Numix-Based GTK Theme Generator Tool Oomox 1.2.0 Released With Improved Unity Support, More

Oomox is a tool that allows generating color variations of the popular Numix GTK2 / GTK3 theme, as well as icons to match them.

The application comes with a large number of built-in presets that can be further customized, and it supports GNOME, Unity, Xfce4 and Openbox.

The minimum GTK3 version required to use it is 3.18 (so it supports Ubuntu 16.04 and newer). The themes might work with older GTK3 versions, but you may encounter issues.

Oomox already had Unity support, but with the latest 1.2.0 version, themes generated with it now have the correct window buttons color instead of the default Numix color:

Furthermore, there's a new option to use the default Unity launcher style (off by default). Without turning this option on, this is how Unity Launcher looks with themes generated using Oomox (and Numix GTK theme):

Here are the most important changes in the latest Oomox 1.2.0:

• generate Unity theme (the default Numix theme was previously used): themes created with Oomox now use the proper window buttons color under Unity;
• there's a new option to use the default Unity launcher style (off by default);
• generate Metacity theme;
• generate color palette for Qt5ct (tested with Fusion Qt5 theme);
• allow configuring window manager border colors (this also fixes a bug with non-CSD apps having a border around the titlebar with GTK 3.20, e.g. Ubuntu 16.10);
• support for theming GTK text caret;
• added keyboard shortcuts and other GUI improvements.

Below you'll find a few examples of themes generated using Oomox:

Shiki Noble preset with GNOME Colors-based icons

Shiki Noble preset

Omega 2 preset with ArchDroid-based icons

Omega2 preset

Solarized Dark preset with GNOME Colors-based icons

Solarized Dark preset

Yesterday Night Dark preset with GNOME Colors-based icons

Yesterday Night Dark preset

Oomox tweaks: get icons to support Unity panel (monochrome icons), fix GTK themes for applications running as root

A. Get icon themes exported by Oomox to support the Unity panel (use Ubuntu Mono Dark / Light icons)

Oomox can export icons (based on GNOME Colors and ArchDroid) to match the GTK theme, but there are no monochrome icons for the Unity panel. However, there's an easy way to get the icon themes generated by Oomox to support Unity (force them to use monochrome icons on the Unity panel).

To do this, follow the instructions below.

1. Using your file manager, navigate to the ~/.icons folder (.icons is a hidden folder in your home directory so press Ctrl + H to display hidden folders), and in the Oomox icon theme directory (oomox-THEMENAME for GNOME Colors and oomox-THEMENAME-flat for ArchDroid-based icons), open the index.theme file with a text editor.

In this file, replace the line that starts with "Inherits" (it's usually on line 4) with the following:

Inherits=ubuntu-mono-dark

... and save the file.

"ubuntu-mono-dark" is for dark panels (light monochrome icons). If the GTK theme you're using provides a light Unity panel color, use "ubuntu-mono-light" for the "Inherits" line, so the icon theme uses dark monochrome icons.

2. The next step is to remove some of the colored icons created by Oomox so they don't show up on the Unity panel (and thus making the icon theme use the Ubuntu Mono Dark or Light icons for the panel).

For GNOME Colors-based icon themes, inside each icon theme subfolder (~/.icons/oomox-THEMENAME/16x16, 22x22, scalable, etc.), remove the "status" and "devices" folders.

For ArchDroid-based icon themes:

• remove the "system.svg" icon from the ~/.icons/oomox-THEMENAME-flat/devices/scalable folder;
• remove the ~/.icons/oomox-THEMENAME-flat/status folder.

That's it. You can further customize the theme as you wish, so for instance, if you don't want ArchDroid-based icons for applications, also remove the "apps" folder, etc.

B. Get themes exported using Oomox to work with applications running as root

Oomox exports the GTK themes under the ~/.themes folder, while the icons are exported in the ~/.icons folder. Since these are not used system-wide, if you run an application as root, it won't use the Oomox-generated themes.

To fix this:

• copy the GTK themes from ~/.themes to /usr/share/themes/
• copy the icon themes from ~/.icons to /usr/share/icons/

Download Oomox

Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10 / Linux Mint 18.x users can install Oomox by using the main WebUpd8 PPA. To add the PPA and install the latest Oomox, use the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt update
sudo apt install oomox

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can grab the latest Oomox .deb from HERE (while not tested, this should also work in Debian).

To get Oomox to generate icon themes, you need to install Inkscape and Imagemagick. Install them in Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Debian using the following commands:

sudo apt install imagemagick inkscape

Arch Linux users can install Oomox via AUR.

To download Oomox for other Linux distributions, report bugs, etc., see the Oomox GitHub page.