A theme is a group of coordinated settings that specifies the visual appearance of a part of the desktop environment. Users can choose themes to change the appearance of the desktop.
The following types of theme affect different parts of the desktop environment:
Desktop themes determine
the visual appearance of windows, panels, and applets. Desktop themes also
determine the visual appearance of the GNOME-compliant interface items that
appear on windows, panels, and applets, such as menus, icons, and buttons.
Some of the desktop themes that are available are designed for special accessibility
needs. Users can choose a desktop theme from the Widget Theme
tabbed section in the Theme
preference tool.
Window frame
themes determine the appearance of the frames around windows only. Users can
choose a window frame theme from the Window Frames tabbed
section in the Theme
preference tool.