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> GTK Stylesheets can make applications look broken, and even unusable. Bugs are bad, yes. > Icon Themes can change icon metaphors, leading to interfaces with

> GTK Stylesheets can make applications look broken, and even unusable. Bugs are bad, yes. > Icon Themes can change icon metaphors, leading to interfaces with icons that don’t express what the developer intended. That is not a problem if you use icons for the purpose they are intended for. > Changing an app’s icon denies the developer the possibility to control their brand. Good. My computer is not your billboard. Consistency is more important than your "brand". > Appstream Screenshots (the screenshots used in GNOME Software or Flathub) are not very useful if they look nothing like the real app does once you install it. > User Help and Documentation are similarly useless if UI elements on your system are different from the ones described in the documentation. Nonsense. Theming doesn't affect the layout of a program. If people were that bad at abstraction, then how do they recognize they can sit on a metal chair if they are familiar with wooden ones? > They are built and tested for the upstream GNOME stylesheet, icons, and fonts, so that’s what they should look like on peoples’ systems. No. They should look like the user chooses them to look. One way for the user to express their choice is to choose a distribution whose theme they like. > Changing third-party apps without any QA is reckless, and would be unacceptable on any other platform. ∀x. x without any QA is reckless.

avianlyric 7y ago
Did we read the same letter? This letter was aimed at distributions and theme developers not end users. Hell there’s even a paragraph aim directly at end users. > If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us. You’ve completely dismissed all of their concerns out of hand, in an entirely unhelpful and hostile manner. Why did you even bother writing a comment?
- anoncake 7y ago
  > Why did you even bother writing a comment? Good question. Why did I write things like the following if you don't read it anyway? > One way for the user to express their choice is to choose a distribution whose theme they like.
- brokenkebab 7y ago
  The parent correctly notes that theming is a valid feature of the platform, and asking essentially for ignoring the feature because of brand issues sounds ridiculous. It maybe 'unhelpful', but sometimes we just express our opinions here, not running consultancy services. It's called commentary section for a reason.
  - avianlyric 7y ago
    I don’t take issue with people expressing opinions, or even pointing out that theming is a platform feature. But I do take issue with attacking developers who write applications for free, and contribute to the Linux ecosystem, for making a reasonable request to platform developers.
    - loudtieblahblah 7y ago
      Just bc you wrote something doesn't give you the right to dictate how I use it on my personal machine.
      - sp332 7y ago
        Again, this letter is not aimed at end users. "If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us."
        suby 7y ago
        This would absolutely impact end users when they can no longer find custom themes through their distro of choice. It is unreasonable to expect each end user to build their own custom themes, it makes far more sense for distros to do the work once.
        onli 7y ago
        That paragraph continues. The letter is absolutely also aimed at end users: > If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us. However, if you change things like stylesheets and icons, you should be aware that you’re in unsupported territory. Any issues you encounter should be reported to the theme developer, not the app developer. Just not with the same vehemence as its message directed at distros.
- osrec 7y ago
  Totally agree. Users have the power to do what they want at the end of the day. What's annoying is when you install an app and by default you don't recognise it's icon because of theming. Or the menu text is suddenly the same colour as the background, thereby making it unreadable and unusable.
- dleslie 7y ago
  But it's not fine with them; it's unsupported and they're openly hostile towards at least some users (distros) doing it.
threeseed 7y ago
The article had pretty clear examples of where theming went wrong. Themes are imposing a real cost on developers who let's be honest are doing the Linux platform a massive favour by even bothering to write apps for it. I hope the audience of that article are a little more sympathetic than yourself.
- anoncake 7y ago
  The article has one valid example of a bug. If it's a bug in the application, writing an open letter about it is not helpful. If it's a bug in the theme, the application developer is just not responsible for it.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    If you clicked through to the blog post linked in the article, you'd see more examples. https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-at-scale/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-a... >If it's a bug in the theme, the application developer is just not responsible for it. And how many times would they have to tell the end user who opened an issue on their app's tracker that?
    - anoncake 7y ago
      > And how many times would they have to tell the end user who opened an issue on their app's tracker that? I'm afraid there is no way around that issue with free software.
      - allover 7y ago
        In this case the author is suggesting a way to avoid it, for distributions to not theme and introduce the bugs in the first place.
        oarsinsync 7y ago
        for distributions to not theme all third party applications by default, and for that to be a per-app user toggle.
Freak_NL 7y ago
I'm using System76's Pop_OS icon theme in Gnome Shell, and like the clean look of it. It changes the icons for a good number of popular applications too, which results in everything looking neat and coherent. > Good. My computer is not your billboard. Yes, seriously. If a user runs a free software desktop, chances are the ability to change things according to their wishes is part of why they use it. > Changing third-party apps without any QA is reckless, and would be unacceptable on any other platform. Which is why I use a platform that does grant me that freedom as a user.
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  And also why next year will eternally be the ‘year of Linux on the desktop’, until desktops don’t even exist anymore.
  - jake_the_third 7y ago
    If that's really the reason, then I and (likely) the majority of other Linux users are completely fine with that.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    To misquote Willy Brandt: There is no point in reaching the year of the Linux desktop at the price of it not being the Linux desktop anymore.
  - ricardobeat 7y ago
    To be clear, I’m responding to the affirmation that delivering app changes without any QA is acceptable. I’m not against open software or user customization, but this approach does not result in quality software. Distros should be working with application developers and not against them. Here you have a large group of Linux app developers undersigning a plea to stop breaking their software and all they get is scorn and dismissal. More Elementary, less winamp-skin-distros.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      > Here you have a large group of Linux app developers undersigning a plea to stop breaking their software and all they get is scorn and dismissal. Their letter is titled "Please don't theme our apps", not "Please don't break our apps".
cuddlecake 7y ago
Your entire comment feels awfully dismissive and egocentric. The author presents valid and sensible issues with the state of theming on the GNOME platform. And the overarching topic is essentially User Experience. Even the slightest change in color can introduce friction between UI elements. Or to be more extreme, if a theme turns your entire app into a white blurry mess, you would get mad at the application, and not the theme. Although many of the same design principles are used in the making of either a chair or a graphical user interface, they are definitely not the same in any regard. On the topic of icons: just like language, they evolve over time. On top of that, icons can have different meaning depending on your background. Icons can be combined to form a composite icon, and now imagine one of those icons is not displayed as you intended it to be. The entire meaning can change because the design intentions are lost. On the topic of branding: it's not about your desktop being a billboard. It's about being able to recognize the brand across different operating systems, and it's also - more or less - the only thing about the product that is not designed for the purpose of user experience (but in a sense, they still are). And let's be honest: most apps we use in our day to day life have very tame brands and adhere to certain standards. That is because the apps we use are usually good, and we throw the bad, obnoxious ones away really quickly. All in all, the author presents valid concerns, especially if you don't project them on how you prefer your UI, but rather, how potential Linux / GNOME users could have additional difficulties because of theming issues.
- loudtieblahblah 7y ago
  The fact gnome people are so draconian in controlling my user experience is why I stopped using that ghetto desktop environment and any environment dependent on it. It's bad enough gnome depending on systemd was the thing that forced systemd down all our throat, no matter the distro. It's bad enough that they made it hard or removed options to endless apps and the only way you can theme is essentially via a hack. Now you all are arguing we shouldn't theme at all. Godwins Law and all you're all a bunch of nazis.
- anoncake 7y ago
  > Your entire comment feels awfully dismissive and egocentric. Actually, it's dismissive of the app developers' egocentrism. In so far as theming breaks usability, they do have a point. Distributions shouldn't make potentially incompatible changes to the default theme without QA. But it's not all the fault of distributions and not respecting branding is not a UX problem. Yes, I may be too harsh towards people voluntarily writing free software. Developers putting their branding and their "vision" before usability and user control is just a major pet peeve of mine. And diplomacy is not my strong point. > Even the slightest change in color can introduce friction between UI elements. Or to be more extreme, if a theme turns your entire app into a white blurry mess, you would get mad at the application, and not the theme. Actually I would blame the theme, but yeah, the average user would. Wrongly assigned blame is a broader issue with free software and the distribution system though. > On the topic of icons: just like language, they evolve over time. The XDG Icon Naming Specification does not actually specify the names of concrete icons, but of meanings. For example, there is no "looking-glass" icon, but there is a "system-search" icon. If you use the "system-search" icon to display a looking glass because that's the metaphor the icon theme you're testing with uses, your application may display the wrong icon with a different icon theme. If an application needs an icon that is not standardized, it can include it similarly to its own application icon. > It's about being able to recognize the brand across different operating systems No, it's about the user recognizing the application. Which they can. The Firefox icon the open letter used as an example is very much the Firefox icon, just in a different style. > it's also [...] not designed for the purpose of user experience (but in a sense, they still are) Exactly. User experience >>> branding.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
the_other 7y ago
If you develop for a system which permits theming, you have to include that use case in your design. You can’t complain about users making use of system features when you develop for that system.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Who are you to tell the app developer what they're require to support? It's open source. They don't owe you anything. They don't have to make their software work on Thursdays or work in Canada, let alone survive contact with a hundred weird and unpredictable themes.
Asooka 7y ago
And let's not forget that you need theming support so your OS can accommodate people with different vision requirements. So you can have a low-contrast theme, and a high-contrast theme, and a red-green colour-blind theme and so on. And let's not forget people who need a large text theme. Remember 15 years ago when we were so proud of GTK for being able to dynamically adjust for all these things (as opposed to Windows's half-assed support)? Remember when user experience was more important than designer vision? Remember when we all solved the problem of separating the data from the presentation? Remember when GUIs were written with a particular look in mind, but could adjust for various themes? There does seem to be a weird user-hostile school of GUI design and I would really like to know where it comes from, so that we may try to mount a re-education effort. Edit: And if you really need your app to not be themed, just force Adwaita on startup. This doesn't seem like it should need a complete upheaval in how we use GUIs.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > There does seem to be a weird user-hostile school of GUI design and I would really like to know where it comes from, so that we may try to mount a re-education effort. The Web. It comes from the Web. Web development has this bullshit school of UI/UX design that prioritizes branding, dark patterns, and treating users like toddlers, at the expense of making the software functional and usable. Since we all get industry news from the Web, the Web patterns are the most well-known, and they pollute desktop software development too (doubly so when desktop software is nowadays built as webpages bundled to a browser runtime). It's not that the Web school of UX is completely wrong; the problem is that it mixes ergonomics with a whole range of tricks designed to make the software more popular and more sellable in spite of the utility reduction they cause, and then sells the whole bundle as "scientifically validated" and "data driven".
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Yeah. People say one of the problems with free software is that its UX is designed by programmers rather than UX designers. Which makes sense, because UX designers should be able to design a good UX. But not if they don't even try.
asark 7y ago
Oof. When I read the headline I though it was a call for app developers to stop making a bunch of custom-themed BS when the built-in widgets and styles will do, saving themselves money and the users headaches. This is the opposite of that, and, you're right, is nonsense.
dlphn___xyz 7y ago
>Good. My computer is not your billboard. Consistency is more important than your "brand". completely agree with this point.
DanBC 7y ago
> My computer is not your billboard. It's also not the distro's billboard, but you seem happy for them to impose their branding upon your desktop, even if they break functionality.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anoncake 7y ago
  Your assertion is incorrect. Even if it weren't, giving my distro permission to brand my desktop would not give anyone else the right to do the same.

avianlyric 7y ago

Did we read the same letter? This letter was aimed at distributions and theme developers not end users. Hell there’s even a paragraph aim directly at end users. > If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us. You’ve completely dismissed all of their concerns out of hand, in an entirely unhelpful and hostile manner. Why did you even bother writing a comment?

anoncake 7y ago
> Why did you even bother writing a comment? Good question. Why did I write things like the following if you don't read it anyway? > One way for the user to express their choice is to choose a distribution whose theme they like.
brokenkebab 7y ago
The parent correctly notes that theming is a valid feature of the platform, and asking essentially for ignoring the feature because of brand issues sounds ridiculous. It maybe 'unhelpful', but sometimes we just express our opinions here, not running consultancy services. It's called commentary section for a reason.
- avianlyric 7y ago
  I don’t take issue with people expressing opinions, or even pointing out that theming is a platform feature. But I do take issue with attacking developers who write applications for free, and contribute to the Linux ecosystem, for making a reasonable request to platform developers.
  - loudtieblahblah 7y ago
    Just bc you wrote something doesn't give you the right to dictate how I use it on my personal machine.
    - sp332 7y ago
      Again, this letter is not aimed at end users. "If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us."
      - suby 7y ago
        This would absolutely impact end users when they can no longer find custom themes through their distro of choice. It is unreasonable to expect each end user to build their own custom themes, it makes far more sense for distros to do the work once.
      - onli 7y ago
        That paragraph continues. The letter is absolutely also aimed at end users: > If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us. However, if you change things like stylesheets and icons, you should be aware that you’re in unsupported territory. Any issues you encounter should be reported to the theme developer, not the app developer. Just not with the same vehemence as its message directed at distros.
osrec 7y ago
Totally agree. Users have the power to do what they want at the end of the day. What's annoying is when you install an app and by default you don't recognise it's icon because of theming. Or the menu text is suddenly the same colour as the background, thereby making it unreadable and unusable.
dleslie 7y ago
But it's not fine with them; it's unsupported and they're openly hostile towards at least some users (distros) doing it.

threeseed 7y ago

The article had pretty clear examples of where theming went wrong. Themes are imposing a real cost on developers who let's be honest are doing the Linux platform a massive favour by even bothering to write apps for it. I hope the audience of that article are a little more sympathetic than yourself.

anoncake 7y ago
The article has one valid example of a bug. If it's a bug in the application, writing an open letter about it is not helpful. If it's a bug in the theme, the application developer is just not responsible for it.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  If you clicked through to the blog post linked in the article, you'd see more examples. https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-at-scale/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2018/10/15/restyling-apps-a... >If it's a bug in the theme, the application developer is just not responsible for it. And how many times would they have to tell the end user who opened an issue on their app's tracker that?
  - anoncake 7y ago
    > And how many times would they have to tell the end user who opened an issue on their app's tracker that? I'm afraid there is no way around that issue with free software.
    - allover 7y ago
      In this case the author is suggesting a way to avoid it, for distributions to not theme and introduce the bugs in the first place.
      - oarsinsync 7y ago
        for distributions to not theme all third party applications by default, and for that to be a per-app user toggle.

Freak_NL 7y ago

I'm using System76's Pop_OS icon theme in Gnome Shell, and like the clean look of it. It changes the icons for a good number of popular applications too, which results in everything looking neat and coherent. > Good. My computer is not your billboard. Yes, seriously. If a user runs a free software desktop, chances are the ability to change things according to their wishes is part of why they use it. > Changing third-party apps without any QA is reckless, and would be unacceptable on any other platform. Which is why I use a platform that does grant me that freedom as a user.

ricardobeat 7y ago
And also why next year will eternally be the ‘year of Linux on the desktop’, until desktops don’t even exist anymore.
- jake_the_third 7y ago
  If that's really the reason, then I and (likely) the majority of other Linux users are completely fine with that.
- anoncake 7y ago
  To misquote Willy Brandt: There is no point in reaching the year of the Linux desktop at the price of it not being the Linux desktop anymore.
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  To be clear, I’m responding to the affirmation that delivering app changes without any QA is acceptable. I’m not against open software or user customization, but this approach does not result in quality software. Distros should be working with application developers and not against them. Here you have a large group of Linux app developers undersigning a plea to stop breaking their software and all they get is scorn and dismissal. More Elementary, less winamp-skin-distros.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    > Here you have a large group of Linux app developers undersigning a plea to stop breaking their software and all they get is scorn and dismissal. Their letter is titled "Please don't theme our apps", not "Please don't break our apps".

cuddlecake 7y ago

Your entire comment feels awfully dismissive and egocentric. The author presents valid and sensible issues with the state of theming on the GNOME platform. And the overarching topic is essentially User Experience. Even the slightest change in color can introduce friction between UI elements. Or to be more extreme, if a theme turns your entire app into a white blurry mess, you would get mad at the application, and not the theme. Although many of the same design principles are used in the making of either a chair or a graphical user interface, they are definitely not the same in any regard. On the topic of icons: just like language, they evolve over time. On top of that, icons can have different meaning depending on your background. Icons can be combined to form a composite icon, and now imagine one of those icons is not displayed as you intended it to be. The entire meaning can change because the design intentions are lost. On the topic of branding: it's not about your desktop being a billboard. It's about being able to recognize the brand across different operating systems, and it's also - more or less - the only thing about the product that is not designed for the purpose of user experience (but in a sense, they still are). And let's be honest: most apps we use in our day to day life have very tame brands and adhere to certain standards. That is because the apps we use are usually good, and we throw the bad, obnoxious ones away really quickly. All in all, the author presents valid concerns, especially if you don't project them on how you prefer your UI, but rather, how potential Linux / GNOME users could have additional difficulties because of theming issues.

loudtieblahblah 7y ago
The fact gnome people are so draconian in controlling my user experience is why I stopped using that ghetto desktop environment and any environment dependent on it. It's bad enough gnome depending on systemd was the thing that forced systemd down all our throat, no matter the distro. It's bad enough that they made it hard or removed options to endless apps and the only way you can theme is essentially via a hack. Now you all are arguing we shouldn't theme at all. Godwins Law and all you're all a bunch of nazis.
anoncake 7y ago
> Your entire comment feels awfully dismissive and egocentric. Actually, it's dismissive of the app developers' egocentrism. In so far as theming breaks usability, they do have a point. Distributions shouldn't make potentially incompatible changes to the default theme without QA. But it's not all the fault of distributions and not respecting branding is not a UX problem. Yes, I may be too harsh towards people voluntarily writing free software. Developers putting their branding and their "vision" before usability and user control is just a major pet peeve of mine. And diplomacy is not my strong point. > Even the slightest change in color can introduce friction between UI elements. Or to be more extreme, if a theme turns your entire app into a white blurry mess, you would get mad at the application, and not the theme. Actually I would blame the theme, but yeah, the average user would. Wrongly assigned blame is a broader issue with free software and the distribution system though. > On the topic of icons: just like language, they evolve over time. The XDG Icon Naming Specification does not actually specify the names of concrete icons, but of meanings. For example, there is no "looking-glass" icon, but there is a "system-search" icon. If you use the "system-search" icon to display a looking glass because that's the metaphor the icon theme you're testing with uses, your application may display the wrong icon with a different icon theme. If an application needs an icon that is not standardized, it can include it similarly to its own application icon. > It's about being able to recognize the brand across different operating systems No, it's about the user recognizing the application. Which they can. The Firefox icon the open letter used as an example is very much the Firefox icon, just in a different style. > it's also [...] not designed for the purpose of user experience (but in a sense, they still are) Exactly. User experience >>> branding.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

the_other 7y ago

If you develop for a system which permits theming, you have to include that use case in your design. You can’t complain about users making use of system features when you develop for that system.

sjwright 7y ago
Who are you to tell the app developer what they're require to support? It's open source. They don't owe you anything. They don't have to make their software work on Thursdays or work in Canada, let alone survive contact with a hundred weird and unpredictable themes.

Asooka 7y ago

And let's not forget that you need theming support so your OS can accommodate people with different vision requirements. So you can have a low-contrast theme, and a high-contrast theme, and a red-green colour-blind theme and so on. And let's not forget people who need a large text theme. Remember 15 years ago when we were so proud of GTK for being able to dynamically adjust for all these things (as opposed to Windows's half-assed support)? Remember when user experience was more important than designer vision? Remember when we all solved the problem of separating the data from the presentation? Remember when GUIs were written with a particular look in mind, but could adjust for various themes? There does seem to be a weird user-hostile school of GUI design and I would really like to know where it comes from, so that we may try to mount a re-education effort. Edit: And if you really need your app to not be themed, just force Adwaita on startup. This doesn't seem like it should need a complete upheaval in how we use GUIs.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> There does seem to be a weird user-hostile school of GUI design and I would really like to know where it comes from, so that we may try to mount a re-education effort. The Web. It comes from the Web. Web development has this bullshit school of UI/UX design that prioritizes branding, dark patterns, and treating users like toddlers, at the expense of making the software functional and usable. Since we all get industry news from the Web, the Web patterns are the most well-known, and they pollute desktop software development too (doubly so when desktop software is nowadays built as webpages bundled to a browser runtime). It's not that the Web school of UX is completely wrong; the problem is that it mixes ergonomics with a whole range of tricks designed to make the software more popular and more sellable in spite of the utility reduction they cause, and then sells the whole bundle as "scientifically validated" and "data driven".
- anoncake 7y ago
  Yeah. People say one of the problems with free software is that its UX is designed by programmers rather than UX designers. Which makes sense, because UX designers should be able to design a good UX. But not if they don't even try.

asark 7y ago

Oof. When I read the headline I though it was a call for app developers to stop making a bunch of custom-themed BS when the built-in widgets and styles will do, saving themselves money and the users headaches. This is the opposite of that, and, you're right, is nonsense.

dlphn___xyz 7y ago

>Good. My computer is not your billboard. Consistency is more important than your "brand". completely agree with this point.

DanBC 7y ago

> My computer is not your billboard. It's also not the distro's billboard, but you seem happy for them to impose their branding upon your desktop, even if they break functionality.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
anoncake 7y ago
Your assertion is incorrect. Even if it weren't, giving my distro permission to brand my desktop would not give anyone else the right to do the same.