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I didn't care as much about theming my desktop and apps when I was younger. I'd use the default theme for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. I might try out a couple of looks once in a while. But I'd always come back to the default out of indecision. But now that I'm older and the big thing is flat design, I kinda missed being able to theme my desktop. I didn't realize this until I started using programs like Open Shell. On Windows 10-11, it seems like you have to risk bricking your computer to theme your desktop unless you're comfortable with only doing themes for the start menu and taskbar. Sure, there's stuff for theming the titlebars too but either they can only do glassmorphism for the titlebars, do Aero Lite titlebars only, or it's Windowblinds and Windowblinds eats up a lot of RAM and don't even theme your start menu. I don't know how theming is on MacOS, but due to the lack of resources online, I assume it's also limited. On Linux, you can theme your desktop however you want, but most of the top themes are flat design and you have to do some digging for older ones, especially ones that still look right on my desktop environment. It's weird. When people who hate on FOSS, you always heard that it looks "outdated", but then they only bring up LibreOffice or GIMP and ignore like thousands of FOSS have updated modern designs for better or worse. Sure, there's some stuff that looks older, but I feel like that's few and far between and most of it is boring "modern" design. I don't know. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way about FOSS design language. But at least with FOSS, you can usually theme it I guess.
lakes wrote:I didn't care as much about theming my desktop and apps when I was younger. I'd use the default theme for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. I might try out a couple of looks once in a while. But I'd always come back to the default out of indecision.
I remember coloring the glass on my Windows 7 box when I was much younger, I tried to color it to my wallpaper every time I changed it. Eventually, I just gave up, and I came back to the default glass color like you.
lakes wrote:On Linux, you can theme your desktop however you want, but most of the top themes are flat design and you have to do some digging for older ones, especially ones that still look right on my desktop environment. It's weird. When people who hate on FOSS, you always heard that it looks "outdated", but then they only bring up LibreOffice or GIMP and ignore like thousands of FOSS have updated modern designs for better or worse.
This is one of my major gripes. I've seen a few linux rices but there is absolutely nothing that isn't a GTK or Kvantum theme. I've looked at them, but they only do the titlebar, and don't integrate well with other apps. I don't want to switch back to Windows Vista or 7 due to security, application compatibility, drivers, etc.
You can see that there are elements inside the titlebar, which means I can't do this with a theme. It would have to be built in the program itself. (I think this is called client-side decoration) I really want to learn C++ better so that I could make something that captures this era of microsoft design.
Another issue you would face by "building your own" is that everything not designed for it is going feel out of place. A good example of this is the Supermium browser. Amazing project, but running it on my windows vista box feels wrong because the flat design doesn't fit well on top of the aero titlebars. I really have been struggling to find a UI toolkit that even looks similar to W7 or Vista
lakes wrote:...and most of it is boring "modern" design.
The GNOME desktop is the worst offender for me. Huge buttons and margins make it impossible for me to fit anything on my screen. People have written books on it even.
On Linux, you can theme your desktop however you want, but most of the top themes are flat design and you have to do some digging for older ones, especially ones that still look right on my desktop environment. It's weird. When people who hate on FOSS, you always heard that it looks "outdated", but then they only bring up LibreOffice or GIMP and ignore like thousands of FOSS have updated modern designs for better or worse.This is one of my major gripes. I've seen a few linux rices but there is absolutely nothing that isn't a GTK or Kvantum theme. I've looked at them, but they only do the titlebar, and don't integrate well with other apps. I don't want to switch back to Windows Vista or 7 due to security, application compatibility, drivers, etc.
You can see that there are elements inside the titlebar, which means I can't do this with a theme. It would have to be built in the program itself. (I think this is called client-side decoration) I really want to learn C++ better so that I could make something that captures this era of microsoft design.
Another issue you would face by "building your own" is that everything not designed for it is going feel out of place. A good example of this is the Supermium browser. Amazing project, but running it on my windows vista box feels wrong because the flat design doesn't fit well on top of the aero titlebars. I really have been struggling to find a UI toolkit that even looks similar to W7 or Vista
Yeah, I feel that. Some apps like Flatseal still default to a rounded flat titlebar. Most of my apps seem fine with my theme though & I found a theme that actually uses my icon pack for the panel applets or tray icons. But most of these themes either only do the titlebars or are still incomplete due to being outdated. I kinda gave up on having a theme that looks like Windows Vista or 7. So now I just use the Dark Ice GTK2/3 Theme with the transparency setting increased.
Oct 24, 2025 17:10:12 GMT tmg86 said:
Oct 8, 2025 23:10:48 GMT lakes said: ...and most of it is boring "modern" design.The GNOME desktop is the worst offender for me. Huge buttons and margins make it impossible for me to fit anything on my screen. People have written books on it even.
I never used GNOME. But I do use XFCE and some of the default apps are GNOME apps and they never seem to wanna use my theme except maybe for the calculator if I have my desktop settings set to "let apps decide theme."
