SolArc Theme

SolArc is a flat theme with transparent elements for GTK 3, GTK 2 and Gnome-Shell which supports GTK 3 and GTK 2 based desktop environments like Gnome, Unity, Budgie, Pantheon, XFCE, Mate, etc.

SolArc is a fork of the Arc theme: https://github.com/horst3180/arc-theme

Colours are based on the Solarized colour scheme by Ethan Schoonover: https://github.com/altercation/solarized

Most of the work is done inside solarize.sh, which replaces various Arc colours with matching Solarized colours.

SolArc is available in three variants

SolArc

A screenshot of the Arc theme

SolArc-Darker

A screenshot of the Arc-Darker theme

SolArc-Dark

A screenshot of the Arc-Dark theme

Requirements

Gnome/GTK3 3.14 - 3.22
The gnome-themes-standard package
The murrine engine. This has different names depending on your distro.
gtk-engine-murrine (Arch Linux)
gtk2-engines-murrine (Debian, Ubuntu, elementary OS)
gtk-murrine-engine (Fedora)
gtk2-engine-murrine (openSUSE)
gtk-engines-murrine (Gentoo)

Main distributions that meet these requirements are

Arch Linux and Arch Linux based distros
Ubuntu 15.04 or newer (Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 are not supported)
elementary OS Freya/Loki
Debian 8, Testing or Unstable
Gentoo
Fedora 21 or newer
openSUSE 13.2, Leap 42.1 and Tumbleweed

Derivatives of these distributions should work, as well.

If your distribution isn't listed, please check the requirements yourself.

Installation

Arch Linux

You can install the AUR package: gtk-theme-solarc-git

Manual Installation

Important: Remove all older versions of the theme from your system before you proceed any further.

sudo rm -rf /usr/share/themes/{SolArc,SolArc-Darker,SolArc-Dark}
rm -rf ~/.local/share/themes/{SolArc,SolArc-Darker,SolArc-Dark}
rm -rf ~/.themes/{SolArc,SolArc-Darker,SolArc-Dark}

To build the theme you'll need * autoconf * automake * pkg-config or pkgconfig if you use Fedora * libgtk-3-dev for Debian based distros or gtk3-devel for RPM based distros * git if you want to clone the source directory

If your distributions doesn't ship separate development packages you just need GTK 3 instead of the -dev packages.

Install the theme with the following commands

1. Get the source

If you want to install the latest version from git, clone the repository with

git clone https://github.com/apheleia/solarc-theme --depth 1 && cd solarc-theme

2. Build and install the theme

./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr
sudo make install

Other options to pass to autogen.sh are

--disable-transparency     disable transparency in the GTK3 theme
--disable-light            disable SolArc Light support
--disable-darker           disable SolArc Darker support
--disable-dark             disable SolArc Dark support
--disable-cinnamon         disable Cinnamon support
--disable-gnome-shell      disable GNOME Shell support
--disable-gtk2             disable GTK2 support
--disable-gtk3             disable GTK3 support
--disable-metacity         disable Metacity support
--disable-unity            disable Unity support
--disable-xfwm             disable XFWM support

--with-gnome=<version>     build the theme for a specific Gnome version (3.14, 3.16, 3.18, 3.20)
                           Note: Normally the correct version is detected automatically and this
                           option should not be needed.

After the installation is complete you can activate the theme with gnome-tweak-tool or a similar program by selecting SolArc, SolArc-Darker or SolArc-Dark as Window/GTK+ theme and SolArc or SolArc-Dark as Gnome-Shell and Xfce-Notify theme.

Uninstall the theme

Run

sudo make uninstall

from the same directory as this README resides in, or

sudo rm -rf /usr/share/themes/{SolArc,SolArc-Darker,SolArc-Dark}

Contributing

Every contribution is very welcome! Please create an issue and/or a pull request.

Troubleshooting

If you have Ubuntu with a newer GTK/Gnome version than the one included by default (i.e Ubuntu 14.04 with GTK 3.14 or Ubuntu 15.04 with GTK 3.16, etc.) the prebuilt packages won't work properly and you have to install the theme manually as described above. This is also true for other distros with a different GTK/Gnome version than the one included by default

--

If you get artifacts like black or invisible backgrounds under Unity, disable overlay scrollbars with

gsettings set com.canonical.desktop.interface scrollbar-mode normal