gitk looks ugly / doesn't honor theme settings

gitk is implemented in tcl/tk. I've searched around but there doesn't seem to be much you can do; it is scolded as ugly on Linux everywhere. And apart from using a hideous toolkit, gitk has been growing worse for me as they put in more functions (mostly not used) the UI becomes even more confusing.

So I instead of a solution I recommend gitg, which is a similar tool, less mature, using GTK+.

tcl/tk 8.5 is actually themeable and looks rather native on Windows 7 and apparently on Mac. Less care seems to have been given to write theme engine bridges for it under linux, but you can do one of three things:

• To get away from the "motif" look-and-feel to a slightly better one:

  $echo '*TkTheme: clam' | xrdb -merge -
  

To have it persist between reboots add the line *TkTheme: clam to ~/.Xresources, but I'm not sure if that's read whether you launch your desktop environment with startx or not.

• Alternative solution to the above, by the author of the same blog post, on this very page: https://superuser.com/a/428563/107881

• To get tk to use qt themes, you'll need to checkout and build tile-qt from: git://tktable.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/tktable/tile-qt

Under Ubuntu 11.04 it was pretty easy, adapt the tcl/tk library paths as needed (some people have reported that those instructions are outdated):

$./configure --with-tcl=/usr/lib/tcl8.5/ --with-tk=/usr/lib/tk8.5/

$make

$sudo checkinstall

checkinstall being for creating a quick .deb instead of installing directly, keeps the system tidy.

Then afterwards as above, get tk to use your qt themes:

$echo '*TkTheme: tileqt' | xrdb -merge -

• There's also a tile-gtk in the same sourceforge repo as tile-qt, but it's thouroughly out-of date. I did manage to build it and install it after much fiddling but the visual results were messy - not recommended.

To fix this the Debian (Ubuntu) way:

$ sudo apt-get install tk8.5
$ sudo update-alternatives --config wish

And then pick the wish8.5 alternative.

Gabriel Morin's post is good, but tile-qt doesn't build anymore with those instructions and, though the blog post he linked to (mine, by the way) still works, it's no longer the best solution I know.

For people who want something better than the "clam" theme, PySolFC includes a Clearlooks theme for Ttk and I wrote another blog post which explains how to install it.

Here are the relevant parts of it, adapted for a Lubuntu user (which I now am):

# Get the theme
sudo apt-get install pysolfc

# Copy it into your user profile to not rely on PySolFC's presence
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/tkthemes
cp -r /usr/share/games/pysolfc/themes/clearlooks ~/.local/share/tkthemes/

# (optional) Remove PySolFC now
sudo apt-get remove pysolfc
sudo apt-get autoremove

# Add it to Ttk's search path
echo "export TCLLIBPATH=~/.local/share/tkthemes" >> ~/.xsessionrc

# Set the theme
echo "*TkTheme: clearlooks" >> ~/.Xresources

# Test it in this specific terminal window
export TCLLIBPATH=~/.local/share/tkthemes
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
git gui     # gitk's "this isn't a repo" dialog is always ugly

# ...and then log out and back in to apply .xsessionrc for the whole desktop

There are some widgets which are still ugly (the menu bar and the SHA1 ID: text, which needs to be patched in gitk to be themable) but I don't know enough Tcl/Tk to patch things.

(And I've heard rumors that the menu bar wasn't made themable because it's delegated to the OS to draw on Windows and MacOS)