[TIP] Make Firefox use our icon theme in KDE

This is the first post I publish, a small tip that can help us improve the aesthetics of our distro. I hope you like it.

I don't know if it happens in all the distros that use KDE, but in which I have tried, Firefox (and Thunderbird) never integrates well with the icon theme we have and opts to use the theme Oxygen (the KDE icon theme). If something like this happens to you, no problem, it is very easy to solve.

Whenever we download an icon theme, a file called index.theme. In this file there are some specifications that the icon theme will follow and that can be modified with any text editor.

We will only focus on the line that says Inherits. On the line Inherits the icon themes from which our current theme will take the missing icons must be placed (fall back).

This is that if, for example, we are missing the Transmission icon, our theme will search the Inherits line and use the Transmission icon of the first theme found.

To explain how to solve the problem I will use another example using the theme Betelgeuse:

Version=0
Inherits = Faenza, KFaenza, oxygen, hicolor
Example = folder

Betelgeuse point to Faenza y KFaenza first, but also to oxygen. We simply do the following:

  • We delete oxygen from Inherits.
  • We delete oxygen from the Inherits of the index.theme within the Faenza, KFaenza and hicolor folders, if we have them installed. We will do this because it works like a Betelgeuse> KFaenza> oxygen string.
  • We reload the icon theme.
  • We restart Firefox.

And ready, Firefox it should use the icon theme of our choice.


Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: Miguel Ángel Gatón
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.

  1.   José Torres said

    What if I want the opposite? i want firefox not to use the gnome thema icons.

  2.   WretchedEgg said

    The simplest way is to install one of the many themes on the Firefox web.

    If not, I suppose you would have to change your Firefox settings or install some plugin that can do it for you. I found a small tutorial on how to change some icons, but I don't know if it works with the current Firefox (the tutorial is from 2010): https://noctuido.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/firefox-cambiar-los-iconos-y-carpetas-de-los-marcadores/

    In the freedesktop Icon Theme Spercification (http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/icon-theme-spec-latest.html) I didn't find anything referring to restricting an app from using the icon theme.

    1.    WretchedEgg said

      the comment was for @ José Torres

      1.    José Torres said

        thanks!

  3.   Fedorian said

    The problem will be that if an application does not have an icon in the chosen theme, something ugly will come out xD

  4.   WretchedEgg said

    If any icon is missing, it will be taken from hicolor, it is usually installed as a dependency when you install a Desktop Environment or an application.

  5.   rainbow_fly said

    I honestly did not understand .. xD

  6.   Germaine said

    I looked in the folder:
    /home/ or mi_usuario el /.kde/share/icons/elementary_usu/
    and the only reference to Inherits is this:

    [IconTheme]
    Name = elementary USU
    Name [bg] = УСУ elementary
    Comment = Smooth modern theme, designed to be intuitive. Includes parts from Elementary, Humanity, Tango, Gnome-Colors and Oxygen icon themes.
    Comment [bg] = Изчистена модерна тема, създадена да бъде интуитивна. Включва части от темите с икони Elementary, Humanity, Tango, Gnome-Colors и Oxygen.
    Inherits =

    DisplayDepth = 32

    How would it be done in this case?

    1.    WretchedEgg said

      And does Firefox use your icon theme or does it use oxygen's?

  7.   federico said

    Use the icon theme of our choice.

    1.    WretchedEgg said

      you mean @Ghermain's question, right?

      1.    federico said

        yes to that question !!

        1.    WretchedEgg said

          Well, both @federico and @Ghermain: if Firefox shows the set of icons of your choice, what do you want to change? I would only recommend putting "hicolor" in your Inherits in case you need an icon.

  8.   Simon Orono said

    Very good post, one question: how do you make Firefox adapt to the title bar? I have not succeeded in getting it to do so in KDE. And another thing, what GTK theme do you use?

    1.    WretchedEgg said

      This ... the truth is that I didn't put the screenshot of the post (I guess @elav put it for me), so I don't really know how to do it, but maybe with the Oxygen KDE plugin: http://oxygenkde.altervista.org/index.html

      And on the GTK issue, in Xfce I use Greybird-Elme with two or three modifications of mine.