Transaction register question

[John Ralls]

On Aug 18, 2013, at 7:05 PM, Robert Kesterson <robertk at robertk.com> wrote:

> Geert Janssens wrote:
>> I'm always open for good feedback in GUI improvements. Again John already explained why the GUI looks as it does. The GUI framework we use is Gtk, which is a very linux oriented framework. There have been discussions in the past to switch to something else, but we simply lack manpower to do that anytime soon.
>> 
>> Note that on Windows you have the option to use different skins ("themes" as they are called). Some of these skins look more Windows like.
> Would it be possible to allow that on OSX as well?  The gtk theme engines can be installed through homebrew (I just did so, and installed some Mac themes, which I can choose gtk-chtheme, but GnuCash doesn't use them).
> 

Gnucash has its own gtk installation inside the app bundle and can't see the engines you built with Homebrew unless you install them in Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/lib/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/engines. Once you've done that you can specify the theme particulars in ~/.gtkrc-2.0. 

Notes:
* Gnucash.app is a signed bundle and making changes to it may cause trouble, including OSX refusing to open it.
* You may need to fix any rpaths in the engine module to point to the appropriate dependencies (probably libglib and libgtk-quartz at least) inside the bundle. See install_name_tool (1).
* Be sure to use Gtk2-compatible theme engines. Theming in Gtk3 is completely different.
* The last time I tried to theme Gnucash -- which was a long time ago -- it made it prettier, but also made some things unstable. I decided that stable and ugly is better. No, I don't remember the details of the problem.

Regards,
John Ralls