Gnome 3.2 shell theme not being applied to all applications

Question

I have been trying Gnome 3.2 on a fresh install of 11.10 and LOVING IT for how it manages the windows and with the notification bar at the bottom and auto hiding. With SOOO many things different, it is hard to get used to coming from Gnome 2.x on my Elementary OS machines. But still loving how gorgeous everything is.

I have been playing around with themes trying to get it looking a little better. I prefer dark themes cause they tend to be easier on the eyes. I followed the tutorials on OMG! Ubuntu about how to install shell themes.

How to install all the tools need to make Gnome 3 themable.

And used the top 5 shell themes they featured here.

OMG! Ubuntu's top 5 Gnome shell themes

And for the System theme I followed the tutorial on how to install Adwaita Dark theme. This thing won't let me post more than 2 links, so if you need to see the tutorial or get the theme file, please search Adwaita Dark on omgubuntu dot co dot uk

Now to the issue, for some reason the Adwaita Dark GTK part of the theme is not being applied to things like, Firefox 7.0.1, Thunderbird 7.0.1, Keepassx 0.4.3, Pidgin 2.10, and the Ubuntu One client GUI interface that came stock with Ubuntu 11.10. I would say that it is only the applications I've added after installing 11.10, but Gnome Tweak has the right Theme applied to it and Ubuntu One came stock. Could it be just that these apps having been updated to use the GTK version that Adwaita uses?

Answer 1

GTK3 themes are only applied to GTK3 applications. For instance, in Ubuntu 11.10, Nautilus, Gedit, etc. use GTK3 but some applications don't use GTK3 yet (like Banshee, Pidgin, Firefox and lots more) so that theme is not used for those applications.

The best way around this is to use a theme that comes with both GTK2 and GTK3 versions (here are 4 such GTK2+GTK3 themes as an example). That way, both GTK2 and GTK3 applications look similar (well, not perfect, but very close depending on the theme you use).