Scrollbar buttons disappear when using greybird theme with GTK 3 applications

[Austin S. Hemmelgarn]

When using the greybird theme with GTK 3 applications, the buttons for the scrollbar disappear. I have included a screen-shot of synaptic exhibiting this problem

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: xubuntu-desktop 2.138
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Oct 25 10:46:53 2011
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110426.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LC_TIME=mul.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, user)
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LC_NUMERIC=mul.UTF-8
SourcePackage: xubuntu-meta
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-16 (8 days ago)

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

Thank you for reporting this issue. The arrows for the scrollbars are now hidden in the greybird theme, by design. This was a change by the theme developer. The bars themselves and the slider are still usable, and the scrollwheel will move them when hovering over them. However, the arrows themselves are gone.

[Nokir (nokir)]

To get the buttons back, comment out the following lines.
Use # for gtk2 and /* */ for gtk3.

/usr/share/themes/greybird/gtk-3.0/gtk-widgets.css:
      -GtkScrollbar-has-forward-stepper: 0;
      -GtkScrollbar-has-backward-stepper: 0;

/usr/share/themes/greybird/gtk-3.0/gtk-bars.css:
      -GtkRange-arrow-scaling: 0;
      -GtkRange-stepper-size: 0;

/usr/share/themes/greybird/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:
        GtkScrollbar::stepper-size = 0
        GtkScrollbar::arrow-scaling = 0.0

[Nokir (nokir)]

By the way: If you don't want to use that strage High Contrast theme, greybird is the only theme on Xubuntu that works with gtk3. I don't think it's a good idea to remove the scroll buttons from that theme.

[Bernd Kreuss (prof7bit)]

This bug should NOT be labeled as "invalid".

It should not be up to the theme designer to arbitrarily decide which UI elements he personally does not need because he never uses them himself and then simply *remove* essential functionality from the UI. This is a valid bug!

[Benjamin Herrenschmidt (benh-kernel)]

This is another of these "designer" disease that's plaguing all our desktops ... I don't seem to find a single theme that doesn't otherwise suck and has the arrows still there with gtk 3 apps.

The fun thing with Radiance is that it still has them for gtk 2, just not gtk 3

Yet another trainwreck ....

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

The problem with the arrows is that unico doesn't offer really appealing styles for them (since Ubuntu is using the overlay-scrollbars by default, scrollbars aren't really used there anymore and since Ubuntu employed the former murrine-now-unico-dev I don't see them focussing on that area in the near future). That is the main reason why I decided to drop them, and I assume that other theme designers did the same for similar reasons.

[Ryan Armstrong (software+ubuntu)]

Styling or not, this is a major UI impedement for users without scroll wheels, like myself and the Logitech Trackman Marble. Being able to click the arrows to move up and down in small increments (especially in large lists) is a fundamental feature of the scroll bar which should not be disabled. I wish this sort of "choice" could be pulled out to the Appearance dialog instead of locked inside the theme files.

Thanks to Nokir for the "workaround".

[Jeff Morris (jeffm593)]

This is a regression in UI usability, and a valid bug.

This is also effecting my usability of Xubuntu in 12.04 LTS.

[Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi)]

This is a design decision and hence won't be changed in Greybird. There are other themes installed in Xubuntu by default which show the arrows, e.g. Bluebird and Albatross, which you can easily use instead.

[bmaupin (bmaupin)]

Here's my one-liner fix for Xubuntu 14.04:

sudo sed -i.bak -E 's/(GtkScrollbar.+has.+stepper)/#&/' /usr/share/themes/Greybird/gtk-2.0/gtkrc

[bmaupin (bmaupin)]

...and here's my one-liner fix for Xubuntu 16.04 (Gtk 3):

sudo sed -i.bak -E 's/^(\s+-GtkScrollbar.+has.+stepper)/#&/' /usr/share/themes/Greybird/gtk-3.0/gtk-widgets.css