Now that Natty has shipped GTK 3, and Oneiric has already updated some core GNOME applications like Nautilus, Evince and Brasero, people are going to ask how to configure the appearance of GTK 3 applications.

Some have suggested linking the ~/.config/gtk-3.0 directory to /usr/share/themes/Adwaita/gtk-3.0, but I do not recommend this approach. It hardcodes the location of the theme (in disregard of the XDG specification) and makes it impossible to configure anything else.

The correct way to configure this, assuming you do not run gnome-shell and thus gnome-tweak-tool settings are ignored, is:

1. Create a directory named gtk-3.0 in ~/.config (that is, in the .config subdirectory of your home directory).
2. Inside that directory, create a file named settings.ini with contents like this (using my settings as an example):

[Settings]
gtk-theme-name=Adwaita
gtk-icon-theme-name=Humanity
gtk-toolbar-style=GTK_TOOLBAR_BOTH_HORIZ
gtk-font-name=Ubuntu 10

Adjust the settings the same way you would in .gtkrc-2.0 for GTK 2 applications. Obviously, to use the Adwaita theme, you need it installed (the gnome-themes-standard package). There should be no spaces around the = sign for the gtk-toolbar-style setting—the other settings seem to work with spaces, but I removed them for consistency.

Below is a screenshot of Evince 3 running on Oneiric with the Adwaita Improved theme.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3.html

Gnome 3 is the logical continuation of not caring what you do, where you store your files, how much power you consume by keeping your applications open or never shutting down your computer. Because, let’s face it, it is so difficult to concentrate on opening and closing programs, or Gods of the Internets forbid, minimizing the windows. Such a tedious task, when you need to respond to your tweets and your chirps.

What? Don’t look at me. I switched to KDE more than half a year ago.

GNOME 3.0 != GNOME 3?