xfwm_decorators 1.0.8

Window decorators for Haiku made from xfwm4 themes. One decorator draws any xfwm4 theme, and the package carries 93 of them. Pick one in Appearance > Decorator (entries named "xfwm4: "), for example xfwm4: b6.

Install

Two packages are attached: xfwm_decorators-1.0.8-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and xfwm_decorators-1.0.8-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because app_server only loads decorators from the system location.

Hover effect (on by default)

The close, zoom and minimize buttons light up under the pointer. app_server tells a decorator nothing while the pointer only moves over it, so the effect is done from outside and is still young: fast pointer movement over the buttons has occasionally been seen to misdraw on real hardware, and in one or two themes the minimize button stopped answering after its window had been minimized and brought back. If you see either, turn it off:

xfwm-hover off       turn it off
xfwm-hover on        turn it back on
xfwm-hover status

It takes effect within a second, with no restart. Themes that ship hover pictures (default-4.6, default-4.8) use them; for the others the button's own picture is tinted, and the tint follows the button's shape: a round button gets a round highlight and a square one a square highlight, while a button that is only a symbol on the title bar gets the whole box. A dark button gets lighter and a light one darker; the symbol keeps its colors. (galaxy's round buttons still get a square highlight: their pictures have a shadow behind them that can't be told from the button.)

Changes since 1.0.7

• Title text shadows. The 41 themes that ask for a shadow behind the title text now get one. true and under draw a copy of the title one pixel down and to the right, and frame draws one on every side of the letters, which reads as an outline. A theme can name its own shadow colour (six do); otherwise the shadow is black behind light text and white behind dark text. Themes that ask for no shadow are unchanged.
• The decorator list in Appearance is in alphabetical order. It used to come out Z to A, because a package's directory is listed in the reverse of the order its files were added. The package now adds the decorators from Z to A, which turns the list around. This relies on how packagefs lists a directory.
• The Deskbar's top bar no longer grows with the theme. The Deskbar makes its Be menu bar as high as a window's title tab and asks the decorator for that height when it starts, and a theme's title artwork can be much taller than a title (35 pixels in b6, 42 in kde). The decorator now reports the height the default decorator would have for the same font. The Deskbar only reads it when it starts, so restart it, or log out and in, after you change theme.
• Softer frames on a light desktop. The border colours that xfwm4 takes from the GTK theme now blend halfway toward your panel colour on a light desktop too, so frames that were stark white or cream are a little softer. Dark desktops keep the full change from 1.0.7.

Changes in 1.0.7 (if you skipped it):

• Dark desktops get dark borders. In 65 of the themes the border colours are xfwm4's "symbolic" colours (the ones xfwm4 takes from the GTK theme), which this decorator used to draw in the theme's own light colour. When your Appearance panel colour is dark, the border colours now come from the panel colour instead, with the theme's light and dark bevel shades kept. The window frame and the grab corner at the bottom right follow, so they no longer show up stark white. Title bars keep each theme's own colours, and nothing changes on a light desktop. The decorator reloads when you switch between light and dark. Themes that draw their borders in fixed colours (about 30) keep them. Whether the desktop counts as dark is a plain brightness test on the panel colour.
• Title position follows the theme. title_horizontal_offset (set by 42 themes) is now honoured: a left aligned title starts that many pixels in from the edge, and a right aligned one ends that many in. Centred titles are unchanged.
• Button glyph colours follow the theme's text colour. Pictures that say "use the title text colour" (16 themes, such as defcon-IV, whose glyphs were black although the theme asks for white text) now use the colour the theme's themerc names. When the themerc names none, the picture's own colour stays.

Earlier (1.0.3 to 1.0.6):

• Ghost pieces of the title bar fixed. After a window was made narrower, a stale copy of the right end of its title bar could stay on the desktop, up to 70 pixels past the window (seen on retro, and cleared only by closing the window). The area a decorator claims was larger than the bar it draws. It is now exactly the bar, and what the bar covered is remembered across moves of the window.
• Left border gaps fixed. In 18 themes (for example adept, r9x, next, kde, keramik) a gap of 1 to 8 pixels showed between the left border and the window. The border is now placed by its inner edge.
• Full width title bars. The title bar is one tab across the whole window when the theme asks for it (full_width_title, on in most themes and xfwm4's default), instead of a short tab and a filler. This also fixes a hole in the title bar of metabox. title_alignment (left, center, right) is honoured.
• The title goes between the buttons. A theme with a button on the left (such as adept) no longer hides the first letters of the title under it.
• Readable titles. About 50 themes name no text color; they get light text on a dark bar and dark text on a light one, instead of black.
• The xfce default themes (default-4.4, 4.6, 4.8) now show glyphs on their buttons and the shading of their bar: their real artwork is in PNG files next to placeholder XPMs, and the add-on lays the PNG over the placeholder. They still use their placeholder colors, since xfwm4 takes them from the GTK theme.
• Tools for testing themes (in the source): scan_themes.py lists missing pictures and size mismatches; edgetest.cpp with edge_measure.py measures every edge of a window in every theme; opstest.cpp resizes, moves, retitles and minimizes a window and looks for pieces left behind.

What you get

• The theme's own artwork for the title bar, borders and corners, including extended title bars and bottom-right grab bars.
• No sliding title tab: the tab is part of the artwork and stays put.
• Stacked windows: one tab per window in the same title bar, the front tab highlighted. Tabs can't be dragged into a new order.
• Close, zoom and minimize buttons placed as the theme's button_layout says, including themes with buttons on the left.
• Titled, document, floating, modal and bordered windows. Resizing from the borders, corners and the document knob works.

Limits

• The shade, stick and menu buttons of xfwm4 are not drawn or handled.
• The left-titled look falls back to the default decorator.
• Modal and bordered windows look thin or faint in a few themes, because those themes don't ship artwork for them. b5 has no maximize or hide buttons of its own.
• The xfce default themes show their placeholder colors, not your desktop's.
• Only PNG and XPM pictures are read; SVG is not.
• Decorators run inside app_server and are built against its revision. After a Haiku update that changes app_server, the add-ons may need a rebuilt package; if the desktop misbehaves, run setdecor Default or choose the default decorator in Appearance.

Credits

The themes belong to their authors; see AUTHORS and COPYING in the package's documentation folder.

xfwm_decorators 1.0.7

Window decorators for Haiku made from xfwm4 themes. One decorator draws any xfwm4 theme, and the package carries 93 of them. Pick one in Appearance > Decorator (entries named "xfwm4: "), for example xfwm4: b6.

Install

Two packages are attached: xfwm_decorators-1.0.7-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and xfwm_decorators-1.0.7-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because app_server only loads decorators from the system location.

Hover effect (on by default)

The close, zoom and minimize buttons light up under the pointer. app_server tells a decorator nothing while the pointer only moves over it, so the effect is done from outside and is still young: fast pointer movement over the buttons has occasionally been seen to misdraw on real hardware, and in one or two themes the minimize button stopped answering after its window had been minimized and brought back. If you see either, turn it off:

xfwm-hover off       turn it off
xfwm-hover on        turn it back on
xfwm-hover status

It takes effect within a second, with no restart. Themes that ship hover pictures (default-4.6, default-4.8) use them; for the others the button's own picture is tinted, and the tint follows the button's shape: a round button gets a round highlight and a square one a square highlight, while a button that is only a symbol on the title bar gets the whole box. A dark button gets lighter and a light one darker; the symbol keeps its colors. (galaxy's round buttons still get a square highlight: their pictures have a shadow behind them that can't be told from the button.)

Changes since 1.0.6

• Dark desktops get dark borders. In 65 of the themes the border colours are xfwm4's "symbolic" colours (the ones xfwm4 takes from the GTK theme), which this decorator used to draw in the theme's own light colour. When your Appearance panel colour is dark, the border colours now come from the panel colour instead, with the theme's light and dark bevel shades kept. The window frame and the grab corner at the bottom right follow, so they no longer show up stark white. Title bars keep each theme's own colours, and nothing changes on a light desktop. The decorator reloads when you switch between light and dark. Themes that draw their borders in fixed colours (about 30) keep them. Whether the desktop counts as dark is a plain brightness test on the panel colour.
• Title position follows the theme. title_horizontal_offset (set by 42 themes) is now honoured: a left aligned title starts that many pixels in from the edge, and a right aligned one ends that many in. Centred titles are unchanged.
• Button glyph colours follow the theme's text colour. Pictures that say "use the title text colour" (16 themes, such as defcon-IV, whose glyphs were black although the theme asks for white text) now use the colour the theme's themerc names. When the themerc names none, the picture's own colour stays.

Earlier (1.0.3 to 1.0.6):

• Ghost pieces of the title bar fixed. After a window was made narrower, a stale copy of the right end of its title bar could stay on the desktop, up to 70 pixels past the window (seen on retro, and cleared only by closing the window). The area a decorator claims was larger than the bar it draws. It is now exactly the bar, and what the bar covered is remembered across moves of the window.
• Left border gaps fixed. In 18 themes (for example adept, r9x, next, kde, keramik) a gap of 1 to 8 pixels showed between the left border and the window. The border is now placed by its inner edge.
• Full width title bars. The title bar is one tab across the whole window when the theme asks for it (full_width_title, on in most themes and xfwm4's default), instead of a short tab and a filler. This also fixes a hole in the title bar of metabox. title_alignment (left, center, right) is honoured.
• The title goes between the buttons. A theme with a button on the left (such as adept) no longer hides the first letters of the title under it.
• Readable titles. About 50 themes name no text color; they get light text on a dark bar and dark text on a light one, instead of black.
• The xfce default themes (default-4.4, 4.6, 4.8) now show glyphs on their buttons and the shading of their bar: their real artwork is in PNG files next to placeholder XPMs, and the add-on lays the PNG over the placeholder. They still use their placeholder colors, since xfwm4 takes them from the GTK theme.
• Tools for testing themes (in the source): scan_themes.py lists missing pictures and size mismatches; edgetest.cpp with edge_measure.py measures every edge of a window in every theme; opstest.cpp resizes, moves, retitles and minimizes a window and looks for pieces left behind.

What you get

• The theme's own artwork for the title bar, borders and corners, including extended title bars and bottom-right grab bars.
• No sliding title tab: the tab is part of the artwork and stays put.
• Stacked windows: one tab per window in the same title bar, the front tab highlighted. Tabs can't be dragged into a new order.
• Close, zoom and minimize buttons placed as the theme's button_layout says, including themes with buttons on the left.
• Titled, document, floating, modal and bordered windows. Resizing from the borders, corners and the document knob works.

Limits

• The shade, stick and menu buttons of xfwm4 are not drawn or handled.
• The left-titled look falls back to the default decorator.
• Modal and bordered windows look thin or faint in a few themes, because those themes don't ship artwork for them. b5 has no maximize or hide buttons of its own.
• The xfce default themes show their placeholder colors, not your desktop's.
• Only PNG and XPM pictures are read; SVG is not.
• Decorators run inside app_server and are built against its revision. After a Haiku update that changes app_server, the add-ons may need a rebuilt package; if the desktop misbehaves, run setdecor Default or choose the default decorator in Appearance.

Credits

The themes belong to their authors; see AUTHORS and COPYING in the package's documentation folder.

snaketracker 1.0.27

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

• Menu bars are accent pills. Every window's menu bar, in Tracker and in other programs, is a rounded bar in the selector colour, with the title you open drawn as a darker pill inside it. The bar is drawn whole again when the window is resized, so it leaves no stray rounded ends. The Deskbar's own bar is left alone.
• The trail runs down the menus of a menu bar. A menu opened from a menu bar title (File, Window, Attributes) now has the strip down its left edge from the top of the menu to the row you are on, as the Deskbar's menu does. Tracker's own menu rows no longer paint over it.
• Tracker's toolbar. Back, forward and up are round, solid discs in the selector colour (washed out when disabled, darker when pressed), with new arrows drawn half as large again. The folder icon at the end of the menu bar sits on a matching disc.
• Pill tabs. In a tab view the selected tab is an accent pill and the others are plain labels, with a thin rule between the tabs and the page. Tabs on the left or right keep the old look.
• Drop-down fields are pills with a divider and a chevron, in the selector colour.
• Column list headers in other programs are one accent bar, like Tracker's.
• Radio buttons and check boxes. The radio button is a recessed disc with the accent dot, and check boxes get the same recessed fill. The check mark is one even stroke.
• Buttons. Buttons down to 24 pixels wide get the accent caps, three pixels wide on the small ones. Small square buttons (under 34 pixels) are a solid round disc instead.
• Light or dark follows the window's colour. Which shade to use for the caps, the default button and the marks is now decided from the panel colour, not from the button's own, so a panel in the middle of the range (around 104 to 127) no longer gets Haiku's bright ring around the default button. The faint line round every button is drawn in the window's colour, and the see-through corners of the pills sit on the window's colour too.

Since 1.0.26 (if you skipped it):

• Buttons follow the theme. Every regular button has an accent cap on each side, now a five pixel block lit from the top with a darker line on its outer edge: a darker purple on a light theme and a lighter one on a dark theme. The disabled buttons have the same caps.
• The default button. On a light theme it has a dark accent body with white text. On a dark theme it is drawn like the other buttons, without Haiku's bright two pixel ring (it is still the button Enter presses), in the room the ring used to take, so it stays the same size.
• The Deskbar's top bar is left alone. The leaf bar and its title keep the stock look, without caps. The snake trail in the Deskbar's menus is as before.
• File panels in other programs. The column titles and the item count of a Save or Open dialog, which the Tracker kit draws inside each program, are the same accent bars as in Tracker. Outside Tracker the text colour is the system's, so the bar takes a deeper shade of the accent behind light text and a lighter one behind dark text. The thin lines between the column titles stay there. The bars are drawn whole again when the dialog is resized.

Since 1.0.25 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bar arrows are hidden by default. The arrow buttons at the ends of scroll bars are now drawn as plain track, so scroll bars are just the thumb pill on a flat track. This is a new setting, Tracker preferences > Windows > Scroll bar arrows, and it is off by default: tick it to bring the arrows back. The bar keeps the room the arrows had, so the thumb stops a little short of each end, and the hidden arrows still scroll when you click them. If you are updating, your scroll bar arrows disappear until you tick the box.
• The column titles and the item count are an accent bar. In a Tracker list view the Name, Size and Modified header is one full width bar in the selector colour, with rounded ends and the same lit look as the scroll bar thumb. The "27 items" bar at the bottom matches it. The text is dark or light to suit the colour, the lines between the titles are gone, and the sort arrow takes the text colour. A title being pressed darkens its part of the bar. Both bars are drawn whole again when the window is resized, so they leave nothing behind. When you type to jump to a file, the bottom bar shows what you typed in the stock look.
• Sliders. The thumb is a rounded block in the selector colour, lit like the scroll bar thumb, and disabled sliders get a washed out one. It keeps the size Haiku gives it. The bar to the left of the thumb is filled in the selector colour, a washed out one when disabled.
• Check boxes. Both checked and unchecked boxes have a recessed fill, a shade darker than the panel (lighter on a dark one) with a touch of the selector colour. The tick is the selector colour: dark on a light panel and brighter on a dark one. In 1.0.24 it came out pale on dark desktops.
• Buttons. Every regular button has an accent cap on each side: a dark outer bar and a lighter band that fades into the button. The disabled buttons have them too. The small buttons (scroll bar arrows, the + and - next to a size) are left as they were.

Since 1.0.24 (if you skipped it):
SnakeControlLook now carries the selector colour into the rest of the controls, so every program picks it up.

• A curved check mark. The tick in check boxes is a curved, tapered stroke, round at the left end and thinning to a point at the top right, which runs out past the corner of the box. It has a soft shadow behind it. It can only reach as far as the control's own area allows, so a check box that sits right against another control may clip it. Unchecking a box clears the part that stuck out. Radio buttons keep their dot, now in the accent colour.
• Buttons. Real buttons have rounder corners, a faint wash of the selector colour in the fill and the edges (a little more when pressed), and highlights: a light line along the top and a faint gloss over the upper half. The default button, the one Enter presses, also gets a dark accent cap on each side. Drop-down fields get the same wash. The small buttons on scroll bars keep their stock shape.
• Focus rings. A focused text field or check box gets an outline in the selector colour, in place of Haiku's blue.
• Tabs. The selected tab has a two pixel line of the selector colour along its outer edge.
• Sliders and progress bars. A slider is filled in the selector colour up to its thumb, and progress bars are filled in it as well. Programs that choose their own fill colour keep it.

Since 1.0.23 (if you skipped it):

• The scroll bar thumb sits on the track without a box around it. The thumb was drawn on a patch of a slightly different grey from the track beside it, which showed as a lighter rectangle around the pill. The patch now uses the same colour as the track.

Since 1.0.22 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bars with nothing to scroll no longer fall back to the stock look. When a window's content fits, its scroll bar now gets the same flat track as the others, with no thumb, so it reads as an empty trough. The arrow buttons keep their stock disabled look.

Since 1.0.21 (if you skipped it):

• The snake trail starts at the Deskbar. The Deskbar's own menu (the leaf menu) now carries the trail from the Deskbar to the row you are on. When the menu opens beside the Deskbar (vertical, expanded), a strip runs down the edge facing the Deskbar from the top of the menu to your row, and the window border between the two is covered so the strip runs into the Deskbar. When it opens below the leaf (a top bar, or a vertical bar that is not expanded) the strip runs down the side the leaf is on, from the top of the menu. When it opens above the leaf (a bottom bar) it runs from your row to the bottom of the menu.
• Scroll bars match the selector. The scroll bar thumb is a rounded pill in the selector colour, lighter down its middle, on a flat track (SnakeControlLook only). In a window that is not active the pill stays, washed out towards grey. The colour is the same one the menus use, so it follows hDesktop's Selector Color and not the window decorator's theme.

Since 1.0.20 (if you skipped it):

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.27-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.27-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download...

snaketracker 1.0.26

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

• Buttons follow the theme. Every regular button has an accent cap on each side, now a five pixel block lit from the top with a darker line on its outer edge: a darker purple on a light theme and a lighter one on a dark theme. The disabled buttons have the same caps.
• The default button. On a light theme it has a dark accent body with white text. On a dark theme it is drawn like the other buttons, without Haiku's bright two pixel ring (it is still the button Enter presses), in the room the ring used to take, so it stays the same size.
• The Deskbar's top bar is left alone. The leaf bar and its title keep the stock look, without caps. The snake trail in the Deskbar's menus is as before.
• File panels in other programs. The column titles and the item count of a Save or Open dialog, which the Tracker kit draws inside each program, are the same accent bars as in Tracker. Outside Tracker the text colour is the system's, so the bar takes a deeper shade of the accent behind light text and a lighter one behind dark text. The thin lines between the column titles stay there. The bars are drawn whole again when the dialog is resized.

Since 1.0.25 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bar arrows are hidden by default. The arrow buttons at the ends of scroll bars are now drawn as plain track, so scroll bars are just the thumb pill on a flat track. This is a new setting, Tracker preferences > Windows > Scroll bar arrows, and it is off by default: tick it to bring the arrows back. The bar keeps the room the arrows had, so the thumb stops a little short of each end, and the hidden arrows still scroll when you click them. If you are updating, your scroll bar arrows disappear until you tick the box.
• The column titles and the item count are an accent bar. In a Tracker list view the Name, Size and Modified header is one full width bar in the selector colour, with rounded ends and the same lit look as the scroll bar thumb. The "27 items" bar at the bottom matches it. The text is dark or light to suit the colour, the lines between the titles are gone, and the sort arrow takes the text colour. A title being pressed darkens its part of the bar. Both bars are drawn whole again when the window is resized, so they leave nothing behind. When you type to jump to a file, the bottom bar shows what you typed in the stock look.
• Sliders. The thumb is a rounded block in the selector colour, lit like the scroll bar thumb, and disabled sliders get a washed out one. It keeps the size Haiku gives it. The bar to the left of the thumb is filled in the selector colour, a washed out one when disabled.
• Check boxes. Both checked and unchecked boxes have a recessed fill, a shade darker than the panel (lighter on a dark one) with a touch of the selector colour. The tick is the selector colour: dark on a light panel and brighter on a dark one. In 1.0.24 it came out pale on dark desktops.
• Buttons. Every regular button has an accent cap on each side: a dark outer bar and a lighter band that fades into the button. The disabled buttons have them too. The small buttons (scroll bar arrows, the + and - next to a size) are left as they were.

Since 1.0.24 (if you skipped it):
SnakeControlLook now carries the selector colour into the rest of the controls, so every program picks it up.

• A curved check mark. The tick in check boxes is a curved, tapered stroke, round at the left end and thinning to a point at the top right, which runs out past the corner of the box. It has a soft shadow behind it. It can only reach as far as the control's own area allows, so a check box that sits right against another control may clip it. Unchecking a box clears the part that stuck out. Radio buttons keep their dot, now in the accent colour.
• Buttons. Real buttons have rounder corners, a faint wash of the selector colour in the fill and the edges (a little more when pressed), and highlights: a light line along the top and a faint gloss over the upper half. The default button, the one Enter presses, also gets a dark accent cap on each side. Drop-down fields get the same wash. The small buttons on scroll bars keep their stock shape.
• Focus rings. A focused text field or check box gets an outline in the selector colour, in place of Haiku's blue.
• Tabs. The selected tab has a two pixel line of the selector colour along its outer edge.
• Sliders and progress bars. A slider is filled in the selector colour up to its thumb, and progress bars are filled in it as well. Programs that choose their own fill colour keep it.

Since 1.0.23 (if you skipped it):

• The scroll bar thumb sits on the track without a box around it. The thumb was drawn on a patch of a slightly different grey from the track beside it, which showed as a lighter rectangle around the pill. The patch now uses the same colour as the track.

Since 1.0.22 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bars with nothing to scroll no longer fall back to the stock look. When a window's content fits, its scroll bar now gets the same flat track as the others, with no thumb, so it reads as an empty trough. The arrow buttons keep their stock disabled look.

Since 1.0.21 (if you skipped it):

• The snake trail starts at the Deskbar. The Deskbar's own menu (the leaf menu) now carries the trail from the Deskbar to the row you are on. When the menu opens beside the Deskbar (vertical, expanded), a strip runs down the edge facing the Deskbar from the top of the menu to your row, and the window border between the two is covered so the strip runs into the Deskbar. When it opens below the leaf (a top bar, or a vertical bar that is not expanded) the strip runs down the side the leaf is on, from the top of the menu. When it opens above the leaf (a bottom bar) it runs from your row to the bottom of the menu.
• Scroll bars match the selector. The scroll bar thumb is a rounded pill in the selector colour, lighter down its middle, on a flat track (SnakeControlLook only). In a window that is not active the pill stays, washed out towards grey. The colour is the same one the menus use, so it follows hDesktop's Selector Color and not the window decorator's theme.

Since 1.0.20 (if you skipped it):

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.26-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.26-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because the file that tells Haiku to start the new Tracker and Deskbar is only read from the system location.

snaketracker 1.0.25

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

• Scroll bar arrows are hidden by default. The arrow buttons at the ends of scroll bars are now drawn as plain track, so scroll bars are just the thumb pill on a flat track. This is a new setting, Tracker preferences > Windows > Scroll bar arrows, and it is off by default: tick it to bring the arrows back. The bar keeps the room the arrows had, so the thumb stops a little short of each end, and the hidden arrows still scroll when you click them. If you are updating, your scroll bar arrows disappear until you tick the box.
• The column titles and the item count are an accent bar. In a Tracker list view the Name, Size and Modified header is one full width bar in the selector colour, with rounded ends and the same lit look as the scroll bar thumb. The "27 items" bar at the bottom matches it. The text is dark or light to suit the colour, the lines between the titles are gone, and the sort arrow takes the text colour. A title being pressed darkens its part of the bar. Both bars are drawn whole again when the window is resized, so they leave nothing behind. When you type to jump to a file, the bottom bar shows what you typed in the stock look.
• Sliders. The thumb is a rounded block in the selector colour, lit like the scroll bar thumb, and disabled sliders get a washed out one. It keeps the size Haiku gives it. The bar to the left of the thumb is filled in the selector colour, a washed out one when disabled.
• Check boxes. Both checked and unchecked boxes have a recessed fill, a shade darker than the panel (lighter on a dark one) with a touch of the selector colour. The tick is the selector colour: dark on a light panel and brighter on a dark one. In 1.0.24 it came out pale on dark desktops.
• Buttons. Every regular button has an accent cap on each side: a dark outer bar and a lighter band that fades into the button. The disabled buttons have them too. The small buttons (scroll bar arrows, the + and - next to a size) are left as they were.

Since 1.0.24 (if you skipped it):
SnakeControlLook now carries the selector colour into the rest of the controls, so every program picks it up.

• A curved check mark. The tick in check boxes is a curved, tapered stroke, round at the left end and thinning to a point at the top right, which runs out past the corner of the box. It has a soft shadow behind it. It can only reach as far as the control's own area allows, so a check box that sits right against another control may clip it. Unchecking a box clears the part that stuck out. Radio buttons keep their dot, now in the accent colour.
• Buttons. Real buttons have rounder corners, a faint wash of the selector colour in the fill and the edges (a little more when pressed), and highlights: a light line along the top and a faint gloss over the upper half. The default button, the one Enter presses, also gets a dark accent cap on each side. Drop-down fields get the same wash. The small buttons on scroll bars keep their stock shape.
• Focus rings. A focused text field or check box gets an outline in the selector colour, in place of Haiku's blue.
• Tabs. The selected tab has a two pixel line of the selector colour along its outer edge.
• Sliders and progress bars. A slider is filled in the selector colour up to its thumb, and progress bars are filled in it as well. Programs that choose their own fill colour keep it.

Since 1.0.23 (if you skipped it):

• The scroll bar thumb sits on the track without a box around it. The thumb was drawn on a patch of a slightly different grey from the track beside it, which showed as a lighter rectangle around the pill. The patch now uses the same colour as the track.

Since 1.0.22 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bars with nothing to scroll no longer fall back to the stock look. When a window's content fits, its scroll bar now gets the same flat track as the others, with no thumb, so it reads as an empty trough. The arrow buttons keep their stock disabled look.

Since 1.0.21 (if you skipped it):

• The snake trail starts at the Deskbar. The Deskbar's own menu (the leaf menu) now carries the trail from the Deskbar to the row you are on. When the menu opens beside the Deskbar (vertical, expanded), a strip runs down the edge facing the Deskbar from the top of the menu to your row, and the window border between the two is covered so the strip runs into the Deskbar. When it opens below the leaf (a top bar, or a vertical bar that is not expanded) the strip runs down the side the leaf is on, from the top of the menu. When it opens above the leaf (a bottom bar) it runs from your row to the bottom of the menu.
• Scroll bars match the selector. The scroll bar thumb is a rounded pill in the selector colour, lighter down its middle, on a flat track (SnakeControlLook only). In a window that is not active the pill stays, washed out towards grey. The colour is the same one the menus use, so it follows hDesktop's Selector Color and not the window decorator's theme.

Since 1.0.20 (if you skipped it):

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.25-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.25-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because the file that tells Haiku to start the new Tracker and Deskbar is only read from the system location.

snaketracker 1.0.24

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

SnakeControlLook now carries the selector colour into the rest of the controls, so every program picks it up.

• A curved check mark. The tick in check boxes is a curved, tapered stroke, round at the left end and thinning to a point at the top right, which runs out past the corner of the box. It has a soft shadow behind it. It can only reach as far as the control's own area allows, so a check box that sits right against another control may clip it. Unchecking a box clears the part that stuck out. Radio buttons keep their dot, now in the accent colour.
• Buttons. Real buttons have rounder corners, a faint wash of the selector colour in the fill and the edges (a little more when pressed), and highlights: a light line along the top and a faint gloss over the upper half. The default button, the one Enter presses, also gets a dark accent cap on each side. Drop-down fields get the same wash. The small buttons on scroll bars keep their stock shape.
• Focus rings. A focused text field or check box gets an outline in the selector colour, in place of Haiku's blue.
• Tabs. The selected tab has a two pixel line of the selector colour along its outer edge.
• Sliders and progress bars. A slider is filled in the selector colour up to its thumb, and progress bars are filled in it as well. Programs that choose their own fill colour keep it.

Since 1.0.23 (if you skipped it):

• The scroll bar thumb sits on the track without a box around it. The thumb was drawn on a patch of a slightly different grey from the track beside it, which showed as a lighter rectangle around the pill. The patch now uses the same colour as the track.

Since 1.0.22 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bars with nothing to scroll no longer fall back to the stock look. When a window's content fits, its scroll bar now gets the same flat track as the others, with no thumb, so it reads as an empty trough. The arrow buttons keep their stock disabled look.

Since 1.0.21 (if you skipped it):

• The snake trail starts at the Deskbar. The Deskbar's own menu (the leaf menu) now carries the trail from the Deskbar to the row you are on. When the menu opens beside the Deskbar (vertical, expanded), a strip runs down the edge facing the Deskbar from the top of the menu to your row, and the window border between the two is covered so the strip runs into the Deskbar. When it opens below the leaf (a top bar, or a vertical bar that is not expanded) the strip runs down the side the leaf is on, from the top of the menu. When it opens above the leaf (a bottom bar) it runs from your row to the bottom of the menu.
• Scroll bars match the selector. The scroll bar thumb is a rounded pill in the selector colour, lighter down its middle, on a flat track (SnakeControlLook only). In a window that is not active the pill stays, washed out towards grey. The colour is the same one the menus use, so it follows hDesktop's Selector Color and not the window decorator's theme.

Since 1.0.20 (if you skipped it):

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.24-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.24-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because the file that tells Haiku to start the new Tracker and Deskbar is only read from the system location.

snaketracker 1.0.23

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

• The scroll bar thumb sits on the track without a box around it. The thumb was drawn on a patch of a slightly different grey from the track beside it, which showed as a lighter rectangle around the pill. The patch now uses the same colour as the track.

Since 1.0.22 (if you skipped it):

• Scroll bars with nothing to scroll no longer fall back to the stock look. When a window's content fits, its scroll bar now gets the same flat track as the others, with no thumb, so it reads as an empty trough. The arrow buttons keep their stock disabled look.

Since 1.0.21 (if you skipped it):

• The snake trail starts at the Deskbar. The Deskbar's own menu (the leaf menu) now carries the trail from the Deskbar to the row you are on. When the menu opens beside the Deskbar (vertical, expanded), a strip runs down the edge facing the Deskbar from the top of the menu to your row, and the window border between the two is covered so the strip runs into the Deskbar. When it opens below the leaf (a top bar, or a vertical bar that is not expanded) the strip runs down the side the leaf is on, from the top of the menu. When it opens above the leaf (a bottom bar) it runs from your row to the bottom of the menu.
• Scroll bars match the selector. The scroll bar thumb is a rounded pill in the selector colour, lighter down its middle, on a flat track (SnakeControlLook only). In a window that is not active the pill stays, washed out towards grey. The colour is the same one the menus use, so it follows hDesktop's Selector Color and not the window decorator's theme.

Since 1.0.20 (if you skipped it):

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.23-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.23-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because the file that tells Haiku to start the new Tracker and Deskbar is only read from the system location.

snaketracker 1.0.22

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

• Scroll bars with nothing to scroll no longer fall back to the stock look. When a window's content fits, its scroll bar used to be drawn the stock way, which looked out of place next to the pill-shaped thumbs. It now gets the same flat track as the others, with no thumb, so it reads as an empty trough. The arrow buttons keep their stock disabled look.

• The snake trail starts at the Deskbar. The Deskbar's own menu (the leaf menu) now carries the trail from the Deskbar to the row you are on. When the menu opens beside the Deskbar (vertical, expanded), a strip runs down the edge facing the Deskbar from the top of the menu to your row, and the window border between the two is covered so the strip runs into the Deskbar. When it opens below the leaf (a top bar, or a vertical bar that is not expanded) the strip runs down the side the leaf is on, from the top of the menu. When it opens above the leaf (a bottom bar) it runs from your row to the bottom of the menu.

• Scroll bars match the selector. The scroll bar thumb is a rounded pill in the selector colour, lighter down its middle, on a flat track (SnakeControlLook only). In a window that is not active the pill stays, washed out towards grey. The colour is the same one the menus use, so it follows hDesktop's Selector Color and not the window decorator's theme.

Since 1.0.20 (if you skipped it):

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.22-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.22-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because the file that tells Haiku to start the new Tracker and Deskbar is only read from the system location.

xfwm_decorators 1.0.6

Window decorators for Haiku made from xfwm4 themes. One decorator draws any xfwm4 theme, and the package carries 93 of them. Pick one in Appearance > Decorator (entries named "xfwm4: "), for example xfwm4: b6.

Install

Two packages are attached: xfwm_decorators-1.0.6-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and xfwm_decorators-1.0.6-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because app_server only loads decorators from the system location.

Hover effect (on by default)

The close, zoom and minimize buttons light up under the pointer. app_server tells a decorator nothing while the pointer only moves over it, so the effect is done from outside and is still young: fast pointer movement over the buttons has occasionally been seen to misdraw on real hardware, and in one or two themes the minimize button stopped answering after its window had been minimized and brought back. If you see either, turn it off:

xfwm-hover off       turn it off
xfwm-hover on        turn it back on
xfwm-hover status

It takes effect within a second, with no restart. Themes that ship hover pictures (default-4.6, default-4.8) use them; for the others the button's own picture is tinted, and the tint follows the button's shape: a round button gets a round highlight and a square one a square highlight, while a button that is only a symbol on the title bar gets the whole box. A dark button gets lighter and a light one darker; the symbol keeps its colors. (galaxy's round buttons still get a square highlight: their pictures have a shadow behind them that can't be told from the button.)

Changes since 1.0.2

• Ghost pieces of the title bar fixed. After a window was made narrower, a stale copy of the right end of its title bar could stay on the desktop, up to 70 pixels past the window (seen on retro, and cleared only by closing the window). The area a decorator claims was larger than the bar it draws. It is now exactly the bar, and what the bar covered is remembered across moves of the window.
• Left border gaps fixed. In 18 themes (for example adept, r9x, next, kde, keramik) a gap of 1 to 8 pixels showed between the left border and the window. The border is now placed by its inner edge.
• Full width title bars. The title bar is one tab across the whole window when the theme asks for it (full_width_title, on in most themes and xfwm4's default), instead of a short tab and a filler. This also fixes a hole in the title bar of metabox. title_alignment (left, center, right) is honoured.
• The title goes between the buttons. A theme with a button on the left (such as adept) no longer hides the first letters of the title under it.
• Readable titles. About 50 themes name no text color; they get light text on a dark bar and dark text on a light one, instead of black.
• The xfce default themes (default-4.4, 4.6, 4.8) now show glyphs on their buttons and the shading of their bar: their real artwork is in PNG files next to placeholder XPMs, and the add-on lays the PNG over the placeholder. They still use their placeholder colors, since xfwm4 takes them from the GTK theme.
• Tools for testing themes (in the source): scan_themes.py lists missing pictures and size mismatches; edgetest.cpp with edge_measure.py measures every edge of a window in every theme; opstest.cpp resizes, moves, retitles and minimizes a window and looks for pieces left behind.

What you get

• The theme's own artwork for the title bar, borders and corners, including extended title bars and bottom-right grab bars.
• No sliding title tab: the tab is part of the artwork and stays put.
• Stacked windows: one tab per window in the same title bar, the front tab highlighted. Tabs can't be dragged into a new order.
• Close, zoom and minimize buttons placed as the theme's button_layout says, including themes with buttons on the left.
• Titled, document, floating, modal and bordered windows. Resizing from the borders, corners and the document knob works.

Limits

• The shade, stick and menu buttons of xfwm4 are not drawn or handled.
• The left-titled look falls back to the default decorator.
• Modal and bordered windows look thin or faint in a few themes, because those themes don't ship artwork for them. b5 has no maximize or hide buttons of its own.
• The xfce default themes show their placeholder colors, not your desktop's.
• Only PNG and XPM pictures are read; SVG is not.
• Decorators run inside app_server and are built against its revision. After a Haiku update that changes app_server, the add-ons may need a rebuilt package; if the desktop misbehaves, run setdecor Default or choose the default decorator in Appearance.

Credits

The themes belong to their authors; see AUTHORS and COPYING in the package's documentation folder.

snaketracker 1.0.20

Tracker, Deskbar and menus with the hDesktop "snake trail" look.

What's new

• The vertical part of the trail bulges too. Where a submenu's selected row is not level with the row that opened it, the strip joining the two now hangs a few pixels into the parent menu, rounded at its free end and outlined on its inner side, so the whole trail reads as one shape. Where the submenu's row is lower (or higher) than the parent menu reaches, the strip carries on past the parent's edge over the desktop, so it no longer disappears as you move down a long menu. When the rows are level there is no vertical part and nothing changes.

Since 1.0.17 (if you skipped it):

• The selected row bulges out of the menu. The row you are on sticks out a few pixels past the menu's outer edge, as a small outlined tab. It is on the edge away from the neighbouring menu, so it flips sides when a submenu opens on the other side of the screen.
• Dark outline. The selector has a one pixel dark outline that follows the whole trail.
• Flat selector. The selector is a single flat colour inside the outline. The light top edge and dark bottom edge are still available: turn off Tracker preferences > Windows > Flat menu selector to bring them back. The setting applies to Tracker and Deskbar menus, to every program's menus when SnakeControlLook is the control look, to menu bar titles and to the seam between submenu windows. hDesktop can override it with its nav_snake_flat setting while it runs.

Install

Two packages are attached: snaketracker-1.0.20-1-x86_64.hpkg for 64-bit Haiku and snaketracker-1.0.20-1-x86_gcc2.hpkg for 32-bit Haiku (gcc 2 / hybrid). Download the one for your system and install it for the whole system, not for "home". A home install is silently ignored, because the file that tells Haiku to start the new Tracker and Deskbar is only read from the system location.