code:

convert (example).png (example).svg

Facepalm.
Learning this has sent me back to thinking of converting a known working GTK3 theme into the theme I want. Previously, I had installed and used NVM (Node Version Manager) and Inkscape and modified a theme but the button layout was slightly different and using .png instead of .svg was a major problem. Having solved that, now, I pulled the other project back out of the dustbin and blew the dust off of it. It is very tedious to do and takes some time. Probably get it done in time to be totally obsolete by the next update.

If you have ever wondered what stubborn looks like...

On Zorin 12.4 : Ok, now operating in full on all aspects including radio buttons, horiz. and vert. sliders and so on. I did this to learn as well as for my own enjoyment. Maybe I will continue on to learn how to wrap it up and make it available to others. That's a lot of work as you need to know how it will respond on other distros, etc. I am nowhere near there.
But simply, I am happy with it. Adjusted the Preface icons more, including making the empty recycle/trash bin empty on top as well as in the bin (The original had the blue "full" look on top with bin empty beneath.)
So far, no glitches, that I know of.

Thanks Swarfendor for the encouragement; Zorin; Horst3180 for excellent write ups on .css files and those that constructed and made the stuff that I just force fit onto the computer.

Looking great Aravision - brings back fond memories of my Zorin 4 installation!

It's true... My new is everyone else's old...

I prefer it that way. The '53 Chevy runs top.

In the meantime, I have hit a snag. I shouldn't let it bother me, but it is.

In the settings panel, there is an icon that simply is labeled Sound. I need to know the name of it in order to make a replacement Icon in my custom folder... But I am at a total loss. I have tried:
gnome-audio, gnome-control-center-sound, gnome-sound-properties, gnome-settings-sound, gnome-volume-control, indicator-sound, preferences-system-sound, pulseaudio, preferences-sound, unity-sound-manager, gnome-sound-manager... And probably a few other names I have forgotten.
Any idea what that Icon depicts so I can properly name it?

Does it have any properties at all? Have you tried Alsa Mixer? Pulse Audio Manager?

Update, just found this:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/695796/ ... -thumbnail

Swarfendor437 wrote:Does it have any properties at all? Have you tried Alsa Mixer? Pulse Audio Manager?

Update, just found this:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/695796/ ... -thumbnail

You nailed it. That link leads to discussion on installation of gtk3 icon browser. It works; I found the icon listed as "multimedia-volume-control."
Found quite a few others that I had wondered about, as well.

Swarfendor437 wrote:I can only think of two possibilities, either it's an effect of Zorin themes or possibly graphics driver?

Quite close... I figured this one out by accident, yesterday. It's an effect of the Emerald settings on the themes. I was playing with the settings; reduced the Opacity and the Radius settings on the Emerald window decorator I had downloaded for this little project and totally eliminated all that blue glow bordering.
Everything is running pretty top, now. Which I'm sheepishly surprised by as I am running a clobbered together mess of obsolete and outdated unsupported programs as an uneducated noob making it all up as I go along. As well as doing so on a machine not built for Linux.
I cannot use the old GDM themes, so I made my own and switched the greeter to LightDM. Greeter now has a modified Zorin Logo and modified password field. Screenshot is of the background image and not the active login screen.

When I feel like it, I will adjust it to look neater and less chopped together.
Also changed the encryption login screen in similar fashion but I cannot figure out any way to screenshot that.
Created a new Panel to match the rest of the theme that has the "carbon fiber look" panel bar with the azenis "A" start button. Replaced the Main Menu with Cardapio (Way outdated, using gtk2) which I am modifying with Glade to make it match as well. This is to emulate the GnoMenu look that TechnoShaun had made, with less glitter and bling and more dark theme elements. It's a work in progress, incomplete at this time. Considering that I restore classic cars, I guess it is no surprise I am revamping themes that amused people ten years ago.
It is interesting, though... I definitely notice a trend to the change in theming. In the old days, GTK2 was harder to theme on than GTK3, but a lot more stable and freedom oriented. You could do a lot more adjustments with it. With the changes in Gnome, theming changed to being based around the Unico and Adwaita engines. This is due to them being the most supported and stable. Theming in GTK3 means that the theme may break within one update.
The result of this is a slew of themes that generally all look the same to me. Same design, just someone changed the colors. Flat and looking like construction paper cutouts- fine for South Park but not what I like to see on my own screen. Being very mechanical, seeing the objects on my screen look like 3D physical mechanical objects is far more appealing to me. I am certain that I cannot be the only person that is not happy with the current trend in display appearance.
It makes a person wonder if the lack of more active themers today is a result of all that. Building them went from being an enjoyable challenge to being a tedious pain in the backport only to get results that may break or look generic.
In the future, that may change.

Hi, Well done on your efforts with Azenis - I too dislike the 'Paper' icons - for me at the very least it has to be the 'hicolor' theme:



With regards the login screenshot I had to use my smartphone when creating a video on how to change Desktop Environments using the 'cog' at login time.

Swarfendor437 wrote:With regards the login screenshot I had to use my smartphone when creating a video on how to change Desktop Environments using the 'cog' at login time.

I also like a Clean, not cluttered desktop.

My smartphone isn't very smart. I thought about using it to make a photo but I know my camera. Another option is to create a mockup image that shows what it looks like which would be pretty easy to do.
I recall when I first opened the Zorin screen, how much I liked the glowing look of the Zorin Start-here icon. Would really like to incorporate that, but unsure about how others might feel about my making a Zorin logo and making it look like a different start menu. No one cares about Azenis, anymore and I can get away with that. Probably, the modifications I am learning to make will steer in a new direction that won't be the original theme I started with. I have taken elements from Delorean-dark, Vertex-dark and Azenis all together.

I really don't think it matters what you do to the Z logo - if you were to upload such a theme to opendesktop/gnome-look.org then that might be a different matter and you would have to licence it a gpl-by-ncc which is what I have had to do when making wallpapers specifically for Zorin although I might have slipped up on one or two of those. I was trying to make a 'neon' Gnomenu for Zorin 6 a while back but didn't get very far in implementing it but you can see what I did with the Z that would have been for the menu in this wallpaper I made:

https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1044788/

Swarfendor437 wrote:I really don't think it matters what you do to the Z logo

For my own purposes, learning and amusement.
I guess it's like customizing the front grill of the Ford Falcon - no one cares and they may even admire the work. But do it on a current model and whoever drafted it might think, "What, my current working model isn't good enough for ya?" They may not take any action on the thought, it's more a thing of respect to not trod on toes.

Swarfendor437 wrote:- if you were to upload such a theme to opendesktop/gnome-look.org then that might be a different matter and you would have to licence it a gpl-by-ncc

I think it will be a long while before I have the confidence and know how to trust such things on machines other than my own. I am in two minds about going to those lengths, part of me thinks that others must step up into the role; another part thinks that others should step up into that role.
I think I would prefer to offer pieces than the whole package. For example:
https://www.deviantart.com/jameshardy88 ... -139027651
The download button still works. It is the only one I have found that works. But extracting the package? Not so much...
Every attempt had my computer saying to me, "It's broken bubba, get over it." Maybe for another, it would be easy to solve. But I did manage to extract the more essential red Preface icons from it; a couple hundred of the icons total. I am not using them for anything, but stored them in several places in case I should come across anyone that wants a copy.
See, I can stumble and blunder through with some success, but a knowledgeable person would probably do it better. ...And faster. I don't have a great deal of time to devout to it. Maybe one day I will be a knowledgeable person and can provide things on gnome-look, but not yet.

Swarfendor437 wrote:I was trying to make a 'neon' Gnomenu for Zorin 6 a while back but didn't get very far in implementing it but you can see what I did with the Z that would have been for the menu in this wallpaper I made:

https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1044788/

Considering the time loop I am stuck in, I have wondered if I should have started on Zorin 5 O.S., instead of 12.
Did download a copy of 5, just in case.
Given that wallpaper, I would have liked to see the product. Of course, my mind has already warped your intentions by adding in 1950's era rat rods and the classic diner setting.
Back on XP, I'd made a Steam Locomotive era setting; not quite steam punk, but not quite historically accurate, either. Clashed with the brightly colored start menu in a bad way. Your Zorin neon idea with a bit of classic cars would have rounded it out, maybe.

I never did learn to party right. Show up after everyone's gone or passed out drunk and I'm left asking "Who would want alcohol at a party? It doesn't make sense..." Tons of free food leftover, though...

The weird thing with that particular wallpaper is that I think I made it using PearOS!

Swarfendor437 wrote:The weird thing with that particular wallpaper is that I think I made it using PearOS!

That is pretty funny. All on the same team, right?
Never heard of Pear, but there is undoubtedly a great deal I am ignorant about. Curious about Puppy Linux. I don't have a spare machine to test it out on and my currrent machine barely survived my two adventures into Virtualbox.


The version as of at least 3.18.5 now exists. For all the failures of the last few days, yesterday and today made up for with successes. I modified the tabs, menu bar, buttons, handles and sliders. Created a Gnome Shell folder. It turns out I forgot to remove a test script from the gtk.css file from a few days ago after I was finished testing things. That caused some chaos. Found that late last night and what a difference that made...
The main modification though, is the min, restore, close button. The Azenis set is tightly packed together and doesn't fit well, today. It had the negative side effect of users missing their mark and hitting close when they meant maximize and so on, as well.
So the following is a quick pencil sketch of a redesign border (You may need to scroll the image to the right a bit on your machine):

As you can see, a bit more space on a longer set.

Hi, PearOS was written by a French guy, David Tavares. Rumours abound that Apple shut him down but when it closed down his statement was that he had sold it to an undisclosed company and was unable to provide any more links to the OS. For a while Softpedia kept the links going until they were forcibly told to take it down. Puppy Linux is a lightweight distribution but my favourite fork of it was MacPup - still going I think.

You can try the following download link at this page but you may find it takes you nowhere:

https://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/ ... 6309.shtml

More old news here:

https://news.softpedia.com/news/pear-os ... 2062.shtml

Your work is looking good!

This is an old question; oft repeated:
What is the difference between distros?

Not so easy to answer.

I read up a bit on Pear, also on Pup, Pinguy and several others. It seems like many are Ubuntu based. Linus Torvalds prefers Fedora. Su, yum, Apt, apt-get, asking what makes distros different is like asking what the best stats are for your D&D character. The guru is going to answer: "Depends on what you want." Ok, well, I never played D&D.
I prefer a more solid answer. Having been exploring (at great risk, had a near miss with having to wipe and reload again, yesterday but managed to salvage it all) Zorin, I find elements of xfce, unity, kde, and so on in the folders. Some of that may be my own doing; I have settled on Nemo3 as my default filer and replaced nautilus with it. I may not have played D&D, but I sure knocked the heck out of Final Fantasy 7 back in the day. I learned pretty quickly that with 7, you were not limited in characters being typecast like you were in 5 and 6. Linux seems to be the FF7 of Operating systems. Linux has Materia, I guess...
Anyone that ever had a PS1 and played that game at 3am, watching in horror as Aeris dies when a kid, knows exactly what I mean. You can configure a great deal and in the end, it didn't matter who you chose to be your warrior, your healer or your mage; It's a bit fluid and you can mix and match a bit - you end up succeeding all the same, no matter what your original plan for the stats was. I have experience so far with only one distro. I can bet that there are more rigid distros... But I don't know. Learning how little I know is pretty stark since I switched from M.S. to Zorin.

I got some books. Murachs css and 2nd edition introductory css. Yesterday, I tried out 3.22 gnome with my creation. Wow, total failure. I still have no idea what or how it happened... Apparently if your .css is too far gone, the computer tries to save itself by using a default theme, turning off a bunch of settings and reconfiguring itself to prevent catching on fire. My windows suddenly had no min, max or close buttons at all. I couldn't move anything around... Took an unhappy minute realizing that had even happened, then another sussing out what changed, what was turned off...

OK, Potted history lesson. Richard Stalllman was working on an OS called Hurd and the code he was writing was GNU (= GNU is Not Unix) and was trying to develop a kernel. Linus had been working on something called Minix and created a kernel that made GNU work. The Linux Kernel in respect of Computer Operating Systems that use it, needs GNU in order for it to work, so no GNU, no LInux. Linus is for Open Source, Stallman is for Free Software which means free of all proprietary blobs that may be needed for certain hardware to work that was made for that other OS. Next up we come up with the main software houses, Red Hat and Debian - these are the two main differences in GNU/Linux as Red Hat uses .rpm (redhat package manager) and Debian uses .deb pkg manager on which Ubuntu is based. Red Hat is an Enterprise Software House and is found on a lot of Servers and it is costly to purchase. Main distributions either charge or allow approved free alternatives such as 'Community Driven' forks of the two main types. Red Hat's community edition is 'Fedora'. Debian is in some contexts both a business and a community. Next up we have the Desktop Environments - basically the 'front end' of a distribution and this is where it could be argued it gets messy. Initially, the two prominent 'mainstream' Desktop Environments were Gnome and Konqueror (KDE). Gnome was noted for it's 'pure' GNU/Linux look, with the main taskbar at the top of the screen, with the bottom panel/taskbar simply showing the workspace indicator and something else which alludes me. KDE on the other hand had a more Windows-centric feel to it, with it's panel/taskbar at the bottom with a taskbar that was similar to Windows. So a lot of migrations to GNU/Linux from Windows, including myself, was to gravitate towards distributions with a KDE desktop. For sighted people KDE does look nice but sadly its accessibility elements have always been limited compared to Gnome's. Rather tellingly, Red Hat and Debian are American. Red Hat gets its name from a Red Fedora which main characters in the organisation wear. Debian has a romantic story about it. The Debian system was devised by Ian Woods who met his intended (Debbie) in a Coffee bar (sadly Ian died a few years back, a sad loss to the GNU/Linux wider community) which provided us with the name of Debian - a marriage between Deb and Ian.
Now Debian has for sometime always maintained a 'Nix type installation interface which looks like a coloured DOS terminal and could be off-putting for new users - that has changed. Now in addition to the two main Desktop Environments that have dominated the GNU/Linux scene for many years there is LXDE (Light X Desktop Environment - X being the element of GNU/Linux that controls what you see on screen. So if at boot time you can't get to the login screen you could try Ctrl+ Alt+ F2 to get to a terminal login and once you had entered your user name and password you could then type 'startx' to bring up the desktop. Then there is Xfce which used to be XFce (XForms common enviornment) but after a couple of rewrites, it doesn't use the Xforms toolkit any more, so now it is just Xfce. Then we have other Desktop Environments, Cairo Dock DE, Cinnamon DE, and MATE oh and nearly forgot one more, Enlightenment - not to be confused with Buddhist doctrine! And thereby lies another problem faced by the Gnome DE - it's symbol is a human foot - something frowned upon by Buddhists as it is the lowest part of the body. On the European front, the main players are SuSE from Germany. In France we had Mandrake which is what I was advised to learn on, which I did. Mandrake grew and merged with a Brasilian GNU/Linux company, Connectiva, and Mandriva was born. Sadly in an attempt to save money as finances at Mandriva were getting into trouble, what did they do? They fired Gael Duval, its founder and developer of Mandrake - he now runs his own company Ulteo which promotes the best of Windows and GNU/Linux so that you can have a Windows and GNU/Linux servers hosting the best apps for Enterprise and others to have access to. He is also promoting E - an alternative to Android for pure privacy - I would love to install it on my One Plus 3T but fear I might brick it - Mobile phones are one area that I have not messed with.
Going back stateside, there was a company called Lindows which was taken to court by Microsoft as being to close to sounding like Windows and M$ lost the case. Subsequently the name was transferred to Microsoft while the money won from M$ was used to promote Lindows OS replaement, Linspire. I never purchased a copy but used the community edition, Freespire. It was using 'apt' to install packages which was the backend to C'N'R (Click 'N' Run) - basically it just installed a package with all dependencies so that you were not having to use something like Synaptic which asks you to install a load of other stuff needed to run the app - it was an attempt to create the equivalent of Windows Programs and Features. It was just getting very polished when Michael Robertson, the founder of Linspire, sold it off (controversially without a shareholders meeting approval) to XandrOS (XandrOS was founded by people who were no longer working for MS Office's main rival back in the day that gave us Word Perfect.) So how it all began with myself. An IT Technician, and former student of where I currently work, gave me a copy of Knoppix (a free German OS software) which I used for Data Recovery on student's notebooks if Windows crashed - but it was beaten hands down by Freespire once when Knoppix could not pickup both the micro-usb floppy and the DVD-ROM on a Dell Latitude - what did blow me away with Knoppix was a female voice stating "All systems initiated". And the main game attraction then which you could play solo or on the internet in live mode was Frozen Bubble. So then it was Mandrake, a purchase of Vector Linux (with Enlightenment - you'd get wallpaper with moving elements in it - A British OS if I'm not mistaken, a purchase of SuSE Linux 9.3 Professional which came on numerous DVD's giving you the choice of either a KDE install or a Gnome install, PCLinuxOS 2007 (another distro that ditched its founding father after he had taken an agreed 12 month sabbatical - shame on them), Lycoris (wish I'd bought the gamepak for that - the car racing game looked stunning - Lycoris was swallowed up by Mandrake), Sabayon (Gentoo based) - my favourite rendition of this distro was 3.6f - I think it's at 18 or more now with different flavoured desktops but the main one at the time was KDE (I think but happy to be shot down!), Musix (from Argentina), AVLinux from America - this was a unique amalgamation of Software that was aimed fair and square at musicians - it even included muscial score generating software that could be printed to an HP printer in Live Mode! One of my favourite splash screens at boot time was the Brasilian OS Epidemic - Imagine all those Windows users at work waking up to see a glowing hazchem symbol with the throbbing word of 'Epidemic' - they'd have thought they'd caught a virus! I've even tried distros created in a non-English interface 'ututo' from Argentina - nice interface. Then in the far east we have Berry Linux. Mustn't forget the late great Dreamlinux, Ubuntu (of course - I don't like how it has now come to think it is more than GNU/Linux when at boot time it 'announces' "Ubuntu with Linux" - more the other way round) this distro is from South Africa and founded (or should that be 'funded'? ) by multi-billionaire first paying citizen to go into space, Mark Shuttleworth, the Steve Jobs of the GNU/Linux world. Vinux, based on Ubuntu specifically designed as a distro for people with Visual Impairments, hence the name, a British distribution which whilst I applaud its aims, was not enamoured with it's use of the 'Eye of Horus' as its logo, which was also used by a now defunct distribution. Now I cannot go without mentioning Ultimate Ubuntu which got into trouble with Canonical and is now known as Ultimate Edition. There used to be a great Oz derivative too. More recent contenders include Elementary OS (which looks pretty but I can't stand it), Makulu Linux, FerenOS, Ubuntu MATE, Deepin, Trisquel - At version 6 this was the first GNU/Linux distro I had ever come across whose first menu option was to launch in live mode with screenreader - that is how it should be done! And finally that brings us to Zorin where I joined at Zorin OS4 and after only a couple of weeks contributing to the forum I found myself in the position of moderator!

Posts like this one above are how Internet forums really shine. Books are great; but picking someones brain and getting those treasure troves of information that you would be hard pressed to find sorted into a Book is far more rewarding.
That is an awesome post.

Well I agree, Swarfendor437 went to town on that one.

He filled the gaps on Icons like Stallman, Torvalds and others. Couldn't help myself...

Except I got the Corel bit wrong - whilst they were part of Corel (Xandros) it was Corel Linux, the commercial attempt that went belly up and the remnants from Corel Linux setup the now defunct Xandros - I think I have a Community Edition lying around somewhere. Whilst graphics on games such as Battle for Wesnoth might have been clean, the resolution was far too small, or rather the game play area was small to look at.

This is probably how I broke Zorin yesterday...



I made some modifications last night. Nautilus still continues to slowly take back certain functions. It's pissing me off.
I successfully modified the GTK3 for Nautilus to give it the appearance I can work with, though. So even if it does take over a bit, it won't break the theme, anymore.

Still filling in the gaps on icons. I have made at least thirty new. It's good practice, teaching me a lot.
I also learned how to create background images for Conky. Which led to me doing a lot of carried away play with the desktop...

Lost the last hair on my head.

Primary Monitor



Secondary monitor; I usually fit the window I am working on or reading in the flat open space, conky to the left. Sometimes I just smother than stupid things going Full Blow Window all over the place.

Enjoying a redesign and further refinements to the Apps menu.
Created a popup background for the Whisker Menu. The drop down tab floats over the panel while the menu floats above it. Wasn't easy to figure out how to do that... Used wmctrl to alter the panel and then the popup background is in python script instructed to keep above.
Hats off to Toz for helping me to figure out how to render the border transparent.

Niiiice!

Search bar entry tweak. I will line it up per pixels later when I have time.
The background and the apps menu are combined in a bash script to open together at once.

That discolored spot you see next to the "A" Icon was an emergency "off" button I hid there while setting that all up in case things went south. I have just removed that button and now the panel is smooth there, not shown in the image. (I took the screenshot prior to removing that hidden button).

Taking some risks:
https://www.pling.com/p/1323532/

Ooh! Can't wait to see if it will run on Zorin 15!

Swarfendor437 wrote:Ooh! Can't wait to see if it will run on Zorin 15!

What is included in that link is the Icon Theme.
Testing it using Zorin 15 on LiveCD, they worked fine.

That link also includes a second package that will only work with XFCE XFWM window manager.

Now that I posted it, I find I am feeling paranoid that it won't work on many systems.