Deblk,

Like Rod said, it's all in the DLLs. If you are using Gimp 2.8 (my release), all the engines are included in the build. So, to change the theme, you do the following:
Let's assume that you have found a great theme from gnome-look.org. Make sure it's a gtk 2.x theme. Let's call it "Dasha".

1. Download Dasha and unzip it. Use 7z to do that since sometimes the file is compressed in some Unix formats like gz or bz2.
2. When you unzip you will find a directory called gtk-2.0 and it will have some files and possibly directories.
3. Copy this directory to the .gimp-2.8/themes directory and rename it to Dasha.
4. Restart Gimp and change the theme in your preferences to "Dasha".

Let me know if this does not work for you.

Thanks Partha for taking the time to talk to me...will certainly have a play

How did you use a pattern? I havent seen a theme with a pattern before.

See
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4260

Hello there,

Like most people in this thread, I struggled during hours to find a fully working (eg. with skinned buttons!) theme for an _installed_ gimp 2.8 64bits on win7 (I gave up getting a working one for the _portable_ 64bits version, I failed). I eventually stumbled upon this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxtwjxf5tLI that supplies a working theme pack in the video description (containing no executables, just folders).

Now that I know for sure that theming works on my gimp build, I'd like to get my 2.6.x theme back on tracks for the 2.8, it was aurora-midnight, it was, IMO, the best bet for a usable and readable dark theme on Gimp.

Unfortunately, the aurora-midnight package I found delivered within
- gimp 64bits partha installer
- or gimp themes 1.0
- or in a single package on gnome-look.org
only come with a gtkrc text file that loads the theme without the buttons and, as a result, has some broken features in terms of usability (the grayed out options in tabs for instance are highlighted in white instead of being grayed out which is counter-intuitive)

So, if someone here has successfully installed a fully working version of aurora-midnight on Gimp 2.8 64bits, please post your procedure.

DarkNice is pretty much what you are looking for.
The loader is a little different, but not much. All the buttons have a nice rounded corner.
Download this
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36057148/GTK2%2 ... %202.8.zip
Now take all those theme folders and place them in UserFolder\gimp-2.8\themes
Open Gimp-2.8 and go to Edit>Preferences>Themes and select DarkNice.The theme will switch right away.
Now i found that this theme doesn't allow small icons, so if you want those see this post.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4358&hilit=gimp+2.8+themes

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the pack !
It's working for me, even in user folder.

Unfortunately, DarkNice, while being the closest I've seen to the usability of aurora-midnight, lacks a bunch of things, it fails IMO, mainly, on font colors. Here is a quick versus, DarkNice vs Aurora-Midnight, to illustrate the contrast problem I get with font colors and font relative brightness:



If I don't find an "open & independent" (with images folders and all styles included) version of aurora midnight, I may try to tweak darknice to give it what it needs to reach the readability of aurora.

Edit: I've started the tweaking, a bit blind at the moment, I'll look into gtk theming for further tweakings.

This is odd because my theme looks nothing like that.Here is mine in Gimp-2.8.


Everything works fine for me.

He's missing the engines....

I am not using any DLL files though.