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For everyone mad at at "Don't theme my apps," consider why developers are doing it. Getting complaints about how your app is broken because of an overzealous t

For everyone mad at at "Don't theme my apps," consider why developers are doing it. Getting complaints about how your app is broken because of an overzealous theme that is beyond your control sucks. And after 10 years of dealing with it, GNOME developers decided it was enough. And... I don't wholly agree, but at the same time, themes had a decade to get their act together and stop angering GNOME developers. They didn't.

MartijnBraam 5y ago
I handle "random theme breaking my app" as a valid bug report, it's not that hard. It's either something I'd have to fix in my app or fixed in that theme. Just ignoring the situation is just a shitty response.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  https://stopthemingmy.app https://stopthemingmy.app
  - MartijnBraam 5y ago
    Yes I'm aware of it
simion314 5y ago
But why Qt/KDE developers don't lose their minds ? Either GTK theming is broken or the GTK app developers are not using it correctly or GNOME devs are assholes and really.really want to force their branding and vision. The above OR is not exclusive so it could be all 3 things.
smoldesu 5y ago
I develop GTK3 apps. Theme breakage is generally a very real concern, as it usually points towards an issue with either a. The usage/implementation of widgets in the application or b. The stylesheet the end user is implimenting In either instance, the solution is very simple and within arms reach. It will always make more sense to encourage robust development practices over building fragile application stacks.
malermeister 5y ago
The don't theme my app people were complaining about their bug trackers being full of theme-related issues. Instead of just setting up a filter rule in their tracker so they could ignore those issues, they decided to go super draconian and remove theming for the entire desktop. That disproportionate response to what comes down to an organizational shortcoming on their end made people upset, I'm not sure what they expected.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  Note that they don't care about the themes their end users pick, though. You can theme your app just fine. They just want operating systems using their software (with their logos, trademarks and support links) to stop shipping their custom themes by default. They just don't want Canonical or Fedora to ship a theme that makes all applications that didn't come bundled look like shit. If you like the Windows 95 Hotdog Stand theme, you can configure that and everybody probably agrees that that's great. If you inflict that pain upon yourself, that's your problem. The current "solution" to themes breaking applications is to just not follow the system theme any longer. Everything gets packaged with a hardcoded theme in a sandboxed environment and you'll just have to live with that.
  - malermeister 5y ago
    But end users use the same mechanism to theme their apps as vendors and that one is being removed.
    - lwkl 5y ago
      So what? Why should they continue to support some minor feature if it costs them a lot of resources and they think it's not worth it because it doesn't really fit their project? If you have a feature that is used by one customer out of thousands but it's causing problems at every update you push out. It might be better to remove the feature and fire the customer, than to keep supporting it no matter what.
      - 5y ago
phkahler 5y ago
Getting rid of themes and sticking to "one true design" doesn't mean "use a shitty flat design".
powersnail 5y ago
To ease the burden of handling bug reports by removing themes altogether at a platform level, seems like a bullet-also-kills-cancer solution.
arcbyte 5y ago
honestly i would rather remove the ability of developers to make shitty controls and widgets. GUIs either ask you for some set of data or display it to you. Weve had a basic set of controls that work great for decades now. Im all for a platform that just requires the use of those and maximizes the ability if users to theme away.

MartijnBraam 5y ago

I handle "random theme breaking my app" as a valid bug report, it's not that hard. It's either something I'd have to fix in my app or fixed in that theme. Just ignoring the situation is just a shitty response.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
https://stopthemingmy.app https://stopthemingmy.app
- MartijnBraam 5y ago
  Yes I'm aware of it

simion314 5y ago

But why Qt/KDE developers don't lose their minds ? Either GTK theming is broken or the GTK app developers are not using it correctly or GNOME devs are assholes and really.really want to force their branding and vision. The above OR is not exclusive so it could be all 3 things.

smoldesu 5y ago

I develop GTK3 apps. Theme breakage is generally a very real concern, as it usually points towards an issue with either a. The usage/implementation of widgets in the application or b. The stylesheet the end user is implimenting In either instance, the solution is very simple and within arms reach. It will always make more sense to encourage robust development practices over building fragile application stacks.

malermeister 5y ago

The don't theme my app people were complaining about their bug trackers being full of theme-related issues. Instead of just setting up a filter rule in their tracker so they could ignore those issues, they decided to go super draconian and remove theming for the entire desktop. That disproportionate response to what comes down to an organizational shortcoming on their end made people upset, I'm not sure what they expected.

jeroenhd 5y ago
Note that they don't care about the themes their end users pick, though. You can theme your app just fine. They just want operating systems using their software (with their logos, trademarks and support links) to stop shipping their custom themes by default. They just don't want Canonical or Fedora to ship a theme that makes all applications that didn't come bundled look like shit. If you like the Windows 95 Hotdog Stand theme, you can configure that and everybody probably agrees that that's great. If you inflict that pain upon yourself, that's your problem. The current "solution" to themes breaking applications is to just not follow the system theme any longer. Everything gets packaged with a hardcoded theme in a sandboxed environment and you'll just have to live with that.
- malermeister 5y ago
  But end users use the same mechanism to theme their apps as vendors and that one is being removed.
  - lwkl 5y ago
    So what? Why should they continue to support some minor feature if it costs them a lot of resources and they think it's not worth it because it doesn't really fit their project? If you have a feature that is used by one customer out of thousands but it's causing problems at every update you push out. It might be better to remove the feature and fire the customer, than to keep supporting it no matter what.
    - 5y ago

phkahler 5y ago

Getting rid of themes and sticking to "one true design" doesn't mean "use a shitty flat design".

powersnail 5y ago

To ease the burden of handling bug reports by removing themes altogether at a platform level, seems like a bullet-also-kills-cancer solution.

arcbyte 5y ago

honestly i would rather remove the ability of developers to make shitty controls and widgets. GUIs either ask you for some set of data or display it to you. Weve had a basic set of controls that work great for decades now. Im all for a platform that just requires the use of those and maximizes the ability if users to theme away.