xfce theming glitch

[OnlyTux]

Hello, guys.

This is the first time I try to theme my WM.
I have been using smoothly Xfce for 3 months, but I would like to change the default appearance of some of its components (icons and panels mostly).
The available themes with the standard setup are not better than the default one, in my opinion, so I read the Gentoo Xfce official and wiki documentation, and, after wondering a bit through the forum, I went to xfce-look and downloaded the SlicknesS gtk 2.0 theme.

After following the instructions written by the author, the theme was available in the "User Interface Settings" but not in the "Window Manager Settings". Ok, no problem, I select the SlicknesS inside the former and the panels and windows change... But not as exactly as the screenshots available at the aforesaid page: only the panels, menus and the scrollbars were conform to the linked pictures. The rest remained Default, and the default grey window's titlebar color turned too light for the white title to be readable.

After deleting the SlicknesS folder inside /usr/share/themes and restoring the default settings, I looked inside the themes' directories in my system and noticed all of the images were inside the xfwm4 sub-directories. So I created a xfwm4 sub-directory inside the SlicknesS folder in my /home, putting all of the images inside it, then copied it again into /usr/share/themes and selected it again. The situation did not change, so I turned to default style and removed the directories.

At the logout, the system crashed. No input from keyboard was accepted, so I had to turn the pc drastically off. Now, the SlicknesS theme results available in my User Interface Settings window, but no related folders or files exist anymore.

[EDIT: I logged out, then logged in with another user, started Xfce and the SlicknesS disappeared like magic. Problem 1 solved ]

I also tried other simpler themes in the Xfce section (eg. Xubuntu studio) but in vain.


Finally, could you please link me to some further documentation to solve this glitch, or give me a hint? I tried to give a look at the Xfce official documentation, but it is old and at a first glance it does not seem to tell much about it. I also checked the Xfce forum and found a post of a guy in my condition, but without answers.

Thanks in advance for your patience and your help.

Regards
_________________
ANTONIO: How every fool can play upon the world! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots...

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

[psycho]

bear in mind that theming xfce involves two different kinds of theme: one for the applications (that's the gtk2 theme...although if you're using qt apps you'll need to theme them as well...and then there are apps like firefox 2 that have their own themes or skins) and then a *different* one for the window manager. the themes in the xfwm4 directories are for xfwm (your window manager) to draw the window title bars: if you're using emerald or some other window manager, you'll need themes for that instead, and so on.

lots of gtk2 themes have matching metacity themes for gnome's default window manager...but lots also have matching xfwm or emerald themes. even if a gtk2 theme you like doesn't have a matching theme for the window manager (i.e. one designed to go with it) it's easy enough to find one that still "matches" in the sense of looking nice.

[OnlyTux]

Thank you for your answer.

I now understand where is the problem: I don't know anything about window managers and theming.

I will try to do some experiments and to learn something with some live cd, thank you.

Regards
_________________
ANTONIO: How every fool can play upon the world! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots...

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice