I'm deciding whether I should switch from my Xubuntu (XFCE) to i3wm. What troubles me is that out of the box i3wm doesn't look pretty.
What are the ready solutions for making it look good? I would be quite satisfied if I could make it look like Xubuntu 14.04.
I don't want to be doing lots of configuration. Specifically coding color codes into the configs and other low-level business.
Thanks in advance.
One of the primary virtues of i3 is its configurability and simplicity. If you don't want to invest the time to explore this there exist lots of desktop environments that require little configuration and can be themed at the touch of a button.
If you do find the time its really as simple as pasting the appropriate lines into your config somewhere and editing the values you desire for example here is the segment of my config that concerns colors fonts and borders http://xsnippet.org/360377/
If you need help picking a color use http://www.hexcolortool.com/ which provides a gui color picker which will show you the hex value of your chosen color which you can then paste into your config.
Vim users can use colorv a plugin that provides an in editor color picker and highlights hex color values in the color of the defined color. https://github.com/Rykka/colorv.vim or an appropriate equivalent.
Thusly you can achieve a pleasing colorscheme in a matter of a few minutes of work that is far less intimidating that it seems.
Your best bet might be to stick with xfce/xubuntu as your base system and just use i3 as your window manager for all that tiling glory. There are some hints and tutorials across the intertubes.
There are several utilities for changing the color scheme without needing to directly edit the config file. You can use these tools to change the colors to something you like better.
An excellent choice for this is i3-style.
You can also experiment with a desktop compositor. You can use this to eliminate tearing, or give you fancy window effects like fading and transparency. An excellent choice for light-weight window managers is compton.
However, there are some limitations to what is configurable. i3 will never support things like gradients, rounded corners, and text shadows. Support for transparency can also be lacking right now.
Asked: Dec 20 '14
Seen: 2,327 times
Last updated: Dec 21 '14
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