#deckskin

Turn a small palette file into a matching mouse cursor theme (Xcursor + hyprcursor) and Firefox theme, both in a flat, square "deck" style: dark panels, a 3px accent bar on top, solid accent chips.

#Features

• Cursor theme with 26 shapes and 95 aliases (CSS names, X11 names, the Qt/GTK hash names), so apps don't fall back to another theme.
  • The default arrow is a dark wedge with an accent outline and a thicker accent bar down its straight edge. Link hover turns it into a solid accent "chip". wait and progress animate a segment running round a square track.
  • Built as Xcursor (sizes 24–96, for XWayland, GTK and Qt) and hyprcursor (SVG, sharp at any scale on Hyprland), in one theme folder.
  • A halo and a soft shadow keep every shape readable on light pages and on accent-coloured UI.
• Firefox theme (userChrome.css + userContent.css, works on release Firefox without signing):
  • Tabs: the selected tab is a panel with a 3px accent bar on top and runs straight into the nav bar.
  • Square address bar; the selected result is a solid accent row and hovered results get an accent left edge.
  • Menus and panels get a 3px accent bar on top, with an accent left edge on hover. Tooltips, the link status bar, the find bar and the sidebar are styled too.
  • New tab page, about: pages (settings, add-ons) and reader view use the palette.
  • Text selection uses the accent colour, and the dark background removes the white flash while pages load.
• One palette per rice. Each palette is a TOML file with eleven colours and a font. Two ship with deckskin: ember (charcoal + orange) and neon (navy + violet/pink).

#Requirements

• Python 3.11+ with Pillow (python-pillow)
• rsvg-convert (librsvg)
• hyprcursor-util (hyprcursor) for the hyprcursor build. If it's missing, you get Xcursor only.
• Firefox, any recent release (tested on 159)

#Install

git clone https://github.com/Tjabooo/deckskin && cd deckskin
./deckskin install ember                    # cursor + Firefox theme
./deckskin install neon --cursor            # just the cursor
./deckskin install ember --firefox --restart-firefox

install does the following:

Part	Where
Cursor theme	~/.local/share/icons/<Name>-Deck/ (Xcursor cursors/ + hyprcursors/)
Default cursor for X11/XWayland	~/.icons/default/index.theme, ~/.local/share/icons/default/index.theme
GTK	gtk-cursor-theme-name/size in ~/.config/gtk-{3,4}.0/settings.ini, gsettings cursor-theme/size
Session	XCURSOR_*/HYPRCURSOR_* pushed to systemd + D-Bus activation env; hyprctl setcursor when on Hyprland
Firefox	chrome/userChrome.css + chrome/userContent.css in your default profile, a marked block in user.js

To keep the cursor after a re-login, set it in your compositor config. For Hyprland:

hl.env("XCURSOR_THEME", "Ember-Deck")
hl.env("HYPRCURSOR_THEME", "Ember-Deck")

(or env = XCURSOR_THEME,Ember-Deck / env = HYPRCURSOR_THEME,Ember-Deck in hyprland.conf). Apps that are already open keep their old cursor until they restart.

Firefox loads the theme only at startup. With --restart-firefox, deckskin closes Firefox gracefully, switches the base theme to the built-in Dark one and starts it again. Your tabs come back even if Firefox normally opens to the home page. Without the flag, just restart Firefox yourself.

Before anything gets overwritten, a copy goes to ~/.local/share/deckskin/backups/.

#Usage

./deckskin build ember --out dist           # build everything into dist/ember/ without installing
./deckskin preview neon --out neon.png      # cursor contact sheet

#Configuration: make your own palette

Copy palettes/ember.toml, change the colours, and pass either its name (if it sits in palettes/) or its path:

name = "Ember"            # theme becomes "Ember-Deck"

[colors]
bg        = "#120d0a"     # window / page background
panel     = "#1b1410"     # raised surfaces: nav bar, selected tab, hover
line      = "#3a2c22"     # 1px borders, spinner track
fg        = "#d8cbbf"     # text
subtext   = "#b2a397"     # secondary text
dim       = "#7a675a"     # labels, inactive tabs
accent    = "#ff8c1a"     # 3px bars, chips, cursor outline
accent2   = "#f5a524"     # highlights, cursor details
deep      = "#ff4d1f"     # gradient end
alert     = "#e5484d"     # not-allowed / no-drop
on_accent = "#120d0a"     # text on a solid accent chip

[font]
ui = "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font"   # Firefox tabs, address bar, menus

#How it works

• deckskin_cursor.py draws each shape as SVG on a 24-unit grid, so edges land on whole pixels at 24 px. rsvg-convert renders every size. The Xcursor files are written directly (premultiplied ARGB with an image per size/frame, aliases as symlinks), and the same SVGs plus a meta.hl per shape go through hyprcursor-util --create.
• deckskin_firefox.py fills a CSS template with the palette. It mostly overrides Firefox's own CSS variables (--panel-background-color, --urlbar-border-radius, --tab-selected-bgcolor, …) as !important user styles, which beat the inline values lightweight themes set. Firefox ignores ::part(content) from user sheets, so the accent bar on menus comes in as a background layer instead.
• Changing the base theme edits extensions.json and prefs.js while Firefox is closed. The addon startup cache gets deleted, and Firefox rebuilds it.

#Uninstall

rm -r ~/.local/share/icons/*-Deck
# then remove chrome/userChrome.css, chrome/userContent.css and the "deckskin" block in user.js
# from your Firefox profile, or restore them from ~/.local/share/deckskin/backups/

#License

MIT