GTK2_RC_FILES=~/.themes/Elegant-GTK/gtk-2.0/gtkrc codeblocksĪnd now, Code::Blocks is dark. The script looks like this: # It's important to give the path to the 'gtkrc'-file here! Or you can copy the file to your home directory and modify it there: cp /usr/share/applications/sktop ~/.local/share/applications/sktop I put the command with the temporary theme in a shell-script and changed the /usr/share/applications/sktop-file to read: Įxec=/home/luke/.codeblocks/start_dark.sh If you set the theme system-wide, you don’t need to do this. Last but not least, I want Code::Blocks to always start with the dark Gtk-2 theme. Code::Blocks should now have a dark look. This temporarily sets the environment-variable GTK2_RC_FILES to the theme-path, for the start of application (in our case codeblocks). After some research, I stumbled across a Blog-post, where I found the following method: GTK2_RC_FILES=/path/to/your/theme/gtkrc application Now, to get Code::Blocks to use the theme, you have two options: Make it the default Gtk-2 theme or tell Code::Blocks to explicitly use the theme-files you downloaded. I then manually copied the theme itself over to ~/.themes/ and it’s icon-theme to ~/.icons/. So, I went over to and searched for a good, dark Gtk-2 theme and found “ Elegant Gnome” to be a good match. (From the “Eye of Gnome”-source, main.c line 175)

'gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme', TRUE, NULL This does however not affect Gtk-2 applications (like Code::Blocks).Īlso, Gtk-3 applications can decide to not use the dark theme or to always use it (like Eye of Gnome): GtkSettings *settings = gtk_settings_get_default () That is important, because the way themes work has slightly changed between those versions.įor applications which use Gtk-3, Gnome 3 offers a gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme-entry in it’s settings.ini-file, which tells all Gtk-3 apps to use the dark version of the currently set theme (if available, for example the Gnome 3 default-theme, “Adwaita”). Now, the wxGTK port is not completely up to date, so it doesn’t use Gtk-3, but the (older) Gtk-2. So, on Linux, Code::Blocks uses Gtk for it’s GUI. So, to get a dark theme in Code::Blocks, you need a dark-theme for the whole desktop environment? Yes and no.Ĭode::Blocks for Linux is explicitly created with the wxGTK port, meaning that the wxWidgets API is wrapped around the Gtk API. This is equivalent to whatever the desktop environment thinks is right. That is due to the fact that (for portability) Code::Blocks GUI is build using wxWidgets, which offers a “native look & feel on every platform”. All credits go to original finder of the workaround. I will now reproduce it here, in case the link disappears. I found an answer at the following link: įor me, a Linux Mint user, the system-wide version didn't work.

Code blocks dark theme