5 ms·

The article says clearly they are talking about distros that apply system wide themes without checking that all GTK applications still look good and not taking

The article says clearly they are talking about distros that apply system wide themes without checking that all GTK applications still look good and not taking about people tinkering. Distros do this because it looks good in screenshots and give the system a unique flare, but it gives all these applications a bad image when people try them and they look terrible. Is the expectation that programs like geary should look at all popular distros and make style sheets to look good in all custom themes? I think they are saying they don't have time. People are stepping on their hard work and giving their apps a bad name.

R0b0t1 5y ago
Apps should be designed with the goal of being themeable. Applications need to supply hints and avoid e.g. icons with baked in BG.
- notatoad 5y ago
  apps are designed with many goals, and have to make compromises on where they put their efforts. i'm sure they would all love to have the resources to devote to theming, but it's not realistict to expect apps to prioritize theme support over core functionality. and even if they were designed to be themeable, that doesn't address many of the other concerns here - designing an app to be themeable doesn't automatically update the documentation with whatever custom themes get applied, or ensure that the icons you've chosen in your theme make sense in the context of the app. "apps should be themeable" seems to be the point of this manifesto - the app developers could just block themeing entirely if they wanted to. they don't want to do that, they seem to just be asking that if a distro wants to apply a theme to an app, then that distro should be the ones doing the QA to make sure the app still functions as intended with the custom theme, and that documentation is still available for users who experience the themed version of the app.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    There’s a sort of antagonism between users, distro developers and app developers these days in the Linux community that’s a bit sad to see.
mPReDiToR 5y ago
An option here would be to have a new item in the top left menu (by default, your theme may move or even remove this) on the window: Untheme App looks like crap? Untheme it and file a bug if it still looks like crap. Icons don't make sense? Untheme. Looks more sensible now? A one off patch to GTK (other toolkits are available) and this problem has a solution.

R0b0t1 5y ago

Apps should be designed with the goal of being themeable. Applications need to supply hints and avoid e.g. icons with baked in BG.

notatoad 5y ago
apps are designed with many goals, and have to make compromises on where they put their efforts. i'm sure they would all love to have the resources to devote to theming, but it's not realistict to expect apps to prioritize theme support over core functionality. and even if they were designed to be themeable, that doesn't address many of the other concerns here - designing an app to be themeable doesn't automatically update the documentation with whatever custom themes get applied, or ensure that the icons you've chosen in your theme make sense in the context of the app. "apps should be themeable" seems to be the point of this manifesto - the app developers could just block themeing entirely if they wanted to. they don't want to do that, they seem to just be asking that if a distro wants to apply a theme to an app, then that distro should be the ones doing the QA to make sure the app still functions as intended with the custom theme, and that documentation is still available for users who experience the themed version of the app.
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
  There’s a sort of antagonism between users, distro developers and app developers these days in the Linux community that’s a bit sad to see.

mPReDiToR 5y ago

An option here would be to have a new item in the top left menu (by default, your theme may move or even remove this) on the window: Untheme App looks like crap? Untheme it and file a bug if it still looks like crap. Icons don't make sense? Untheme. Looks more sensible now? A one off patch to GTK (other toolkits are available) and this problem has a solution.