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How can I change the color of top menu bar in Unity and top menu bar in any window (application and file explorer)?

5 Answers 5

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You can use Ubuntu Tweak to change the themes of different elements instead of having a single theme for every thing.

How to install Ubuntu Tweak?

  • Hit Alt+Ctrl+T to open terminal and run following commands:

    1. For Ubuntu 14.04 onwards, it's available in softxare sources, just type:

      sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool
      
    2. For older Ubntu releases:

      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
      

How to change the window theme?

  • Once installed, Hit Super key (Windows key) to open Unity dash and search for "ubuntu tweak" and open it.
  • Open the "Tweaks" tab and click on "Themes".

enter image description here

  • Hare you can change the theme of window (title bar). As you can see I've changed the window theme in this screenshot. You can change the theme of Unity panel (menu bar) by changing Gtk theme.

enter image description here

Where can I get themes for Ubuntu?

Hare are two exelent sources for themes.

Gnome-Look

Ubuntu-Art

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click windows button and in Appearance find the theme and change default dark Ambiance theme to Radiance

enter image description here

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I believe I have stumbled upon a more satisfactory answer to this question. I have yet to figure out how to change the window titles; however, the Unity panel color, within the Ambiance theme, can be changed using dconf-editor:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Utilizing dconf-editor, navigate through "org", to "gnome", to "desktop", to "interface". Modify the entry "gtk-color-scheme" to read:

dark_bg_color:#333377

Replacing #333377 with whatever color you wish (in hexadecimal format). Then, log out and back in; the Unity bar should have changed appropriately, as have all of the menus. (If it has not, double check what you entered -- it seems that any typos cause the entire gtk-color-scheme entry to be ignored.)

I have verified this to work in Ubuntu 12.04.2, including both the 3D and now-outmoded 2D versions of Unity.

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The color of the top panel bar and the launchpad background are a function of the wallpaper colors and the opacity/transparency set with Ubuntu Tweak or MyUnity. With Ubuntu Tweak select the "Tweaks" tab and then the "Unity" button. The parameters you'll want to change are "Launcher opacity:" and "Panel opacity:". Changing themes won't impact those colors. To change the label bar color you'd need to edits the image components used to create it. You could set the opacity gradient, dark bottom to light top, of the label bar before 12.04 and my upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 carried forward my former title bar opacity. I'm not sure where access to that parameter is in 12.04.

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By default, at least in 12.04, you only get a chance between dark and light (dark brown or pale cream) - these are selected in the "appearance" section of the system settings and are named "Radiance" and "Ambiance". You may also be able to get certain accessibility modes such as "high contrast".

But you can, if you want, install different window decoration and GTK+ themes. There are various packages available in the repositories which include metacity, GTK+, etc themes. Using the myunity package you can then select these themes, including the ability to independently select different themes for the window titlebars and window controls.

It would be nice if there were an easier way to customise these colours without resorting to a bunch of other software, and themes of varying quality levels. I stick with the default theme because nothing else quite looks perfect in Unity.

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