Do you like eye-candy? I sure do. When using Gnome as your desktop environment, there are many ways to allow this. One way is to make the Gnome panels transparent. The way to do this is to right-click on top of the panel. Select properties. Check the radio button that says Solid color. Below that, where it says style, slide the bar all the way to the left, (where it says transparent). Now the panel is transparent instead of a solid color. The desktop wallpaper will blend in with it. Looks cool, huh?
However, there is a problem with this sometimes. The default text color for the Gnome panel is black, or #000000 in geek language.
Don’t worry kiddies, I have the fix!
This fix requires a simple hack as follows:
Open the terminal and type:
gedit .gtkrc-2.0
Insert the following into this file
style “panel”
{
# fg[NORMAL] = “#ffffff”
# fg[PRELIGHT] = “#000000″
# fg[ACTIVE] = “#ffffff”
# fg[SELECTED] = “#000000″
# fg[INSENSITIVE] = “#8A857C”
# bg[NORMAL] = “#000000″
# bg[PRELIGHT] = “#dfdfdf”
# bg[ACTIVE] = “#D0D0D0″
# bg[SELECTED] = “#D8BB75″
# bg[INSENSITIVE] = “#EFEFEF”
# base[NORMAL] = “#ffffff”
# base[PRELIGHT] = “#EFEFEF”
# base[ACTIVE] = “#D0D0D0″
# base[SELECTED] = “#DAB566″
# base[INSENSITIVE] = “#E8E8E8″
# text[NORMAL] = “#161616″
# text[PRELIGHT] = “#000000″
# text[ACTIVE] = “#000000″
# text[SELECTED] = “#ffffff”
# text[INSENSITIVE] = “#8A857C”
}
widget “*PanelWidget*” style “panel”
widget “*PanelApplet*” style “panel”
class “*Panel*” style “panel”
widget_class “*Mail*” style “panel”
class “*notif*” style “panel”
class “*Notif*” style “panel”
class “*Tray*” style “panel”
class “*tray*” style “panel”
Next, uncomment the part that says:
# fg[NORMAL] = “#ffffff”
So it looks like:
fg[NORMAL] = “#ffffff”
Save this file. It will be saved as .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory. You do not need to do save as, unless your terminal is opened in another directory besides your home directory.
Or as an easy alternative, you may also just use this file. Right click and choose save as, and name the .gtkrc-2.0. You will want to make sure that this is downloaded to your home folder, by the way.
Note: you will not see this file in normal view. The “.” in front of the filename makes the file hidden. You can see all of your hidden files in Nautilus by selecting view -> show hidden files.
To explain, the #ffffff represents the color white. You can change this to whatever color you want. Gcolor2 is a great color chooser for Gnome. Ubuntu users will find this in universe:
sudo apt-get install gcolor2
The change desktop background dialog will also work to select this color notation, if you do not want to install gcolor2.
All we need to change is:
fg[NORMAL] = “#ffffff”
to allow our Gnome panel to have a different text color besides black (#000000), which is the default. The rest of the lines in this are out of the scope of this solution. However, they are useful for other things which will not be discussed for this post.
The last step is to refresh the Gnome panel:
killall gnome-panel
Have fun! 
61 Comments
This didn’t work for me in Edgy Eft, however what did work for me is pasting in a different code. The code I used was:
include “/home/autocrosser/.gnome2/panel-fontrc”style “desktop-icon”
{
NautilusIconContainer::frame_text = 1
text[NORMAL] = “#9203c1″
NautilusIconContainer::normal_alpha = 70
}
class “GtkWidget” style “desktop-icon”
#NautilusIconContainer::dark_info_color=”#888888″
#NautilusIconContainer::light_info_color=”#bbbbbb”
#NautilusIconContainer::highlight_alpha=200
style “my_color”
{
fg[NORMAL] = “#ffffff”
}
widget “*PanelWidget*” style “my_color”
widget “*PanelApplet*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*MenuItem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*ToolItem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*SeparatorMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*SeparatorToolitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*ImageMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*RadioMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*CheckMenuitem*” style “my_color”
widget_class “*TearoffMenuitem*” style “my_color”
Sweeet! Looks good on my system!
Neither of these worked for me.
I tried something else
This little script worked perfect for me…
style “my_color”
{
fg[NORMAL] = “#b4e9fb”
}
widget “*anel*” style “my_color”
There is a little issue:
In the blog, all the quotes are changed to another character like those: ”
But the character that should be used in the gktrc file is this one: ”
When you copy-paste to gedit, remember to fix all those quotes and it will work great!
Cheers!
Thanks friend, this is a sweet hack! I now have white text for my panel, which looks great with my dark background.
Thanks so much!
Gert
I have not tried this in Edgy, just to be clear. I wrote this quite a while back.Edit: I have tried this now in Edgy and it works exactly the same for me as it did with Dapper and Breezy.
I cannot explain to you why it did not work for you, other than to say, try again, and this time try to follow the instructions more carefully, because this does work. You are obviously not doing something right. Since it has worked for many of us, but not you, I can easily conclude that you did not do it right, since it works flawlessly for the rest of us who have done it correctly.
I hope you can work this out, and in the future try to refrain from second guessing someone who is cool enough to take the time to share his knowledge, free of charge. Instead some gratitude might be better. Also let’s try not to blame others for our own mistakes, and misunderstandings.
It’s probably the quotes they had problems with. Copy the starting quotes and choose Replace… from the menu and replace them with regular quotes. Then do the same with the endquotes.
It didn’t work for me, but then I did that and it worked fine.
THANKS! Looking all today just to figure out how to do that.
yes the quotes replace fixed it for me also
“#ffffff”
“#ffffff”
Folks, please just use the txt file that I have linked to. The problem that you are having is probably due to the wordpress template here, which I’m not going to change just so you can tweak your computer. If I happen to change it, it will be because I want to.
Many thanks! I’ve been diggin around gconf for awhile trying to change the panel text. This just saved another 1/2 hour of searching.
Thanks again!
Thanks for this little hack. Worked great for me.
Yes! This is awesome! Great time-saver!
I want a transparent panel but I don like the separator bars. Sucks big time.
What sucks big time? My hack or your theme’s separator bars? Try using a different theme.
One that looks very good with this hack is Blubuntu.
As far as your saying that something sucks big time, I would advise you to have a bit more positivity in your life, as well as a bit more optimism that someone, with a powerful brain like mine, will save the day for you.
Install gcolor2 not necessary
Right Click->Change Background
use the color selector
Yeah, I know. I said that in the article. Read more carefully next time.
Gcolor2 is a good app for web developers, which is why I mentioned it.
the script worked like a charm, however, now my battery monitor icon, instead of being displayed in the panel like before, it is displayed in a window on my desktop. any idea why this script caused this?
No. Have you tried to add another battery monitor applet to the panel? Will that also be on the desktop? Seems weird to me. I’m not sure why this would do that.
This isn’t a script. It’s a configuration file. It doesn’t run any commands. It only tells Gnome how to display the panel.
The panel properties allows color changes and opacity, but this extra configuration allows the text color to be changed.
As far as why it’s doing this, I couldn’t tell you, because I do not use the battery monitor widget, but none of my other widgets have been affected, other than the text color being white, as specified in the config file.
Try what I suggest in the beginning of this response, or try to see if someone in the forums knows what to do. sorry I can’t help you further, but since I have never seen or heard of this happening, I’m not sure what to tell you.
My battery monitor does that too when gnome-panel is killed, as do some of the other icons living in the notification area. Removing the notification area and re-adding it to the panel should bring the wayward icons back.
Sorry guys but I just cannot say that I’ve ever had those problems and I use panel applets, just not the battery one.
As an alternative, instead of killing the Gnome panel, the same can be achieved by logging out and logging back in. Perhaps this is the way to overcome this issue.
Hey man,
thank you very much for this… this can be strange, but the first bad thing i thought about gnome was: “what? i cant change text panel colors??”
And now its possible
…and with this tip, i learned that all is possible, in gnome customizing… with this css-style-alike
Thank you again, and sorry for my bad eng
bye
Nice tip, many thanks. Worked perfectly for me.
Can anyone explain why panels are not themed in GNOME desktops (Metacity, Compiz, Beryl) while window decorators are? I can understand that window decorators should be the primary part of a theme in a window/compositing manager, but why not the panels? Doesn’t a “theme” imply that it includes all desktop elements?
For Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn you need to change the double quotation from “ ” to ” ” and it will work. i faced the same problem but after correcting the quotations it worked.
SWEET! I got disappointed initially because the first few solutions didn’t work. But then someone pointed out that the quotations marks were incorrect.
So I went and changed it… AND IT WORKED!
I can change the colours now!
Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much
Great! I have been needing this method/solution for ages. This is a good example of the lack of configurability in Gnome, but nice that someone can point out the solution. Now I can adjust those little things in Gnome like I’ve always been able to, in KDE. In KDE things like this can be done with a few mouse clicks. An easy GUI way to easily adjust things like this (gnome-panel text color etc. etc. etc.) should be a high priority for upcoming Gnome features. Gnome should stay simple, but it needs to incorporate more basic customization options like this.
Thank you, I like being able to change my colors
Does anybody know of a way to differentiate between a panel on the top and a panel on the bottom? In other words can you change the configuration based on orientation from with the .gtkrc file?
Thanks,
Rodney
Thank you sooooooo much!!! I use all sorts of backgrounds and the dark ones were severely limited by the black text color. It took me a few tries to get this to work, my problems were:
1. quotes
2. filename (i originally saved as .gtkrc.2.0 instead of .gtkrc-2.0)
3. sudo (i had to login as root to save the files)
And thanks to you my panel is readable.
Thanx for the fix. I actually ended up using the second config, but then splicing your fix in so I could get black menu text with white tool bar text. Thanx for sharing a bit ‘o knowledge with us
Have I just discovered my new tagline?
(Brent scratches his cleanly shaven (smooth as a baby’s butt) chin….)
Thanks for this info.
However, it clashes with monodevelop, as I documented in this thread : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3515284
Do you have any idea what I can change to make the colours specific to gnome-panel?
Hi, thanks for the tip. I was just wondering if there is an option for displaying the white font in bold. Seems to me it would look even better. Thanks in advance.
Try
font_name = “Bold”Or just use gnome-color-chooser. A lot easier.
Dee, you are right, but if you look, I wrote this article far before that application came out. Look at the date please.
I have moved on from Ubuntu since Vista’s release anyway. Far, far better my friend. I ran Gusty for a couple of weeks, and deleted the partition.
It isn’t that Gusty sucks. It’s great. It’s just that Vista is greater.
Thanks for posting this, but gosh, what an attitude.
Enjoy Vista.
Leaps and bounds Karl. Enjoy yourself. I do not have time to waste on an inferior OS. GNU/Linux has come a long way, as well as Gnome and KDE. But they still have a long way to go…
Why do people have such a weird (principled) attitude toward open source? Why do some of these same people have such disgust for capitalism. There is no denying the correlation.
It’s hilarious that developers who only use open source software spend countless hours developing drivers for proprietary HARDWARE. This defies logic.
If I did not need user-friendly production software, perhaps Linux would do. But I do need reliable production software, and it does not run on Linux. No, Gimp will not replace Photoshop for me –not even close. And the FOSS Flash CS3 alternative? It does not exist. Therefore, goodbye Unbuntu. Come see in 5 years when you catch up to the functionality of XP.
Argh when you click on Applications theres a white dotted box around Applications, Places, and Systems.
This makes it ugly
I found this tutorial very helpful, as I’m using dark background image, as well as transparent panel.
The only problem I encountered was about those quotes, they weren’t recognized for some reason. In gedit, I went Search -> Replace. copied the bad quote characters from the text to the “Search for” form, and entered correct quote character ( ” ) in the “Replace with” form. Then I just replaced them. (Not all quotes in the original text are the same, so it’s necessary to do this about 3 times.) This way it was quite easy, and works for me.
@ mike: That is because your theme is ugly, as well as your attitude.
@Teisei: I know, and if you had read more carefully, you would have found the link of the text file.
I’m not finding the .gtkrc-2.0 file in any dircetory. I used Nautilus and “show Hidden files” The only file that looks like the text file is gnomepanel but changing the color code here and reseting gnome-panel isn’t having any effect?
I’m running EdUbuntu maybe there is some difference in the way Gnome is configured with Ed?
Nope. This applies to Gnome Desktop, not any specific release of any Linux distro.
You don’t have this file until you create it. If you had followed the directions, it would have worked for you. Please try again. Don’t give up. Read the instructions. Don’t EVER expect Linux to “just work”. That is a MYTH! You have to tweak it like hell, in order to have a system that somewhat works.
I swear, I’m going to stop sharing my knowledge with writing these tutorials, if people don’t even have the sense to read the ENTIRE article containing the instructions. I’m NOT going to hold your hand! I don’t even care if this works for you or not. I’m not trying to sound like a jerk or anything, but I don’t even like Linux that much, and rarely use it anymore now that Vista (it has a great looking desktop without any tweaks– as if GUIs matter) has been released and has been patched enough to be considered stable. Server 2008 will be released very soon.
By the way, I plan to move this blog to my original host on Blogger, because wordpress.com sucks monkey nuts. So, check back next week for any changes.
If it is any consolation I really appreciate that people like yourself take the time to make these posts.
My issue was a typo. You are correct it does indeed work!!!!
Thanks for holding my hand
It’s all good Paul I’m glad it worked out for you. I was mainly just messing with you anyway. Thanks for visiting my blog and returning again.
Don’t be a stranger, and remember that my feed will be changing soon, since I am migrating away from wp.com.
I’ll keep eveyone up to date at the appropriate time.
Not to turn this into a Vista vs Linux debate, I feel you’re missing something by looking at it from a straight functionality view. Various Windows incarnations work fairly well out of the box and installing new software is a breeze (most of the time), but when you have Microsoft driving the hardware market (suddenly dropping support for fairly current software or refusing support to hardware that doesn’t keep up with their DRM model) you have to draw a line somewhere.
I use open source stuff because I’m a cheap son of gun
I kinda like the idea that I have a GUI that is as nifty as Aero (Beryl rocks), but didn’t cost anything and will run on my P3 w/ a Rage 128…I’m not uppity about the free as in free speech….I just like proverbial free beer 
Have you considered running Windows in a VM under Linux? I had Slackware 11 with VMServer set up for a while (Motherboard died). Up til the MB crashed, it would run UT2004 in a pokey manner (the TNT2 graphics and 512mb ram weren’t quite up to the task) VMServer is a free download and plays nice with most OS (’cept OS/2).
Just wanted to say thanks. That was the only real problem I was having with Gnome. I went to the gnome message boards and Ubuntu’s also; I received really helpful advise like, “Learn python you idiot!” and “it is just so simple I won’t bother to reply.” I knew it was something simple, I just need a point in the right direction. Thanks again.
Yes I have considered that, but why run a virtual OS inside another OS if I primarily need the applications that are inside the virtual OS?
In other words, why run Linux for the sake of it? If I need Windows to run the applications that my job requires for the most efficient production (there are no good replacements for Adobe products in my field, trust me — I’ve tried just about everything) why wouldn’t I just run Windows?
I HAVE to have Internet Explorer 7. No other OS will run it besides Windows XP or Vista. So there you go.
Sometimes really good software is worth the money, especially if it means that you are making a profit from your production.
If CS3 and IE7 ran flawlessly on Linux, I would give it serious consideration (even though I was given a Zune for Christmas — and I love it!).
I say run whatever floats your boat. If you are too poor or cheap to buy good software/hardware, there are FOSS alternatives for your platform, just don’t expect them to be easy to use.
My advise to anyone who frequently has deadlines of asap, use either Windows or OSX. You probably will not have time to learn how to run commands for things that you could do without even reading a tutorial using Photoshop, for instance. Gimp nice for free, but it sucks compared to Photoshop, in terms of ease of use, and in function.
If you are willing to live with that, I wish you luck friend. I am not, and I do not have the patience in my stressed out world. I need to get things out of the way quickly — chipping away at the huge pile of work on my desk every day.
Thanks for this info, made my day!
Nice one Brent thanks.
Use what works for you …right?
Cheers mate
What about font-family AND bold? I tried font_name = “Trebuchet MS bold” but it went just bold - and not Trebuchet
Any ideas?
finally found out. its:
[font] [style] [size]
=> Trebuchet MS bold 9
This worked for me after changing the quotes, however, I downloaded the textfile. Be sure to change the name correctly and it works fine.
Later I will try gnome-color-chooser.
Brent, I am glad you like Vista, but (at work) this superior operating system won’t work with any of our legacy plotting equipment so we had to waste a great deal of effort going back to XP on new machines. Microsoft puts the onus on the vendors, and there is little incentive for the printer vendors to rework drivers for 10 to 15 year old printers.
Thanks for the information on the text color.
Vista has it’s ups and downs. For newbies it can be a challenge, but for power users like myself, it’s all good. I will say that XP and Ubuntu are also great.
Hey Brent,
Thanks for the help!
Ignore the trolls you read on blogs as they are just greedy and complain. You’re doing a good thing helping people out with this, like myself.
After a few minutes of tinkering I decided that it would be best to keep it the way it is by default, but I just wanted to come here and post a thanks anyways!
Thanks heaps Brent.Your wonderful how to and the postings made it so easy and now I have a panel that works for me.
When using this code, the Applications, Places and System menu get an ugly white border upon being clicked, similar to clicking a link in IE or Firefox.
I’m not sure if I described that very well; anybody have a fix?
(Using 8.04)
Additionally, is there any way to only style the top bar? (The Applications, Places one)
HI!
Really nice and usefull post!
Thank’s a lot!
Naturally it runs well on my Ubuntu 7.10!
Thank you ao much for making my desktop look better than ever. Excellent post
Hey thanks, this is just what I was looking for!!
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