How to Fix the look ‘n feel of GTK Apps in KDE

by Mandar Vaze on April 14, 2009
in Linux, Tutorials, Ubuntu

As all the Ubuntu users know, the default Ubuntu comes with Gnome. Kubuntu is a separate download, focused around K-apps. But I wanted best of both the worlds. It was easy to have both. I just followed the instructions from this page.

Personally, I think KDE 4.x is pretty nice. It comes with host of applications. I think KDE is cool (.. and acknowledge that cool is subjective – personal.)

Since I moved to KDE from Gnome, I have become dependent on several GTK apps. (GTK is the cross platform widget library used to write the Gnome applications) But by default they don’t look good in KDE.

Firefox tabs would merge into each other, and visually I could not differentiate the boundaries.
Firefox scrollbars didn’t work correctly either
Gnome DO had weird problem, as is the drop-down list which allows me to select the theme went completely bonkers.
The Edit box in Autokey is completely Hidden (See the image Above)

Something had to be done. See the images below. Click on the images to see the details.

The Edit Box is missing

Edit box visible after the dialog is resized

The tab boundaries merged

Follow these simple instructions to ensure that GTK apps “play well” with KDE

Go to System Settings ->Appearance
Click on “GTK Styles and fonts” from the left hand side panel
The very first (at the top) option is GTK Styles. The Default is use KDE Style. Select USe Another Style.
Select Clearlooks (For blue) or Human Clearlooks from the drop down.
You need to restart the GTK Apps.

Now all your KDE/QT apps as well as GTK apps would work well (in terms of display)

See the screen shots after the above fix is applied. Click on the images to see the details.