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You can just look at the screenshots in that blog, GTK4/libadwaita also supports changing the way the app looks. >we had a functional theme interface that was

You can just look at the screenshots in that blog, GTK4/libadwaita also supports changing the way the app looks. >we had a functional theme interface that was much better supported. Well, we did have it at one point This is revisionist history, GTK3 never had a real theme interface. The changes in libadwaita were directly because CSS is not a functional or reliable way to reskin apps and themes were known as a good way to break GTK3 apps. Using a global CSS has a lot of the same problems as X resources, it's sending a giant string into the app that may or may not override certain things based on random string matching. The CSS styles all cascade together and there is no way to know what app is going to get what styles or enforce that an app uses particular style classes.

smoldesu 5y ago
"Real" theme interface is a moving goalpost. We had stylesheets that could/would be expected to change. Many people decided to switch these stylesheets out, which in turn modified the LAF of their system's applications. The solution to this problem isn't stripping that out and replacing it with a more restrictive UI, the solution was building more robust applications and letting the HIG evolve around it. You know, adapting to the needs of the people who use your software. Unfortunately, the lead GNOME maintainers never asked for the community opinion, so we ended up with... whatever the hell Libadwaita is. In any case, I've ended up migrating away from GTK4 for the majority of my use cases anyways. Like I said, it has given us no functional changes in any of the apps I've used (or seen, for that matter), so I don't really feel bad dropping it from my systems. It also doesn't make me feel bad freezing all the apps I write at GTK3, since the developer experience is frankly so much better the further you go back in GTK history.
- throwaway82652 5y ago
  >the solution was building more robust applications and letting the HIG evolve around it. This is literally exactly what is happening in libadwaita. The stylesheets are still there but the apps are more robust by enforcing the use of particular styles. I don't know what else you would expect here. In this situation "more robust" is always going to mean restricting the theme options to a subset which we know works. >Unfortunately, the lead GNOME maintainers never asked for the community opinion This is a nonsensical statement and is a misunderstanding of how open source works. Decisions are not made based on "community opinions" they're made by those who show up and do the work. It would make no sense for any open source maintainer to ask for "community opinions". Of course if you ask random commenters on Hacker News and Slashdot if they want you to develop all kinds of impossible features and give it to them for free, they will always say yes. >Like I said, it has given us no functional changes in any of the apps Again please check those screenshots in the blog. The recoloring functionality there would not be possible in GTK3. It's not very fun to talk to you when you repeatedly ignore what I'm saying.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    We're at an impasse. You're pointing to some changed colors and saying "see! they still let you make changes!" while I'm arguing that obfuscating the pre-existing theming interfaces is a pointless endeavor since nobody got anything out of it. Users have their hands tied. Developers lose the flexibility they once had with the toolkit. The idea of a "native" app has gone out the window. The only people who win here are the Flatpak folks who are just dying for people to dumb down their apps to work around the shortcomings of their "next generation" package manager. I'm not even going to argue this with you since there's nothing to argue about. The book is closed. GTK4 and Libadwaita are direct regressions from the functionality we had with GTK3 and libhandy. You can argue that these regressions exist for a purpose, and you can point to purported upcoming features and their purported upcoming functionality, but none of that changes what things look like right now. At the end of the day, as both a user and a developer, I need functionality. If you take that away from me, you can't also expect me to go along with whatever you're proposing for the future.
    - throwaway82652 5y ago
      >We're at an impasse. No we're not, you're ignoring what I'm saying. Nothing was obfuscated and developers and users didn't lose any flexibility. Take a look at those screenshots. Developers actually have more flexibility here because now they have recoloring in addition to the traditional stylesheets. I don't understand what this has to do with flatpak either, that's not really any different from the other package managers as far as themes go. >GTK4 and Libadwaita are direct regressions from the functionality we had with GTK3 and libhandy. No, this is absurdly and egregiously wrong and the book is not closed. The only thing that's really happened here is added functionality. Right now nothing has actually been removed. I'm completely 100% serious about this. You're wrong here. This is a big non-issue that you've blown out of proportion. The recoloring isn't even an upcoming feature. It's already usable in a limited form, you can see it in action in the text editor I posted. What is upcoming is having a nicer API around it. And this also isn't "purported" either, you can see the very real work happening on it right now: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/merge_requests/369 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/merge_requests/3...
  - 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago

"Real" theme interface is a moving goalpost. We had stylesheets that could/would be expected to change. Many people decided to switch these stylesheets out, which in turn modified the LAF of their system's applications. The solution to this problem isn't stripping that out and replacing it with a more restrictive UI, the solution was building more robust applications and letting the HIG evolve around it. You know, adapting to the needs of the people who use your software. Unfortunately, the lead GNOME maintainers never asked for the community opinion, so we ended up with... whatever the hell Libadwaita is. In any case, I've ended up migrating away from GTK4 for the majority of my use cases anyways. Like I said, it has given us no functional changes in any of the apps I've used (or seen, for that matter), so I don't really feel bad dropping it from my systems. It also doesn't make me feel bad freezing all the apps I write at GTK3, since the developer experience is frankly so much better the further you go back in GTK history.

throwaway82652 5y ago
>the solution was building more robust applications and letting the HIG evolve around it. This is literally exactly what is happening in libadwaita. The stylesheets are still there but the apps are more robust by enforcing the use of particular styles. I don't know what else you would expect here. In this situation "more robust" is always going to mean restricting the theme options to a subset which we know works. >Unfortunately, the lead GNOME maintainers never asked for the community opinion This is a nonsensical statement and is a misunderstanding of how open source works. Decisions are not made based on "community opinions" they're made by those who show up and do the work. It would make no sense for any open source maintainer to ask for "community opinions". Of course if you ask random commenters on Hacker News and Slashdot if they want you to develop all kinds of impossible features and give it to them for free, they will always say yes. >Like I said, it has given us no functional changes in any of the apps Again please check those screenshots in the blog. The recoloring functionality there would not be possible in GTK3. It's not very fun to talk to you when you repeatedly ignore what I'm saying.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  We're at an impasse. You're pointing to some changed colors and saying "see! they still let you make changes!" while I'm arguing that obfuscating the pre-existing theming interfaces is a pointless endeavor since nobody got anything out of it. Users have their hands tied. Developers lose the flexibility they once had with the toolkit. The idea of a "native" app has gone out the window. The only people who win here are the Flatpak folks who are just dying for people to dumb down their apps to work around the shortcomings of their "next generation" package manager. I'm not even going to argue this with you since there's nothing to argue about. The book is closed. GTK4 and Libadwaita are direct regressions from the functionality we had with GTK3 and libhandy. You can argue that these regressions exist for a purpose, and you can point to purported upcoming features and their purported upcoming functionality, but none of that changes what things look like right now. At the end of the day, as both a user and a developer, I need functionality. If you take that away from me, you can't also expect me to go along with whatever you're proposing for the future.
  - throwaway82652 5y ago
    >We're at an impasse. No we're not, you're ignoring what I'm saying. Nothing was obfuscated and developers and users didn't lose any flexibility. Take a look at those screenshots. Developers actually have more flexibility here because now they have recoloring in addition to the traditional stylesheets. I don't understand what this has to do with flatpak either, that's not really any different from the other package managers as far as themes go. >GTK4 and Libadwaita are direct regressions from the functionality we had with GTK3 and libhandy. No, this is absurdly and egregiously wrong and the book is not closed. The only thing that's really happened here is added functionality. Right now nothing has actually been removed. I'm completely 100% serious about this. You're wrong here. This is a big non-issue that you've blown out of proportion. The recoloring isn't even an upcoming feature. It's already usable in a limited form, you can see it in action in the text editor I posted. What is upcoming is having a nicer API around it. And this also isn't "purported" either, you can see the very real work happening on it right now: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/merge_requests/369 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/merge_requests/3...
- 5y ago