How can I add a panel to the Numix Lightdm login theme?

Question

I was wondering if anyone knows how I could add a top panel to the Numix lightdm login theme? In the original theme there's no panel and it's really hard to see the time and date as well as the session icons.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

There are alreay a panel but It's color is made transparent. If you want to change this, you need to compile Numix Theme. I've compiled it and made the panel non-transparent. Here is the procedure.

1. Download the Numix Theme's source files from here https://github.com/numixproject/numix-gtk-theme/releases. I used the latest one (in the time of writing this answer) v2.6.1

2. Install the necessary dependencies.

   • You need to have Ruby installed with sass gem. To install ruby use this command

     sudo apt-get install ruby
     

   • After ruby is installed, install sass using this command.

     sudo gem install sass
     

   • You also need these packages for building the theme.

     sudo apt-get install glib-compile-schemas gdk-pixbuf-pixdata libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev
     

3. Now extract the source file of the Numix theme and open gtk-3.0/scss/apps/_lightdm.scss file and in the line #16, there is

   background-color: transparent;
   

   Change it to

   background-color: $lightdm-bg-color;
   

   After the change, the changed area in file gtk-3.0/scss/apps/_lightdm.scss becomes

   14:         .menubar {
   15:             &, > .menuitem {
   16:                 background-color: $lightdm-bg-color;
   17:                 background-image: none;
   18:                 color: $white;
   19:                 font: bold;
   20:                 text-shadow: 0 1px alpha($black, .5);
   21:                 icon-shadow: 0 1px alpha($black, .5);
   

Note: Left columns are line numbers and aren't present in the file

5. Now open a terminal in the numix theme's source files and use these command to build and install the new customized Numix

   make
   sudo make install
   

This should make the panel non-transparent. Restart to see the change.

Here is a screenshot of the login screen after the change (took it by the help of this answer)

Answer 2

An alternative approach:
I believe the panel is actually there. It is just transparent. I recommend just changing the background image in LightDM GTK+ Greeter settings. (It must be in png format.) You can convert an image to png by using GIMP or ImageMagick in terminal. You can also just make your login screen a solid color background if preferred.

If you prefer a top panel:

1. Crop/resize an image to the same pixel width and height of your screen, for example 1920x1080 for a 1080p monitor.
   
2. Open it in GIMP (if not already open there).
   
3. Go to Layer > New Layer. Select Foreground color. Set height to 30px (might need later adjustment). Width would stay the same.
   
4. Hit ctrll to open up Layers and ctrlb to open up the Toolbox. Make sure your bar at the top of the image is selected in the layers.
   
5. In the Toolbox click on the black box (at bottom, two squares, one white, one black). Change to your preferred color. Now click on the paint bucket icon in Toolbox. Then click on the bar in the image. It should then color your top bar. To add degrees of transparency to the bar, click on the Opacity bar at the top of the Layers window.
   
6. Hit ctrlshifte to export to png. Save the GIMP file too in case you need to make any tweaks.
   
7. Add this image in LightDM GTK+ Greeter > Appearance.
   

When making any tweaks you can save over the same png file and your login Greeter image will be updated with that. Here is a sample image.

Answer 3

First of all, backup the /usr/share/themes/Numix folder, so you can restore the Numix theme in case of an unexpected error.

Ok, now open the /usr/share/themes/Numix/gtk-3.0/scss/apps/_lightdm.scss file.
(Hint: run sudo mousepad /usr/share/themes/Numix/gtk-3.0/scss/apps/_lightdm.scss from a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)

When the file has been opened, look for this line:

        background-color: transparent;

Try to change transparent to a color (maybe using #xxxxxx color codes codes, could be better if you quote the code ("#yyyyyy")) or to something like this (found at the Greybird Xubuntu 16.04 gtk+ theme):

    background-color: alpha (black, 0.5);

Answer 4

LightDM Greeter GTK+ Settings might be what you are looking for. It provides a GUI method to configure almost everything in your LightDM greeter. It is available from the 16.04 repositories so to install simply run:

sudo apt-get install lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings

This is how the menu looks like:

You might be particularly interested in changing the font size.