Change:
Describe the bug Themes are not listed anymore in the Appearance Preferences for the Mate desktop environment. Some screenshots of a VM running Mate to demonstrate the issue: ! ! Metadata system: host os: multi-user?: sandbox: version: channels(root): nixpkgs:
Is the value of clobbered in the session? In an unwrapped program like , what is its value?
In in a VM with almost only Mate installed:
With the following patch find the themes.
It seems that the function to locate the system themes. This function is returning something like , which is not suitable for NixOS, I suppose. If this is really true, than is not being used. How it used to work before, I do not know.
 uses the environment variable , if it is defined. Does it used to be defined in some NixOS module, and has that changed?
We patch gtk2 like so that function works there without having to set which isn't good. By all means mate shouldn't use this totally deprecated function at all, especially in gtk3.
I may patch it to use and submit upstream.

Discussion:
<ins> From 74fb65a2574c93a2b20a51875a5e336f727ff4bc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Jos=C3=A9=20Romildo=20Malaquias?= <malaquias@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2019 18:48:38 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] Search system themes in system data dirs --- capplets/common/gtkrc-utils.c     | 20 ++++++++++++-------- capplets/common/mate-theme-info.c | 18 +++++++++++------- 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-) diff --git a/capplets/common/gtkrc-utils.c b/capplets/common/gtkrc-utils.c index 011c8a1..27e01da 100644 --- a/capplets/common/gtkrc-utils.c +++ b/capplets/common/gtkrc-utils.c @@ -60,15 +60,19 @@ gchar* gtkrc_find_named(const gchar* name) if (!path) { -		gchar* theme_dir = gtk_rc_get_theme_dir(); -		path = g_build_filename(theme_dir, name, subpath, NULL); -		g_free(theme_dir); +		const gchar * const * dirs = g_get_system_data_dirs(); -		if (!g_file_test(path, G_FILE_TEST_EXISTS)) -		{ -			g_free (path); -			path = NULL; -		} +		if (dirs != NULL) +			for (; !path && *dirs != NULL; ++dirs) +			{ +				path = g_build_filename(*dirs, "themes", name, subpath, NULL); + +				if (!g_file_test(path, G_FILE_TEST_EXISTS)) +				{ +					g_free (path); +					path = NULL; +				} +			} } return path; diff --git a/capplets/common/mate-theme-info.c b/capplets/common/mate-theme-info.c index 54ae3ae..a738f0b 100644 --- a/capplets/common/mate-theme-info.c +++ b/capplets/common/mate-theme-info.c @@ -1763,6 +1763,7 @@ mate_theme_color_scheme_equal (const gchar *s1, const gchar *s2) void mate_theme_init () { +  const gchar * const * dirs; GFile *top_theme_dir; gchar *top_theme_dir_string; static gboolean initted = FALSE; @@ -1783,13 +1784,16 @@ mate_theme_init () theme_hash_by_uri = g_hash_table_new_full (g_str_hash, g_str_equal, g_free, NULL); theme_hash_by_name = g_hash_table_new_full (g_str_hash, g_str_equal, g_free, NULL); -  /* Add all the toplevel theme dirs. */ -  /* $datadir/themes */ -  top_theme_dir_string = gtk_rc_get_theme_dir (); -  top_theme_dir = g_file_new_for_path (top_theme_dir_string); -  g_free (top_theme_dir_string); -  add_top_theme_dir_monitor (top_theme_dir, 1, NULL); -  g_object_unref (top_theme_dir); +  /* Add all the toplevel theme dirs following the XDG Base Directory Specification */ +  dirs = g_get_system_data_dirs (); +  if (dirs != NULL) +    for (; *dirs != NULL; ++dirs) { +      top_theme_dir_string = g_build_filename (*dirs, "themes", NULL); +      top_theme_dir = g_file_new_for_path (top_theme_dir_string); +      g_free (top_theme_dir_string); +      add_top_theme_dir_monitor (top_theme_dir, 1, NULL); +      g_object_unref (top_theme_dir); +    } /* ~/.themes */ top_theme_dir_string  = g_build_filename (g_get_home_dir (), ".themes", NULL); -- 2.24.1 </ins>

]; patches = [ <ins> # see https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-control-center/pull/528 ./0001-Search-system-themes-in-system-data-dirs.patch </ins> # look up keyboard shortcuts in system data dirs ./mate-control-center.keybindings-dir.patch ];