Here's a starter for this subject! As have said before, Mate is a nice desktop smaller and simpler which adds to a little less hassles! These hassles always seem to come up on larger desktops, especially since they have so many dependencies. Unlike Gnome or KDE, Mate is much smaller so therefore can have less hassles when it comes to programs, why??? Since we do not have to contend with the large desktop, the program then has more room to open and function!
Anyway, Mate is a nice desktop since the size is smaller, but now that some of us are here, can we improve it and make it look to our liking???? This is the main debate am going to pass on by. Some may be critical and have certain looks they want Mate to take on! So, instead of just sitting back and throwing our hands up in the air and saying "It just can't happen" why don't we change that to "We are going to make it happen!" To start that, I came up with a small fix involving the icons. Am sorry, those old Gnome Icons are just too dated for me! I have seen those for 2 years now and just wore out on seeing them!
What did I do to resolve this???? Now this is totally silly and stupid! I went into the theme.index and simply changed the "IconTheme" from "=gnome" to "=sky-blue-gnome". A few weeks back, I had tried other things and absolutely nothing worked, then I got involved in some other ventures which for now are "on Hold" So, I decided to try the insane method and it worked! I suppose not every desktop will respond to sanity! You can also see by the picture below, was also attempted with the cursor but as yet does not work! Least, I do not have to look at those dated icons anymore!
Personally,
if anyone is interested in these icons they are available at http://www.noobslab.com/2011/11/themes- ... unity.html. Never know someone just may like these icons as much as I do! To me, they are simply one great work of Art that shows time well spent! Am hoping to do the same soon for gtk2.0 and get some better looks than currently that I have been obtaining! Anyway, as time permits will figure some more things out and will post! All I ever want to do with themes is what I started out to do. I just want to give that same pride and joy I feel in the looks I give for my desktop to others!!!! It may not come from one of my themes, but maybe it can come from an idea of mine or someone else's on here! I invite all with greater knowledge to help us all obtain those great looks we are used to from either KDE or Gnome for our Mate Desktops!!!