One of my favourite GTK themes of all time was Elegant Cold Blue, a spin-off of Elegant Brit. I’ve decided to have a crack at porting it to Xubuntu 12.10. Along the way I’ve been able to make a few tweaks to the theme to make it more usable in xfce by utilising elements of Xubuntu’s default theme: Greybird. For a similar theme on Ubuntu checkout Elegant-Ambiance or Milieu Bird.
To use the theme on Xubuntu first create a .themes in your home directory. Unpack the Elegant Bird folder to here. When you run the Settings Manager the theme will now appear in the Appearance, Notifications and Windows Manager settings. Changing to the theme through the settings manager will update the changes (though you may need to log out and back in again to finalize the changeover).
The theme was built for (and tested with) Xubuntu 12.10. The theme should work with other versions of Ubuntu but may need a bit of tweaking to look right. I was tempted to use the googol buttons I’ve used previously to make things more colourful but decided it was best to keep the theme looking tidy. Feel free to modify and redistribute since the theme, and those it was built on, are licensed under GPL.
Interested in the software shown in the screenshot? Checkout Clementine, Polly and InstantBird.
The window buttons in Elegant Bird are reused in the Milieu theme and its derivatives: Boomerang-Milieu and Milieu-HighContrast.
J.A.McNaughton 
Sorry if i repeat. i wronged post!
I’m an italian boy. I tried to change my Xubuntu to make it look like yours. but the only thing that changes is the theme. Do not change the icons, the bar remains in the top of screen, in firefox I can not remove the menu, cant change the orrible green arrow and put the tab like yours… and much more. I want to see my screen like yours. What i must to do?! I hope you can help me.
Hi, thanks for commenting.
For Firefox’s appearance I disabled the ubuntu related plugins (specifically the one for globalbar). This allows you to remove the menu and get the Firefox button. The theme I use for firefox (which adds the nice tabs) is FXChrome: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/?src=api
To move the panel at the top of the screen you need to right click it, go to panel > panel preferences and untick lock panel. You should now be able to grab the ends of the panel and drag it into place.
As for the icons I’m using Xubuntu 12.10’s default ones.
Hope this helps you.
How can the blue be changed to red for this theme?
It would need someone to modify the assets and hex codes. I tried before to make a green variation but I don’t have the time. The licencing allows for anyone who succeeds in making a variation to share it.
I cannot download it. I need it. It is so beautiful. Google drive says it is unavailable, just like all your other stuff.
Hi, I don’t know why you were having problems with the google downloads. Anyway, I’ve taken the effort of moving all the files to a dropbox so the download should hopefully work now.
Hello! Good theme but, can u give me some explanation about how to install it?
Thanks!
Hi, as it says in the article above, unpack the .tar.gz file to the “.themes” folder in your home directory (it’s a hidden folder). Run the Settings Manager and you should be able to select the theme in the Appearance, Notifications and Windows Manager settings.