Ya you can do it using compiz fusion. Open the compiz fusion settings manager and go onto the opacity, brightness and saturation settings. Then on opacity click the "new" button and type in the following (name=gnome-panel) then just select how opaque you would like it to be (i currently use 85). You can also use these settings to make practically anything semi-transparent i als0 use it to make my menus see-through. Good luck and let me know if you have any problems or have any further questions, James

Thanks, Helped me too

Hi brainvision, thanks for your comments. Personally i don't think anyones opinion is of any less worth than others. I think alot of it comes down to personal taste i personally am quite a big fan of MK64's work and admittedly alot of our themes seem to share common elements. I can however appreciate your point as this theme is quite well "busy" if you like and possibly slightly more difficult to use than some counter part engine themes. Regarding your comment on being unable to create themes. You may well find that with only a little experimentation you can create a theme of your own. If you can locate a pixmap based theme as a base (like this one) you need only to edit the png files to make some basic changes to the theme. I started out doing this to the robs Overglossed theme a few months ago and have progressed bit by bit from there (although i am still far from a pro). Another engine that is quite easy to manipulate is the murrine engine if you can locate a few of those, they may also be worth a look. Best of luck, James

Yes i think that this is a very probable idea. I have been considering it for a while, ive just got to fine polish this one a little first and then ill probably start on that. Thanks for the interest, James

Sure, what you need to do after downloading a theme is move the downloaded file onto your desktop (just to make things easier) then open your appearance settings under System>Preferences>Appearance. Then you need to left click on your new theme folder (in this case called polar that you placed on your desktop) then select create archive. This will create a file called polar.tar.gz. then simply drag and drop the file onto your appearance preferences window whilst on the themes tab. This will install the theme. Let me know if you have any problems ill be happy to help. Best of luck, James

Tyvm for your ideas, I have to admit the scrollbar and progressbar have both been areas i also felt still needed a little work so i will probably have a go at improving both of them. Would you mind giving me an example of where the pixmaps and engine colored areas are sharp so i can get a better idea of what you mean. Thanks again for your suggestions, keep your eyes peeled to see theme in this theme soon =) Best regards, James

Nice to hear, looking forward to it. I made a picture to explain what i mean with the pixmap and engine colored ares. http://pici.se/pictures/WZKyRRIMx.png Now I don't have any experience with pixmap engines so I'm not to sure how to go about "fixing" this. But maybe add a middle segment to separate the areas, kind of like the thin borders on the buttons. And/or adding some kind of pixmap background instead of having engine colored areas. Well this is just my personal opinion so everyone might not think this needs "fixing".

Ill see what i can do for you

Thanks Kai =)

Its called Zekton it can be found here... http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Zekton?content=50553

Hi Thibaut, Thanks for your feedback and suggestions i agree with alot of what you are saying. I am currently already trying to lighten the disabled entries, as the current colour contrasts far too greatly with the rest of the theme, although i am as yet somewhat torn on exactly how i should go about it so thanks for your suggestion i will definitely be trying that =). The progressbars also definitely need to stand out more from their backgrounds so ill be working on them. Im a little confused as to what you mean by the notebook, are you refering to the metacity titlebar, menubar and toolbars? Best regards, James

I'm really glad I could be of help ;) By notebook I was meaning that large frame which comes right under the tabs, because the file corresponding is often named so. It's not that its colors contrast too much, but the frame will contain all that range of colors (from white to blue), which is rather wide. So you should check that every components (checkbox, buttons, frames) are still visible :) You choosed a dark font color, which is good because it'll always be readable ;)

Thankyou very much for your criticisms and advice, they have proved very constructive, i have actually now implemented or begun to implement changes in ALL the areas that you suggested so expect to see lots of your suggestions in the finished theme =) Best regards, James

This is shaping better and better ;) One last suggestion, and one of my guidelines when I draw some gtk themes (at least in my recent ones) : If you want to give the components a sharper look, there is a simple rule to follow. I see you use a black outline for your buttons for example. If you were using both a black outline and a whiter outline (see http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Abstract.DarkGlow+Pack?content=88060 for example. Look mostly for tabs, notebook and buttons) I think the overall theme would look a bit cleaner ;) Thanks again for listening to me :) Best regards, Thibaut

Thanks for the suggestion, after viewing your theme i have to say i think i agree, ill give it a try and if it works (im expecting it to) it'll be on the next release. Btw i love Abstract.DarkGlow its a very professional and highly polished theme well done. Best regards, James