The intent of this page is to offer an explination of the various components in a GDM theme, as well as a basic tutorial of creating themes for the Gnome Display Manager, along with tips for getting the most out of GDM features.

What is a GDM Theme?

A GDM theme Is a collection of files that control the appearance of the or Gnome Display Manager, refered to in short as the GDM.

GDM Theme Components

A GDM theme consists of around five components:

The .desktop file

Apparently, this is not a "true" .desktop file. I can neither confirm nor deny that fact. I can tell you that the GdmGreeterTheme.desktop file allows you to specify a name, creator, copyright information, a brief description, and the name of the preview image. This information is used by the GDM settings panel when listing your theme.

The Theme's XML file

This is the file that tells the GDM what to display, how it should look, and where it will go. This is where we will be doing most of our work.

The Background image

The Preview image

Any Foreground images (not required)

These are images that you use like icons in your theme. Common uses are for placing distro logos in the theme and to accompany or replace button label text.

The GdmGreeterTheme.desktop file

This is a skeleton for a GdmGreeterTheme.desktop file

[GdmGreeterTheme]
Greeter=
Name=
Description=
Author=
Screenshot=
Copyright=

The Theme's XML file

This is a skeleton for an XML theme file.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE greeter SYSTEM "greeter.dtd">
<greeter>
</greeter>

Item Types

• rect
• box
• label
• entry
• pixmap
• svg

Item IDs

• language_button
• session_button
• system_button
• disconnect_button
• clock
• caps-lock-warning
• timed-rect
• timed-label
• pam-prompt
• user-pw-entry
• pam-message
• pam-error

Stock types

The Tutorial

For much of this tutorial you will be required to write in files and directories that are in the /usr directory, so, you must be running in "superuser" mode. To do this you will need the root password, also known as the administrator password. To make things easier here in the beginning, I have created a "skeleton" of a theme. No, it doesn't feature any bones, just all of the files necessary to act as a template for a GDM theme.

Tips

Box Size

Wallpaper Size

Other Resources

There are few tutorials (that I have found) for GDM themes on the web. Aside from a basic understanding of XML, I found this site to be useful when I started themeing: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/Tutorials/GdmThemes - The home of the official Gnome Tutorial for GDM themes

But, by far, the best resource that I have found is actually looking at other peoples themes. Try and isolate a part of the theme that you like, extract it, and use it in your own theme. If it isn't quite what you want, modify it until it is. Just remember to test often. There is nothing worse than making extensive changes to your theme, only to realize that somewhere in there is a single line, or even a single character that causes a spectacular failure in display manager.

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