NOTE: Adw-gtk3 now includes a copy of libadwaita. So these steps should no logner be necessary. Except for: flatpak override --filesystem=~/.local/share/themes
if you use flatpak apps.
This theme is a GTK-3 theme. Some apps use GTK-4 but not libadwaita. If you want these apps to use the libadwaita theme you'll have to extract it from source. First you will need to install dependencies, on Fedora 36+ this can be done with the following:
sudo dnf install git vala gobject-introspection-devel sassc meson gtk4-devel cmake ninja-build
on ubuntu 22.04+ or debian 12+:
sudo apt install git libvala-dev gobject-introspection sassc meson libgtk-4-dev cmake ninja-build valac gettext
on Arch and Arch based distros:
sudo pacman -S git vala gobject-introspection sassc meson gtk4 cmake ninja
Next build libadwaita
git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita.git
cd libadwaita
meson setup . _build
ninja -C _build
- Copy all the CSS files in
_build/src/stylesheet/
to~/.local/share/themes/adw-gtk3/gtk-4.0
(oradw-gtk3-dark/gtk-4.0
). - Copy the
assets
folder inlibadwaita/src/stylesheet
to~/.local/share/themes/adw-gtk3/gtk-4.0
(oradw-gtk3-dark/gtk-4.0
). - Rename
base.css
togtk.css
. - Open
gtk.css
in a text editor and at the top add the line:@import 'defaults-light.css';
(or@import 'defaults-dark.css';
depending on your color theme preference). Save and exit.
If the non-libadwaita GTK-4 app is a flatpak application you must set permissions: flatpak override --filesystem=~/.local/share/themes
ArchLinux users can use this AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/adw-gtk-theme which will install both adw-gtk3 and the libadwaita GTK-4 theme.
Note that the GTK-4 theme is NOT supported in adw-gtk3's issue tracker.