gdm does not respect all the given color variables in a gtkrc which is included with the gdm theme

What's the easiest way for me to reproduce this bug? I've never really messed around with themes in gdm before so it's not clear what I should do to include the gtkrc.

If you install the latest gdm theme (ubuntu-gdm-theme in bzr) you'll notice that although there is a gtk-2.0 dir with a valid gtkrc it is not respected correctly (the select session pop-up from the options menu does not seem to respect any theme colors). A hint here, the new gtkrc colors have a dark bg and white text.

If you select the same gtkrc from the GUI (described above) it all works fine.

Cody, Ken vanDine, can either of you work on this bug?

I have another bug I need to try to work on first, and after that I can work on this one unless Ken is working on it.

Earlier doing a really quick grep through the sources I found something that is possibly relevant, but I didn't spend the time yet to be sure. From greeter_parser.c there is a comment that says:
      /*
       * It might be nice if we allowed this property to also supply a gtkrc file
       * that could be included in the theme. Perhaps we should check first in
       * the theme directory for a gtkrc file by the provided name and use that
       * if found.
       */

RIght, the current behaviour is that when there is a gtk-2.0 dir with a valid gtkrc in the theme dir gdm will use that gtkrc BUT it apparently does not respect everything as it should as there are problems (only with radio box's it seems) and specifying a gtkrc from the login-window GUI fixes the problems. We cannot simply ship with the gtkrc defined as such as it would create problems with updates (I think, correct me if I am wrong).

Tentatively assigning to Cody then; please unassign if you have trouble with this. Thanks!

Sorry about the last patch. I normally have a 'write-file-functions 'delete-trailing-whitespace hook in my .emacs so it fixed every line that had extra whitespace. :)

Tested this today and I think it works. Can you verify?

I'll sponsor this, looks straightforward (I haven't tested it myself, though).

This should not be an issue for gdm 2.24, thus no need to forward this upstream.

This bug was fixed in the package gdm - 2.20.8-0ubuntu8

---------------
gdm (2.20.8-0ubuntu8) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Add 72_read_theme_gtkrc.patch: Respect color variables in a
    theme's gtkrc. Thanks to Cody Russell for the patch! (LP: #331445)
  * 35_gdm.conf.patch: Change default background color to black, as
    requested by artwork team (will better match the future Jaunty
    background image).
  * Add 73_disable_user_input_tooltip.patch: Disable tooltip for
    login/password input line. It is confusing if it pops up
    automatically (depending on screen resolution this happens if the
    input box is in the screen center), and not all that helpful. As
    per request from artwork team. (LP: #331448)

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:09:36 +0100

This checks to see if you have a gtkrc property first, and if not it falls back to using {themedir}/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

I happened to notice what appears to be a memory leak in nearby code. This patch should fix it.

kwwii, can you test this one? :)

This bug was fixed in the package gdm - 2.20.8-0ubuntu9

---------------
gdm (2.20.8-0ubuntu9) jaunty; urgency=low

  * 72_read_theme_gtkrc.patch: Check to see if you have a gtkrc
    property first, and if not it falls back to using
    {themedir}/gtk-2.0/gtkrc. Patch by Cody Russell. (LP: #331445)
  * 74_greeter_theme_memleak.patch: Fix memory leak in the greeter's
    theme reader, thanks to Cody Russell for spotting this and the
    patch!

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:51:05 +0100

Erm, still no luck. I still get exactly the same behavior as before :(

Ken sat down with me at the office and showed me the exact behavior, so together we managed to fix this for good. :)

For some reason gdm_session_init() is blowing away some of our theming information. Investigating why looks like it will take significant time, and Ken says we're planning to move to a new gdm next release so quite frankly it just doesn't seem worth the investment of time. This patch simply moves the RC parsing to before gdm_session_init() gets called.

Thanks. Please reopen bugs if they aren't fixed, so that they don't fall off the radar. I'll sponsor this after the alpha-5 release today, assinging back to me.

Cody, does this patch replace the one in comment 14, or does it need to be done in addition?

Sorry for the confusion. It should just replace the previous patch.

This bug was fixed in the package gdm - 2.20.8-0ubuntu10

---------------
gdm (2.20.8-0ubuntu10) jaunty; urgency=low

  * 72_read_theme_gtkrc.patch: Take three, now confirmed to fully fix the
    issues. (LP: #331445)

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:30:47 +0100

This fixes Kenneth's theme. Howerver I still get the error when adding the "Mist" gtkrc to the "HumanCircle" GDM theme. The radio buttons in the session menu are Murrine-style, not Mist like they should, and have Human colours.

Where did you put the Mist gtkrc? Try putting it in /usr/share/gdm/themes/HumanCircle/gtk-2.0

I've put it exactly there. The other widgets are drawn by the Mist engine.

Where would it be pulling in Murrine engine from? Is there another theme that is loading that first? If that's the case then there's nothing we can do about it from the gdm code because GTK can only load a single engine module at a time.

Well, it's also using colours from the Human GTK theme for symbolic colours: https://launchpad.net/bugs/337106
How does it get them? Human uses the murrine engine - if I replace the Human theme in /usr/share/themes/Human with Human-Clearlooks, the session menu has Clearlooks radio buttons.

It is possible to include references to two different gtk engines within one gtkrc. It is one of those things you don't want to do (for several reasons) but it is possible.

The current GDM should be including colors from the gtkrc within the theme itself (ie the dark colors, which are included in /usr/share/gdm/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc).

Kenneth: Please replace /usr/share/gdm/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc with /usr/share/themes/Mist/gtk-2.0/gtkrc for testing. I get colours and radio buttons from /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc then, but the other widgets are drawn by the Mist engine. The Mist gtkrc only references the Mist engine.

I noticed that the Mist gtkrc is applied correctly if I remove the symbolic colours and that Kenneth's gtkrc isn't if I add symbolic colours to it. If bug #337106 was fixed, this problem would probably be solved, too.

The issue is deprecated in the karmic version