‘Orta’ theme guide – Firefox, Docky, AWN, Chrome

By , Published November 22, 2010

‘Orta’ is the ‘theme’ of the moment; a light, milky white theme that  has been carefully designed to make every part of your desktop feel ‘just right’.

For those never satisfied revel in Orta’s ‘set up tool’ which allows you to tweak various parts of the theme to suit your tastes. Don’t like the rounded-ness of it? Change it to Square. Don’t like the highlighting? Swap it out.

The theme is designed to make use of any icon set but works best with Faenza.

orta_by_skiesofazel-d31mal5

Orta theme

The most important part of the theme guide is, of course, the theme itself. Grab it @ skiesofazel.deviantart.com/art/Orta-184118297

Once downloaded extract the archive, then extract the ‘extractme.tar.gz’ inside that.

Orta provides a tool for setting up the theme: -

  • Double click on OrtaSettingsManager.py
  • Choose ‘Run’ from the resulting pop-up window
  • (Use the uninstall button to remove any old versions of Orta from your system.)
  • Use the Orta Settings Manager to install the theme and setup according to your preferences.
  • When you are done click the save button.

You’ll need to go into Appearance Preferences (Right click the desktop > change wallpaper > ‘themes’ tab)  to apply the theme.

Firefox Theme

Download @ addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/256176/

Chrome Theme

A Chrome/ium theme is included by default. Head back to your Orta download folder and inside the ‘Chromium’ folder you’ll find a .crx file. Drag and drop this onto Chrome/ium and install when prompted.

Docky Theme

WhiteGlass Docky theme for Orta is what Docky users will want to install. Grab it @ gnome-look.org

AWN theme

This, again, is shipped with Orta by default. Have a peek inside the ‘AWN’ folder to find a Lucido-style Orta theme.

Other applications

If you know of more Orta themes for applications then let me know via the comments or by shooting a mail to contact[at]omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

  1. ‘Glassy’ theme for Docky’s clock docklet
  2. Finally €“ A Chrome theme for Elegant GNOME!
  3. 'WindowPane' Docky theme adds sunlight to any desktop
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  • John

    meh. not a fan…thx tho

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      You could also give “A new Hope”, “Elegant Gnome”, or “Colors gtk suite” a try if you haven’t already. All of them offer a different look from Orta along with some excellent quality :)

      • Anonymous

        What a legend :)

      • Pedro Waterton

        I don’t really understand how the themes work but…

        when I install this one by extracting to .themes it works brilliantly on some programs such as firefox and thunar but on others such as rhythmbox and synaptic it seems to revert to a really basic theme

        tried to install from ppa but it the repository couldn’t be found

        is it just that some programs aren’t supported?

  • Anonymous

    a fan here. Definitely one of the slickest themes on Any OS.

    • dRewsus

      Practice and updated engines with more skilled themers moving to linux

  • Anonymous

    no Orta for firefox4
    NOOOOOOO!

  • Eugeny

    Your wallpaper, please.

  • Anonymous

    Wow. Very well done, love the settings manager!

  • http://gianfrixblog.co.cc Gianfrix

    Bespin for GTK? Nice! :D

    • Anonymous

      I was about to comment this!

    • http://moondowner.wordpress.com Martin Spa.

      True! It really looks like Bespin.

  • Anonymous

    Quite similar to the Bespin theme engine for KDE, which is my theme of choice: highly configurable, works with just about any color scheme and icon set. Nice to see something like this for GTK; looks pretty slick with Nautilus Elementary!

  • http://ghetto.k2city.eu Matej MoÅ¡ko

    Quite nice, however quite slow. I do not know why, but my computer with this theme is really laggy. Any other theme I tried was snappy.

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      Gtk and pixbuf engine version? It’s faster than Ambiance on my pc.

      • http://ghetto.k2city.eu Matej MoÅ¡ko

        libgtk 2.22, pixbuf the same

        • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

          That’s weird, i have the same version. Care to share your settings?

          • http://ghetto.k2city.eu Matej MoÅ¡ko

            I had an experience with the previous version, now I tried it from the scratch, it is much better. Probably problem with previous version (a week or so ago) or with momental disposition of my pc. Now it is OK. mark SOLVED :)

          • http://ghetto.k2city.eu Matej MoÅ¡ko

            I had an experience with the previous version, now I tried it from the scratch, it is much better. Probably problem with previous version (a week or so ago) or with momental disposition of my pc. Now it is OK. mark SOLVED :)

      • http://ghetto.k2city.eu Matej MoÅ¡ko

        libgtk 2.22, pixbuf the same

  • Anonymous

    The theme is great, but I just can’t find a color setting for it that doesn’t look too bright for my eyes

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      Have you tried adjusting the base window color? Open appearance preferences and click customize. On the Colors tab change the window background to something darker (don’t overdo it though, it’s still a pixmap theme). I would also urge you to calibrate your display. Color accuracy in secondary in this case, what’s important for your eyes is the brightness level. This should never go above 120 candles.

      • Anonymous

        Yes, I’ve tried adjusting the window color, but I couldn’t find a color that looked good.
        I don’t know where to look for the number of candles of my lcd screen (it’s a laptop)…

        • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

          You unfortunately need an external device to do that, they an lcd calibrator to be more exact. You can also try it with your eyes as the tool, with the help of test images :
          http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

          • Anonymous

            It seems that my lcd was already well calibrated.
            If it helps, I’m using a theme called Fundamental Round 2, and I really like the greys on this one. I suppose this theme is just not for me, but I think you are doing a great job.

          • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

            Try setting the background color to CFCFCF , it’s the same color Fundamental Round 2 uses.

        • Anonymous

          try #C7C7C7 for the backround

          • Anonymous

            Thanks, it looks fine now, with #C7C7C7 or #CFCFCF as Skies Of Azel suggested.

  • Anonymous

    inb4 “looks like OSX”

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      Lol, it also looks like Bespin and Elementary, i’ve heard it all before ;). Besides, people are always entitled to their opinions.

    • http://twitter.com/agent00tai FT

      everything that’s in some way gray and looking good is looking like osx these days?

      • The Negative Shape

        yes – and everything else is copying win7 lol

  • Anonymous

    inb4 “looks like OSX”

  • Anonymous

    Well, it is nice, but my eyes prefer something darker. And dark panel in this theme look somewhat inconsistent. But some people may like it, just not my style.

  • http://slimshady91.myopenid.com/ Tarek

    Amazing theme!! Simply beautiful:). AWN Lucido Style + Orta = Super Beautiful

  • Anonymous

    Would be great if it worked with global menus. It’s beautiful.

  • Anonymous

    You’re all missing the most important part: this theme is based on the amazing Panzer Dragoon series.

    Good to see a fan.

    Too much milky white for me, but it looks good and has a true Panzer Dragoon feel. Nicely done.

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      That’s the sad part, too few know about the real influence behind this theme.

      And i am not just a fan, i am the biggest Panzer fanboy there is ;P. This unique piece of digital art hasn’t just helped me shape my artistic preferences, it has truly managed to influence the way i think, even now that i am at my early 30′s :). Gash’s speech about the dilemma of freedom vs security really got me thinking when i first listened through it, that as Benjamin Franklin said:
      “He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.”

      As for milky white, i was going for bone white, with black shades (ala Panzer) but there was too much contrast.

  • Anonymous

    Looks great! However, I noticed in windows with tabs, the inactive tab title has a very light gray text – which is practically unreadable against the whitish background.

    • Anonymous

      And my breadcrumbs never look like that. -.- They’re just side-by-side rectangles.

      • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

        Have you installed nautilus-elementary? Have you checked “Show live breadcrumbs” in Nautilus Preferences -> Tweaks ? Have you selected Nautilus Elementary in the Nautilus tab of Orta Settings Manager? Have you saved your settings and reload the theme ;)?

        • Anonymous

          Yep, yep, yep, and yep! I saved my settings and tried reloading a few times, including a restart. I’ve never seemed to be able to get it to work like that, now that I think of it; I just verified my version of nautilus is from the nautilus-elementary ppa.

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      If you are talking about pidgin tabs, it’s a pidgin bug. If you are talking about another application, please name it so i can fix it.

      • Anonymous

        It seems to be most of them, but not Chromium. For instance, nautilus.

        • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

          Something is wrong with your settings.rc file, please send me an email with your contact information so that we can troubleshoot what is causing this. I will contact you as soon as i am available (i have to get some sleep now ;))

          • Anonymous

            Thanks! I went ahead and sent you an email, no rush. :-)

          • Anonymous

            Thanks for the effort! It seems the problem rests with my computer and not the theme itself, for the record.

  • daas88

    It took you long enough to blog about my favorite theme :D

  • http://www.xnlab.net Xeriab Nabil

    Orta + Faenza Cupertino + Emerald = elegant Gnome theme ^^

  • Anonymous

    Best theme on gnome-look now,great work….feels good also with smoothy and tintedsteel docky theme.

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      Thanks but i don’t think there is such a thing as a best theme. I mean, sure, subjectively something will always look better to ones eyes, but the rating system on gnome-look IMO creates the wrong mentality. Besides, you vote when you only have to chose one representative, like in the elections. In Linux land you can use as many themes as you like :D. Now, stating that you like something by faving it on Deviantart of becoming a fan on gnome-look, is a reasonable way to categorize something to individual tastes, but the rest is only food for our egos, and that shouldn’t be our community’s way.

  • Anonymous

    I use Elementary Ubuntu, but I’ve been using the Chrome/ium scrollbar theme from this for a while, on both Ubuntu and Windows. :P

  • http://twitter.com/FredericoSantos Frederico Santos

    Wow. I’ve never posted anything here. Until now.

    Congratulations, it is a beautiful theme. Indeed a work of art.

    PS. How can I change the selected bg color? I wish to change it from grey to blue.

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      If you are talking about the dark gray selector in treeviews and iconviews unfortunately you can’t as it’s a pixmap.

  • http://twitter.com/GodfatherGuido Shaun Guido

    Hmmm .. I can’t get this to install. I click install .. and no to root access -> goes to Installation aborted.

    I tried with root .. same thing :(

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      Please send me your contact info and we can try to find out what goes wrong.

    • Anonymous

      Had the exact same problem – What fixed it for me was changing the extracted folder’s location from Desktop to the Home Folder, and then I changed the folder name to a single word (Orta), instead of two.
      I saw something about having absolute folder paths in the new installation method, and thought that might have had something to do with it. I don’t know if it is, but that’s why I did it.

      Anyways, doing that made it work for me!
      Hope it helps you, or anyone else who might later google the problem (like I did) and see this.

  • http://twitter.com/appleseedhuman Appleseed Humanity

    Beautiful theme. Flavors of KDE, with hint of Mac-ness. Excellent work and a breeze to install.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

    Well, you either didn’t select Nautilus Elementary in the nautilus tab of the Orta Settings Manager and then pressed Save, or you have a bugged version of equinox engine installed from a ppa.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/Yogotiss Yogotiss

    I must say, I thought Ambiance and Elementary was sexy. This… Is even sexier, I want more!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HHS3YNBYUFBBEPUESRLV747QOM Dylan

    I was skeptical on trying this but OMG its now my default theme!! Luv it! Especially the settings manager! EPIC!

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

    Another user told that no one reads the instructions just two days ago. It seems he was right :P. You have the dreaded pixbuf engine version 2.20 which has a serious bug with menubars. There is a workaround on the Fixes tab of The Orta Settings Manager (last checkbox on that page) but it’s not perfect. If any more applications (besides banshee and the theme preview in the Appearance Manager) continue having this problem after you have selected the fix and saved your settings please contact me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jose.granados Jose Luis Granados

    I tried and loved it, i’m sticking with this one. Anyone knows where could I find the second wallpaper shown in the picture?

  • http://www.facebook.com/jose.granados Jose Luis Granados

    I tried and loved it, i’m sticking with this one. Anyone knows where could I find the second wallpaper shown in the picture?

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/itresa itres

    Does this theme exist for thunderbird?

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/metamike mike

    Hi, I installed Orta and one word : Awesome !

    There’s only one thing bothering me, no matter what type of “tabs” I select in the configurator, it always show the default ones (dark rounded).

    Anybody else had that issue ?

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Valiant.Wing Skies Of Azel

      Did you install via ppa? If so, did you remove any previous versions before installing?

  • http://www.best-registrycleaner.net Best Registry Cleaner

    Very well done, love the settings manager!

 
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