Drop Shadow Effect for GTK+-2.2.x/GTK+-2.4.x Menus

Last update: 2004-06-20 - Olivier Fourdan < fourdan at xfce dot org>

Introduction

The following patches are based on the work from Iain published on the GNOME desktop devel list in February 2003.

I took Iain's patch and tried to fix all the issues I found, while improving the overall look of the drop shadow.

It's not perfect (and I doubt it will ever be unless someone comes up with true alpha blendering on X11), it's still a hack, but it works fairly well (for me at least). I've tried this patch with plenty of gtk2 based software, like xfce4, Eclipse 2.1, gnome 2.2, Ximian evolution 1.4, Abiword-2.0 and it worked all right so far.

The patched library should be binary compatible with an unpatched version.

This comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND - USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Make sure you backup the original gtk+-2.x library before installing the patched version.

Screenshot

Most people will wonder how it looks, some will even wonder what I'm talking about. So here comes a screenshot.

Notice the thin shadow under the menu :

Applying the patch

The most recent version of the patch applies to gtk+-2.4. You should use this one if you are running a recent Linux distribution that ships gtk+-2.4 (such as fedora Core 2).

Get the patch here (15Kb) and save it on your hard drive
Get gtk+-2.4.? sources from here
Untar it in some location of your hard drive
Change directory to gtk+-2.4.?/ (change "?" to the correct value)
Apply the patch with "cat <path_to_the_patch>/gtk+-2.4.0-menushadow.patch | patch -p1"
Compile and install the patched version of gtk+ (I use "./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc && make && make install" myself, adjust to your taste)
Run a gtk2 based application and enjoy :)

The older patch applies on a gtk+-2.2 source tree. This version should be used for those who run an older version of Linux that ships with gtk+-2.2 (do not use this patch on a gtk+-2.0 source tree, that won't work and there is no plan to backport this patch to gtk+-2.0.x)

Get the patch here (15Kb) and save it on your hard drive
Get gtk+-2.2.? sources from here
Untar it in some location of your hard drive
Change directory to gtk+-2.2.?/ (change "?" to the correct value)
Apply the patch with "cat <path_to_the_patch>/gtk+-menushadow.patch | patch -p1"
Compile and install the patched version of gtk+ (I use "./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc && make && make install" myself, adjust to your taste)
Run a gtk2 based application and enjoy :)

Getting a pre-patched RPM

A binary RPM archive for gtk+-2.4.3 patched is available here (13Mb), with devel RPM package here (1.9Mb) and source RPM here (8.2Mb).
A binary RPM archive for gtk+-2.2.4 for Red Hat 9 is available here (3Mb), devel RPM package here (1.2Mb) and source RPM here) (6.3Mb)

Note this version also includes patches from Red Hat and Ximian Desktop 2.

Getting a pre-patched tarball

A gtk+-2.4.3 prepatched source tree is available here (8.5Mb)
Alternatively, you can grab a patched source tree of gtk+-2.2.4 here (6.9Mb)

This version also includes patches from Red Hat and Ximian Desktop 2.

Configuration

There are a couple of parameters that can be adjusted using the gtkrc file (either from a theme or from $HOME/.gtkrc-2.0)

gtk-menu-drop-shadow : When set to 0, menu shadow will be turned off. Any non-zero value enables menu shadow (default value: 1)
gtk-menu-shadow-delay : The delay before the shadow appears. The shadow is delayed to give some time to the underlying application to refresh its window. You can increase or decrease this value to adjust the shadow to your system (default: 100)

Feedback

Well, I make this available, but I don't have much time to support it. Use it at your own risk! However, if you really want to send some feedback, you can mail me here:

Olivier Fourdan <fourdan at xfce dot org>

Changes

2003-05-20	Olivier Fourdan Initial Release
2003-05-21	Olivier Fourdan Make shadow 5 pixels wide (instead of 4) Fix a display bug and a memory leak when the menu is located on a screen edge
2003-05-23	Olivier Fourdan Bug fix
2003-06-05	Olivier Fourdan Move files to sf.net Make Red Hat 9 rpms available
2003-06-21	Olivier Fourdan Fix a bug in multiscreen mode (not Xinerama) that caused GNOME panel to crash Update to gtk version 2.2.2 Add some patches from Ximian Desktop 2 to prebuilt rpms and tarball Gert-Jan Brink Smoother shadows and corners
2003-07-06	Olivier Fourdan Fix src rpm so it builds on non Red Hat systems (ie w/out patched fontconfig)
2003-09-09	Olivier Fourdan Update to gtk version 2.2.4
2004-03-10	Olivier Fourdan Port to gtk version 2.3.6
2004-03-20	Olivier Fourdan Port to gtk version 2.4.0
2004-05-02	Olivier Fourdan Prepare gtk+-2.4.1 pre-patched version
2004-06-20	Olivier Fourdan Prepare gtk+-2.4.3 pre-patched version