I've posted a small comparison of using the default font size of 770 and using 11 px version by modifying gtkrc file. I recommend everyone to have a look at how user experience differs between them.

http://konttoristhoughts.blogspot.com/

I have permanently switched to using 11 px fonts and I'm not coming back. Every single app is much better off with smaller font than it was with the humongous default font.

of course, to change the "Theme 1" theme you have to edit "/usr/share/themes/default/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

Theme 1 is "default""
Theme 2 is "theme1/"
Theme 3 is "theme2/"
and so on...

here's a diff to make things easier:

It would be nice also to turn off antialiasing for small fonts like it is possible on linux desktop. If the freetype library on device contains patented bytecode interpreter, most web fonts (http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/) and Tahoma would look very nice with antialiasing turned off. I can sometimes see some advertisement in opera with pre-rendered fonts and they look much better that the tiny blurry ones.

Personally, I'd hate to have the AA off: I find it improves readability in every circumstance, especially with the high resolution screen of the 770.

Admittedly, those exposed to Windows' "font smoothing" many moons ago might have a different opinion. Dunno where you might find an option on the device as-is...

I said small fonts. It is a known fact that handcrafted bitmap (non-AA) fonts are better at small sizes than AA fonts. All good truetype (vector) fonts contain handcrafted bitmap versions for small sizes which is supposed to be not antialiased. for explanation see bottom of http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdtypo3.htm

I just edited the gtkrc file for theme1 (the blue one) directly. Deleted the gtkrc.cache file and reloaded the theme and it works fine. I definitely like that i do not need to scroll to get to the extras menu. However, I am still getting used to the smaller font size for the radio etc.

Tks for the tip.

DaScud

it is not working correctly for me. the font size certainly changes, but none of the theme images load, just greyish blocks. instead of deleting files in the theme directory i am mv ing them to gtkrc.bak and gtkrc.cache.bak
it should work fine by all accounts, any ideas?
also the location of the statusbar is getting screwed up.
the 770 will still work under this theme, but it look godawful.
any ideas what i'm doing wrong? should i just copy the default gtk files to a seperate folder?
i'm stuck.
are you guys gettinng new gtkrc.cache files showing up or does konttori's gtkrc file take care of that, ie replace the code which defines the links to the theme's images?

any help would be appreciated. perhaps someone could post their cli entries step by step for me?

i think that correct theme folder to edit is theme1. that could do trick.

for whatever reason it isn't working for me, here is what the screen looks like after replacing the gtkrc file:



i'm at a total loss here. i'm going to try to restore everything to defaults. if that is successful, i will try starting from scratch.

again, if someone could post a step by step from lauching xterm to completion, i would appreciate it. i like the increased functionality of the smaller fonts, but i need some type of skin. here is what it looks like right now:



UPDATE:

so, i got all the defaults set up properly. i tested each theme to make sure they worked as if the device as new to ensure all my files were lined up and correct. then, i modified the files according to konttori's instructions. rather than deleting or renaming the file, i created a new directory, .backup and moved gtkrc and gtkrc.cache from that location. then i inserted my vim created copy of konttori's modified gtkrc file. still getting the same issues. i just realized that i have the rootfsext on my device. i gotta try something else now. i think i might have this figured out.

UPDATE: Good god damn. it has nothing to do with the extrootfs. the files are located in the default directories. I saw these directories in /usr/share/themes :

Default
default
theme1
theme2
theme3

various experimentation with all of them yields the same results consistently for me.

Now I will post step by step what i do:


then i get the effect shown above, 11pt font, no skin images, just dull grey boxes. the statusbar is screwed up but restarting resolves that.

am i doing it wrong by writing the html page of gtkrc from kontorri's site to new file in vim? how are you guys doing it? i can't figure out why this wouldn't work. do i need to chmod the permissions perhaps?

ANOTHER UPDATE:

after changing the permissions to gtkrc to -rwxrwxrwx, and changing owner to user, the images for the background on the top bars appear, but the statusbar icons are still wonky, and everything else is that crappy grey.
the only possible issue i can conceive now is that somehow something got messed up in my method of copying the text from kontorri's gtkrc file and inserting same in vim. i would try putting the themes directories in sudoers but i don't think that will make a difference.
the two methods that may resolve this for me:

getting konttori's gtkrc file by some other method, or
some issue related to the customizations i have made previously to the system, ie using r&d mode i modified gainroot to allow me root access to the filesystem, i am using wolframs extrootfs script to use the rs-mmc to make my / ~744MB, i also added su to the sudoers file to allow me to launch a "true" root shell with the command: sudo su -, i also added sbin/swapon and sbin/swapoff to sudoers in order to use the load_plugin_aw to switch swapfile on rs-mmc card on and off easily, no x-term necessary, and finally i may have had swapfile on when originally trying out konttori's modified gtkrc file.

Ok, here's a simple how-to:

download the theme zip from: http://www.helsinki.fi/~konttori/Med...theme_test.zip

Connect your 770 to your comp. Unzip the file to the root of your mmc.

Disconnect 770. Open xterm (you must be in rd mode or otherwise have root access).
Execute following commands:
sudo gainroot
cp -R /media/mmc1/theme_test /usr/share/themes/theme_test

Ok. Theme is now installed. Close xterm. Open Control panel and go to personalization. Choose the new theme, cleverly titled: Urhon testiteema (which incidentally stands for Urhos test theme in finnish).

You're done.