6 ms·

> That has basically already happened on Windows and Mac and for good reason, so it's actually long overdue to happen on Linux. Apps simply cannot be expected t

> That has basically already happened on Windows and Mac and for good reason, so it's actually long overdue to happen on Linux. Apps simply cannot be expected to work with an endlessly growing matrix of user customizations. It's genuinely sad to see that changing fonts is now considered a hack and unsupported behavior on Linux. I'm not into extreme customization or anything of that sort. I don't have any user themes installed besides Adwaita or any icon themes besides Breeze and Adwaita on my Linux desktop running the Sway window manager. But one of the things that I really like is not being forced to use ugly fonts like DejaVu or Segoe. It really is sad to know that soon, some apps on my system will not use the fonts I want them to. You've asked me not to be cynical but these issues are what drive me to cynicism. I'm not a particular fan of using Linux but I still use it because I'm more uncomfortable with Windows and Mac. But if there's no difference between how they work and how my Linux desktop works, what's even the point? You can't expect users to maintain hard forks or patch and compile stuff. Thanks for your time though.

lavabiopsy 5y ago
This is not new, GNOME has hidden the font settings as an undocumented setting in the tweak tool for quite some time now. I don't think you should have to be disappointed that it's considered an unsupported hack, if it works for you, that's great, keep on doing it. All "unsupported" means is that the developers don't test with that setup... and how could they? They can't possibly test with every font there is, so marking it unsupported is really only an acknowledgement of the way it already was before. If an app developer says don't theme my app, that's likely because it has a high probability of breaking the app. That's what the letter is talking about and gives examples for. And yes, font changes can break apps. Also, forgive me if I'm wrong about this but the entire point of Linux and open source seems to be that you can do whatever you want with it, the users don't usually need to end up patching the apps because some other distro will do it (and many of them already seem to), so usually you can find someone else who wants to support it. Also I don't think the internal setting is ever going to get removed from GTK because that it what the themes themselves use to set the font, even if libraries like libadwaita and libgranite want to enforce a certain system theme and font setting, the user still is the one that gets to override the theme.
- ayushnix 5y ago
  > Also, forgive me if I'm wrong about this but the entire point of Linux and open source seems to be that you can do whatever you want with it, the users don't usually need to end up patching the apps because some other distro will do it (and many of them already seem to), so usually you can find someone else who wants to support it. What do you think will happen when developers who've built their apps using GTK3 start migrating their apps to GTK4? They'll most likely pick libadwaita like the developer of GTkeddit did. He wasn't aware about how libadwaita is going to enforce its own theme and was surprised when I told him about it. Now, I know I'll never use his app because it's using libadwaita but what if apps like Firefox start using GTK4 with libadwaita? What do I do then? Switch to Chromium? It uses GTK as well. The so-called choice that open source offers is merely an illusion in some cases. The choices that GNOME devs make end up hurting users like me who want nothing do with GNOME and who aren't even using GNOME.
  - lavabiopsy 5y ago
    I don't understand why you're saying that hurts you, that doesn't make sense. If that developer wanted to add support for themes on top of libadwaita they could easily do that, GNOME is not preventing anyone from doing that. Also, what you have told the GTkeddit developer was very likely not correct, users can still load their own theme and libadwaita will not override that. The libadwaita change is about the platform theme, not the user's theme, the user theme still has top priority. I would suggest to correct your statement to that developer before they make an uninformed decision. But that also leads to another point: libadwaita is intended to be a library that implements the GNOME HIG. If you are using libadwaita apps, that means you are using an app that is intended for GNOME -- so if you "want nothing to do with GNOME" then I don't understand why you would be intentionally using their apps and then complaining that they don't act right with a non-GNOME desktop. A developer who chooses to use that is intentionally choosing to go with the GNOME platform, and there is no reason to be upset about that -- it's not a decision that you have to worry about if you just want to ignore GNOME apps. Also I think you have a misunderstanding of how Firefox is built, they are a cross platform app, they are not going to use libadwaita. They already have their own theme system too and have for quite some time: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/themes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/themes/ I would advise to do more research before making assumptions about these things, if you have questions you'd like to ask then those are a better way to start rather than jumping to the worst possible conclusion. Please try to be careful about online misinformation.

lavabiopsy 5y ago

This is not new, GNOME has hidden the font settings as an undocumented setting in the tweak tool for quite some time now. I don't think you should have to be disappointed that it's considered an unsupported hack, if it works for you, that's great, keep on doing it. All "unsupported" means is that the developers don't test with that setup... and how could they? They can't possibly test with every font there is, so marking it unsupported is really only an acknowledgement of the way it already was before. If an app developer says don't theme my app, that's likely because it has a high probability of breaking the app. That's what the letter is talking about and gives examples for. And yes, font changes can break apps. Also, forgive me if I'm wrong about this but the entire point of Linux and open source seems to be that you can do whatever you want with it, the users don't usually need to end up patching the apps because some other distro will do it (and many of them already seem to), so usually you can find someone else who wants to support it. Also I don't think the internal setting is ever going to get removed from GTK because that it what the themes themselves use to set the font, even if libraries like libadwaita and libgranite want to enforce a certain system theme and font setting, the user still is the one that gets to override the theme.

ayushnix 5y ago
> Also, forgive me if I'm wrong about this but the entire point of Linux and open source seems to be that you can do whatever you want with it, the users don't usually need to end up patching the apps because some other distro will do it (and many of them already seem to), so usually you can find someone else who wants to support it. What do you think will happen when developers who've built their apps using GTK3 start migrating their apps to GTK4? They'll most likely pick libadwaita like the developer of GTkeddit did. He wasn't aware about how libadwaita is going to enforce its own theme and was surprised when I told him about it. Now, I know I'll never use his app because it's using libadwaita but what if apps like Firefox start using GTK4 with libadwaita? What do I do then? Switch to Chromium? It uses GTK as well. The so-called choice that open source offers is merely an illusion in some cases. The choices that GNOME devs make end up hurting users like me who want nothing do with GNOME and who aren't even using GNOME.
- lavabiopsy 5y ago
  I don't understand why you're saying that hurts you, that doesn't make sense. If that developer wanted to add support for themes on top of libadwaita they could easily do that, GNOME is not preventing anyone from doing that. Also, what you have told the GTkeddit developer was very likely not correct, users can still load their own theme and libadwaita will not override that. The libadwaita change is about the platform theme, not the user's theme, the user theme still has top priority. I would suggest to correct your statement to that developer before they make an uninformed decision. But that also leads to another point: libadwaita is intended to be a library that implements the GNOME HIG. If you are using libadwaita apps, that means you are using an app that is intended for GNOME -- so if you "want nothing to do with GNOME" then I don't understand why you would be intentionally using their apps and then complaining that they don't act right with a non-GNOME desktop. A developer who chooses to use that is intentionally choosing to go with the GNOME platform, and there is no reason to be upset about that -- it's not a decision that you have to worry about if you just want to ignore GNOME apps. Also I think you have a misunderstanding of how Firefox is built, they are a cross platform app, they are not going to use libadwaita. They already have their own theme system too and have for quite some time: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/themes/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/themes/ I would advise to do more research before making assumptions about these things, if you have questions you'd like to ask then those are a better way to start rather than jumping to the worst possible conclusion. Please try to be careful about online misinformation.