From c3bdea7d2428cc56ca33ff73c94795f3b3e8fce1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Franklin Mathieu <me@snai.pe>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2018 21:38:39 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] added small tutorial to get GTK themes & settings working

---
 GTK-3-settings-on-Wayland.md | 52 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 52 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 GTK-3-settings-on-Wayland.md

diff --git a/GTK-3-settings-on-Wayland.md b/GTK-3-settings-on-Wayland.md
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+GTK+ is known for not picking up some variables from `${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/gtk-3.0/settings.ini`, most notably themes.
+
+This happens because when GTK+ uses the wayland backend, a subset of variables are pulled from the `gsettings` schema `org.gnome.desktop.interface`, whereas on X11 GTK talks to a XSETTINGS daemon that usually does this for you, or when missing, falls back to the user's setting.ini file.
+
+Note that this only applies for settings that belong to `org.gnome.desktop.interface`. Some settings, like `gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme`, are still read from your `settings.ini`.
+
+## Workarounds
+
+### Setting GTK_THEME
+
+If you only care about your GTK theme, you can export the `GTK_THEME` environment variable before running your GTK programs. While this is quite simple, it's also fairly limited, since there are no environment variables to set other settings, like icon/cursor themes.
+
+### Setting values in `gsettings`
+
+The proper workaround is to call `gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface <key> <value>` yourself at any point before starting any GTK program, for each setting that you want set. A good place to do so is either your shell's rc files, or using `exec` in your sway config.
+
+You can list valid keys for the schema using `gsettings list-keys org.gnome.desktop.interface`; you most notably want to set `gtk-theme`, `cursor-theme` and `icon-theme`:
+
+```
+set $gnome-schema org.gnome.desktop.interface
+
+exec_always {
+    gsettings set $gnome-schema gtk-theme 'Your theme'
+    gsettings set $gnome-schema icon-theme 'Your icon theme'
+    gsettings set $gnome-schema cursor-theme 'Your cursor Theme'
+}
+```
+
+If you'd rather have those values picked from your settings.ini file, here is a small convenient script to just that:
+
+```bash
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# usage: import-gsettings <gsettings key>:<settings.ini key> <gsettings key>:<settings.ini key> ...
+
+expression=""
+for pair in "$@"; do
+    IFS=:; set -- $pair
+    expressions="$expressions -e 's:^$2=(.*)$:gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface $1 \1:e'"
+done
+IFS=
+eval exec sed -E $expressions "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}"/gtk-3.0/settings.ini >/dev/null
+```
+
+Importing the gtk, icon, and cursor themes:
+
+```
+exec_always import-gsettings \
+    gtk-theme:gtk-theme-name \
+    icon-theme:gtk-icon-theme-name \
+    cursor-theme:gtk-cursor-theme-name
+```
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