Default files

An application can cause GTK+ to parse a specific CSS style sheet by calling gtk_css_provider_load_from_file() and adding the provider with gtk_style_context_add_provider() or gtk_style_context_add_provider_for_screen(). In addition, certain files will be read when GTK+ is initialized. First, the file $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtk-3.0/gtk.css is loaded if it exists. Then, GTK+ tries to load $HOME/.themes/theme-name/gtk-3.0/gtk.css, falling back to datadir/share/themes/theme-name/gtk-3.0/gtk.css, where theme-name is the name of the current theme (see the "gtk-theme-name" setting) and datadir is the prefix configured when GTK+ was compiled, unless overridden by the GTK_DATA_PREFIX environment variable.

Style sheets

The basic structure of the style sheets understood by this provider is a series of statements, which are either rule sets or '@-rules', separated by whitespace.

A rule set consists of a selector and a declaration block, which is a series of declarations enclosed in curly braces ({ and }). The declarations are separated by semicolons (;). Multiple selectors can share the same declaration block, by putting all the separators in front of the block, separated by commas.

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GtkButton, GtkEntry {
    color: #ff00ea;
    font: Comic Sans 12
}

Selectors

Selectors work very similar to the way they do in CSS, with widget class names taking the role of element names, and widget names taking the role of IDs. When used in a selector, widget names must be prefixed with a '#' character. The '*' character represents the so-called universal selector, which matches any widget.

To express more complicated situations, selectors can be combined in various ways:

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/* Theme labels that are descendants of a window */
GtkWindow GtkLabel {
    background-color: #898989
}

/* Theme notebooks, and anything that's within these */
GtkNotebook {
    background-color: #a939f0
}

/* Theme combo boxes, and entries that
 are direct children of a notebook */
GtkComboBox,
GtkNotebook > GtkEntry {
    color: @fg_color;
    background-color: #1209a2
}

/* Theme any widget within a GtkBin */
GtkBin * {
    font: Sans 20
}

/* Theme a label named title-label */
GtkLabel#title-label {
    font: Sans 15
}

/* Theme any widget named main-entry */
#main-entry {
    background-color: #f0a810
}

Widgets may also define style classes, which can be used for matching. When used in a selector, style classes must be prefixed with a '.' character.

Refer to the documentation of individual widgets to learn which style classes they define and see the section called “Style classes and regions” for a list of all style classes used by GTK+ widgets.

Note that there is some ambiguity in the selector syntax when it comes to differentiation widget class names from regions. GTK+ currently treats a string as a widget class name if it contains any uppercase characters (which should work for more widgets with names like GtkLabel).

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/* Theme all widgets defining the class entry */
.entry {
    color: #39f1f9;
}

/* Theme spinbuttons' entry */
GtkSpinButton.entry {
    color: #900185
}

In complicated widgets like e.g. a GtkNotebook, it may be desirable to style different parts of the widget differently. To make this possible, container widgets may define regions, whose names may be used for matching in selectors.

Some containers allow to further differentiate between regions by applying so-called pseudo-classes to the region. For example, the tab region in GtkNotebook allows to single out the first or last tab by using the :first-child or :last-child pseudo-class. When used in selectors, pseudo-classes must be prefixed with a ':' character.

Refer to the documentation of individual widgets to learn which regions and pseudo-classes they define and see the section called “Style classes and regions” for a list of all regions used by GTK+ widgets.

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/* Theme any label within a notebook */
GtkNotebook GtkLabel {
    color: #f90192;
}

/* Theme labels within notebook tabs */
GtkNotebook tab GtkLabel {
    color: #703910;
}

/* Theme labels in the any first notebook
 tab, both selectors are equivalent */
GtkNotebook tab:nth-child(first) GtkLabel,
GtkNotebook tab:first-child GtkLabel {
    color: #89d012;
}

Another use of pseudo-classes is to match widgets depending on their state. This is conceptually similar to the :hover, :active or :focus pseudo-classes in CSS. The available pseudo-classes for widget states are :active, :prelight (or :hover), :insensitive, :selected, :focused and :inconsistent.

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/* Theme active (pressed) buttons */
GtkButton:active {
    background-color: #0274d9;
}

/* Theme buttons with the mouse pointer on it,
   both are equivalent */
GtkButton:hover,
GtkButton:prelight {
    background-color: #3085a9;
}

/* Theme insensitive widgets, both are equivalent */
:insensitive,
*:insensitive {
    background-color: #320a91;
}

/* Theme selection colors in entries */
GtkEntry:selected {
    background-color: #56f9a0;
}

/* Theme focused labels */
GtkLabel:focused {
    background-color: #b4940f;
}

/* Theme inconsistent checkbuttons */
GtkCheckButton:inconsistent {
    background-color: #20395a;
}

Widget state pseudoclasses may only apply to the last element in a selector.

To determine the effective style for a widget, all the matching rule sets are merged. As in CSS, rules apply by specificity, so the rules whose selectors more closely match a widget path will take precedence over the others.

@ Rules

GTK+'s CSS supports the @import rule, in order to load another CSS style sheet in addition to the currently parsed one.

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@import url ("path/to/common.css");

In order to extend key bindings affecting different widgets, GTK+ supports the @binding-set rule to parse a set of bind/unbind directives, see GtkBindingSet for the supported syntax. Note that the binding sets defined in this way must be associated with rule sets by setting the gtk-key-bindings style property.

Customized key bindings are typically defined in a separate gtk-keys.css CSS file and GTK+ loads this file according to the current key theme, which is defined by the "gtk-key-theme-name" setting.

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@binding-set binding-set1 {
  bind "<alt>Left" { "move-cursor" (visual-positions, -3, 0) };
  unbind "End";
};

@binding-set binding-set2 {
  bind "<alt>Right" { "move-cursor" (visual-positions, 3, 0) };
  bind "<alt>KP_space" { "delete-from-cursor" (whitespace, 1)
                         "insert-at-cursor" (" ") };
};

GtkEntry {
  gtk-key-bindings: binding-set1, binding-set2;
}

GTK+ also supports an additional @define-color rule, in order to define a color name which may be used instead of color numeric representations. Also see the "gtk-color-scheme" setting for a way to override the values of these named colors.

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@define-color bg_color #f9a039;

* {
    background-color: @bg_color;
}

Symbolic colors

Besides being able to define color names, the CSS parser is also able to read different color expressions, which can also be nested, providing a rich language to define colors which are derived from a set of base colors.

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@define-color entry-color shade (@bg_color, 0.7);

GtkEntry {
    background-color: @entry-color;
}

GtkEntry:focused {
    background-color: mix (@entry-color,
                           shade (#fff, 0.5),
                           0.8);
}

The various ways to express colors in GTK+ CSS are:

Gradients

Linear or radial Gradients can be used as background images.

A linear gradient along the line from (start_x, start_y) to (end_x, end_y) is specified using the syntax

where start_x and end_x can be either a floating point number between 0 and 1 or one of the special values 'left', 'right' or 'center', start_y and end_y can be either a floating point number between 0 and 1 or one of the special values 'top', 'bottom' or 'center', position is a floating point number between 0 and 1 and color is a color expression (see above). The color-stop can be repeated multiple times to add more than one color stop. 'from (color)' and 'to (color)' can be used as abbreviations for color stops with position 0 and 1, respectively.

Example 32. A linear gradient

This gradient was specified with

-gtk-gradient (linear,
               left top, right bottom,
               from(@yellow), to(@blue))

Example 33. Another linear gradient

This gradient was specified with

-gtk-gradient (linear,
               0 0, 0 1,
               color-stop(0, @yellow),
               color-stop(0.2, @blue),
               color-stop(1, #0f0))

A radial gradient along the two circles defined by (start_x, start_y, start_radius) and (end_x, end_y, end_radius) is specified using the syntax

where start_radius and end_radius are floating point numbers and the other parameters are as before.

Example 34. A radial gradient

This gradient was specified with

-gtk-gradient (radial,
               center center, 0,
               center center, 1,
               from(@yellow), to(@green))

Example 35. Another radial gradient

This gradient was specified with

-gtk-gradient (radial,
               0.4 0.4, 0.1,
               0.6 0.6, 0.7,
               color-stop (0, #f00),
               color-stop (0.1, #a0f),
               color-stop (0.2, @yellow),
               color-stop (1, @green))

Text shadow

A shadow list can be applied to text or symbolic icons, using the CSS3 text-shadow syntax, as defined in the CSS3 specification.

A text shadow is specified using the syntax

The offset of the shadow is specified with the horizontal_offset and vertical_offset parameters. The optional blur radius is parsed, but it is currently not rendered by the GTK+ theming engine.

To set multiple shadows on an element, you can specify a comma-separated list of shadow elements in the text-shadow property. Shadows are always rendered front-back, i.e. the first shadow specified is on top of the others. Shadows can thus overlay each other, but they can never overlay the text itself, which is always rendered on top of the shadow layer.

Box shadow

Themes can apply shadows on framed elements using the CSS3 box-shadow syntax, as defined in the CSS3 specification.

A box shadow is specified using the syntax

A positive offset will draw a shadow that is offset to the right (down) of the box, a negative offset to the left (top). The optional spread parameter defines an additional distance to expand the shadow shape in all directions, by the specified radius. The optional blur radius parameter is parsed, but it is currently not rendered by the GTK+ theming engine. The inset parameter defines whether the drop shadow should be rendered inside or outside the box canvas. Only inset box-shadows are currently supported by the GTK+ theming engine, non-inset elements are currently ignored.

To set multiple box-shadows on an element, you can specify a comma-separated list of shadow elements in the box-shadow property. Shadows are always rendered front-back, i.e. the first shadow specified is on top of the others, so they may overlap other boxes or other shadows.

Border images

Images and gradients can also be used in slices for the purpose of creating scalable borders. For more information, see the CSS3 documentation for the border-image property, which can be found here.

The parameters of the slicing process are controlled by four separate properties. Note that you can use the

shorthand property to set values for the three properties at the same time.

: Specifies the source of the border image, and it can either be an URL or a gradient (see above).

The sizes specified by the top, right, bottom and left parameters are the offsets, in pixels, from the relevant edge where the image should be "cut off" to build the slices used for the rendering of the border.

The sizes specified by the top, right, bottom and left parameters are inward distances from the border box edge, used to specify the rendered size of each slice determined by border-image-slice. If this property is not specified, the values of border-width will be used as a fallback.

Specifies how the image slices should be rendered in the area outlined by border-width. The default (stretch) is to resize the slice to fill in the whole allocated area. If the value of this property is 'repeat', the image slice will be tiled to fill the area. If the value of this property is 'round', the image slice will be tiled to fill the area, and scaled to fit it exactly a whole number of times. If the value of this property is 'space', the image slice will be tiled to fill the area, and if it doesn't fit it exactly a whole number of times, the extra space is distributed as padding around the slices. If two options are specified, the first one affects the horizontal behaviour and the second one the vertical behaviour. If only one option is specified, it affects both.

Example 36. A border image

This border image was specified with

url("gradient1.png") 10 10 10 10

Example 37. A repeating border image

This border image was specified with

url("gradient1.png") 10 10 10 10 repeat

Example 38. A stretched border image

This border image was specified with

url("gradient1.png") 10 10 10 10 stretch

Styles can specify transitions that will be used to create a gradual change in the appearance when a widget state changes. The following syntax is used to specify transitions:

The duration is the amount of time that the animation will take for a complete cycle from start to end. If the loop option is given, the animation will be repated until the state changes again. The option after the duration determines the transition function from a small set of predefined functions.

Figure 3. Linear transition

Figure 4. Ease transition

Figure 5. Ease-in-out transition

Figure 6. Ease-in transition

Figure 7. Ease-out transition

Supported properties

Properties are the part that differ the most to common CSS, not all properties are supported (some are planned to be supported eventually, some others are meaningless or don't map intuitively in a widget based environment).

The currently supported properties are:

GtkThemingEngines can register their own, engine-specific style properties with the function gtk_theming_engine_register_property(). These properties can be set in CSS like other properties, using a name of the form

, where namespace is typically the name of the theming engine, and name is the name of the property. Style properties that have been registered by widgets using gtk_widget_class_install_style_property() can also be set in this way, using the widget class name for namespace.

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* {
    engine: clearlooks;
    border-radius: 4;
    -GtkPaned-handle-size: 6;
    -clearlooks-colorize-scrollbar: false;
}

struct GtkCssProvider

struct GtkCssProvider;

gtk_css_provider_get_default ()

GtkCssProvider *    gtk_css_provider_get_default        (void);

Returns the provider containing the style settings used as a fallback for all widgets.

gtk_css_provider_get_named ()

GtkCssProvider *    gtk_css_provider_get_named          (const gchar *name,
                                                         const gchar *variant);

Loads a theme from the usual theme paths

gtk_css_provider_load_from_data ()

gboolean            gtk_css_provider_load_from_data     (GtkCssProvider *css_provider,
                                                         const gchar *data,
                                                         gssize length,
                                                         GError **error);

Loads data into css_provider, making it clear any previously loaded information.

gtk_css_provider_load_from_file ()

gboolean            gtk_css_provider_load_from_file     (GtkCssProvider *css_provider,
                                                         GFile *file,
                                                         GError **error);

Loads the data contained in file into css_provider, making it clear any previously loaded information.

gtk_css_provider_load_from_path ()

gboolean            gtk_css_provider_load_from_path     (GtkCssProvider *css_provider,
                                                         const gchar *path,
                                                         GError **error);

Loads the data contained in path into css_provider, making it clear any previously loaded information.

gtk_css_provider_new ()

GtkCssProvider *    gtk_css_provider_new                (void);

Returns a newly created GtkCssProvider.

gtk_css_provider_to_string ()

char *              gtk_css_provider_to_string          (GtkCssProvider *provider);

Convertes the provider into a string representation in CSS format.

Using gtk_css_provider_load_from_data() with the return value from this function on a new provider created with gtk_css_provider_new() will basicallu create a duplicate of this provider.

Since 3.2

GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR

#define GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR (gtk_css_provider_error_quark ())

enum GtkCssProviderError

typedef enum {
  GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR_FAILED,
  GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR_SYNTAX,
  GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR_IMPORT,
  GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR_NAME,
  GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR_DEPRECATED,
  GTK_CSS_PROVIDER_ERROR_UNKNOWN_VALUE
} GtkCssProviderError;

GtkCssSection

typedef struct _GtkCssSection GtkCssSection;

Defines a part of a CSS document. Because sections are nested into one another, you can use gtk_css_section_get_parent() to get the containing region.

Since 3.2

enum GtkCssSectionType

typedef enum {
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_DOCUMENT,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_IMPORT,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_COLOR_DEFINITION,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_BINDING_SET,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_RULESET,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_SELECTOR,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_DECLARATION,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_VALUE,
  GTK_CSS_SECTION_KEYFRAMES
} GtkCssSectionType;

The different types of sections indicate parts of a CSS document as parsed by GTK's CSS parser. They are oriented towards the CSS grammar CSS grammer, but may contain extensions.

More types might be added in the future as the parser incorporates more features.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_end_line ()

guint               gtk_css_section_get_end_line        (const GtkCssSection *section);

Returns the line in the CSS document where this section end. The line number is 0-indexed, so the first line of the document will return 0. This value may change in future invocations of this function if section is not yet parsed completely. This will for example happen in the GtkCssProvider::parsing-error signal. The end position and line may be identical to the start position and line for sections which failed to parse anything successfully.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_end_position ()

guint               gtk_css_section_get_end_position    (const GtkCssSection *section);

Returns the offset in bytes from the start of the current line returned via gtk_css_section_get_end_line(). This value may change in future invocations of this function if section is not yet parsed completely. This will for example happen in the GtkCssProvider::parsing-error signal. The end position and line may be identical to the start position and line for sections which failed to parse anything successfully.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_file ()

GFile *             gtk_css_section_get_file            (const GtkCssSection *section);

Gets the file that section was parsed from. If no such file exists, for example because the CSS was loaded via gtk_css_provider_load_from_data(), then NULL is returned.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_parent ()

GtkCssSection *     gtk_css_section_get_parent          (const GtkCssSection *section);

Gets the parent section for the given section. The parent section is the section that contains this section. A special case are sections of type GTK_CSS_SECTION_DOCUMENT. Their parent will either be NULL if they are the original CSS document that was loaded by gtk_css_provider_load_from_file() or a section of type GTK_CSS_SECTION_IMPORT if it was loaded with an import rule from a different file.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_section_type ()

GtkCssSectionType   gtk_css_section_get_section_type    (const GtkCssSection *section);

Gets the type of information that section describes.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_start_line ()

guint               gtk_css_section_get_start_line      (const GtkCssSection *section);

Returns the line in the CSS document where this section starts. The line number is 0-indexed, so the first line of the document will return 0.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_get_start_position ()

guint               gtk_css_section_get_start_position  (const GtkCssSection *section);

Returns the offset in bytes from the start of the current line returned via gtk_css_section_get_start_line().

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_ref ()

GtkCssSection *     gtk_css_section_ref                 (GtkCssSection *section);

Increments the reference count on section.

Since 3.2

gtk_css_section_unref ()

void                gtk_css_section_unref               (GtkCssSection *section);

Decrements the reference count on section, freeing the structure if the reference count reaches 0.

Since 3.2

The "parsing-error" signal

void                user_function                      (GtkCssProvider *provider,
                                                        GtkCssSection  *section,
                                                        GError         *error,
                                                        gpointer        user_data)      : Run Last

Signals that a parsing error occured. the path, line and position describe the actual location of the error as accurately as possible.

Parsing errors are never fatal, so the parsing will resume after the error. Errors may however cause parts of the given data or even all of it to not be parsed at all. So it is a useful idea to check that the parsing succeeds by connecting to this signal.

Note that this signal may be emitted at any time as the css provider may opt to defer parsing parts or all of the input to a later time than when a loading function was called.