D.6.2 GTK Widget Names in Emacs

In Emacs, the top level widget for a frame is a GtkWindow that contains a GtkVBox. The GtkVBox contains the GtkMenuBar and a GtkFixed widget. The vertical scroll bars, GtkVScrollbar, are contained in the GtkFixed widget. The text you write in Emacs is drawn in the GtkFixed widget.

Dialogs in Emacs are GtkDialog widgets. The file dialog is a GtkFileSelection widget.

To set a style for the menu bar using the absolute class name, use:

     widget_class "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkMenuBar" style "my_style"

For the scroll bar, the absolute class name is:

     widget_class
       "GtkWindow.GtkVBox.GtkFixed.GtkVScrollbar"
          style "my_style"

The names for the emacs widgets, and their classes, are:

emacs-filedialog	GtkFileSelection
emacs-dialog	GtkDialog
Emacs	GtkWindow
pane	GtkVHbox
emacs	GtkFixed
verticalScrollBar	GtkVScrollbar
emacs-toolbar	GtkToolbar
menubar	GtkMenuBar
emacs-menuitem	anything in menus

Thus, for Emacs you can write the two examples above as:

     widget "Emacs.pane.menubar" style "my_style"
     widget "Emacs.pane.emacs.verticalScrollBar" style "my_style"

GTK absolute names are quite strange when it comes to menus and dialogs. The names do not start with ‘Emacs’, as they are free-standing windows and not contained (in the GTK sense) by the Emacs GtkWindow. To customize the dialogs and menus, use wildcards like this:

     widget "*emacs-dialog*" style "my_dialog_style"
     widget "*emacs-filedialog* style "my_file_style"
     widget "*emacs-menuitem* style "my_menu_style"

If you specify a customization in ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc, then it automatically applies only to Emacs, since other programs don't read that file. For example, the drop down menu in the file dialog can not be customized by any absolute widget name, only by an absolute class name. This is because the widgets in the drop down menu do not have names and the menu is not contained in the Emacs GtkWindow. To have all menus in Emacs look the same, use this in ~/.emacs.d/gtkrc:

     widget_class "*Menu*" style "my_menu_style"