Try Something Different: Divergence IV - "A New Hope" (GTK & Emerald Theme) [Post Updated!]

Divergence IV - "A New Hope" is a very cool looking new theme which gives a slick look to your desktop. I'm not an Emerald fan, but the truth is you can't do something as beautiful as the Divergence IV - "A New Hope" Emerald themes with Metacity.

The pack incluses a beautiful GTK2 theme as well as 3 Emerald themes: 2 "A New Hope" themesL one with the buttons on the right side and one with the buttons on the left and a theme called "The Empire strikes back" which you can see in the Nautilus Elementary screenshot further down in the post.

Install the required packages

To use Divergence IV, you'll need Emerald and CompizConfig Settings Manager (to make Emerald default):

sudo apt-get install emerald compizconfig-settings-manager

The latest Murrine Engine (step not required for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:murrine-daily/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gtk2-engines-murrine

Then, download Faenza Dark icons (edited) and the Divergence IV - "A New Hope" theme pack.

Usage

1. Extract the downloaded .zip archive and copy the "A-New-Hope" and "A-New-Hope (gtk-breadcrumbs)" folders to ~/.themes/. The "A-New-Hope (gtk-breadcrumbs)" theme uses the default Nautilus breadcrumbs while A-New-Hope will give you slick new Nautilus Elementary breadcrumbs (if using Nautilus Elementary):

(Nautilus Elementary breadcrumbs and the new "The Empire strikes back" Emerald theme in Divergence IV - "A New Hope" 0.5)

Please note that you might have to manually set the icon theme to Faenza Dark (for some reason, the theme displayed an error about Faenza Dark not being even though it's installed).

Then for the Emerald themes go to System > Preferences > Emerald Theme Manager, click "Import" and browse for the 3 extracted Emerald themes.

2. In CompizConfig Settings Manager (System > Preferences), click the "Window decorations" plugin and under the command field, enter:

emerald --replace

Then to use the Emerald theme, press ALT + F2 and enter the same command as above.


Update: version 0.4 was using the Awoken icon theme but the new version 0.5 released on October 23 is using Faenza so I've updated the instructions. Also, version 0.5 includes a variation of the GTK theme with Nautilus Elementary breadcrumbs as well as a new "Ambiance-ish" Emerald theme (see the Nautilus Elementary screenshot above).


Don't like Divergence IV? Try the latest Elementary theme 2.0 or the Equinox themes.