5 ms·

The Gnome/gtk folks have been systematically removing theming capabilities for the last decade+ in the pursuit of an Apple-like philosophy towards ui. This has

by WD-42 2y ago

The Gnome/gtk folks have been systematically removing theming capabilities for the last decade+ in the pursuit of an Apple-like philosophy towards ui. This has really killed a lot of theming because so many apps use GTK.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago
Even before that, GTK app theming was a bit hit or miss, likely because of the way GTK uses CSS for themes. Personally I believe CSS to be quite ill-suited for the purpose. It’s ok if you’re writing a theme for a bespoke one-off app but breaks down in the system theme use case. In particular, CSS inheritance makes for a lot of unnecessary trouble for both third-party themes and accessibility affordances. Last I knew there was something of a disinclination away from paramaterization in the GTK dev sphere too, which is another significant problem for third party themes and accessibility. Hardcoded fonts, colors, etc makes for pointless brittle rigidity.
- WD-42 2y ago
  Before css there were engines, which were like families of themes. One of them was the pixmap engine which was what it sounds like: it used images to make up elements of the theme. Some of the most ambitious themes used this engine. CSS didn’t come until much later.
  - cosmic_cheese 2y ago
    Yeah I recall having to install engines for some themes. One of them was murrine I think?
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  GTKs CSS engine is great for app developers because it's powerful and easy. You can make something look slick with little work. But its terrible for themers, it's like running a CSS override on every site that runs Bootstrap and expecting it to work properly. It won't. I don't run any themes anymore so it doesn't bother me.
Vilian 2y ago
The upsude is a more stable applicationand less headaches for the developers
gnomeluvscorpo 2y ago
Perhaps with all these changes to GUI since initial Shell release their goal is to enter some niche mobile market and call job done. Because nothing else explains all this interface gutting out they did over 14 years. Once they finish sucking donations and other forms of financial support they'll probably announce it's time to "sunset" Gnome/gtk because it sadly didn't met unspecified expectations of unspecified group of people. Gnome team, what they did and what they still want to do, their attitude towards users - especially those who dare to criticize them is THE result of polluting FOSS with corporate style of software development. Theming and customization of Linux is half-dead because of what happens at Gnome.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  Chasing after The Year of Linux on the Desktop is the community's great white whale. The thinking seems to be that if Linux can be made to look enough like the major mainstream OSes, the masses will flood into Linux and the people who lead them there will get to be the heroes of the day. Problem is the mainstream OSes make UI decisions for many reasons, and the end user often isn't the main concern. Linux could, and in the past did, make itself the OS of user empowerment and choice instead of being a watered down version of whatever is in fashion with the PMs at Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
- aecsocket 2y ago
  This opinion of "Gnome is killing customization" is something I see quite a lot, but which I think people take the wrong way. It's absolutely true that Gnome is designed to be less themeable than other DEs like KDE, or individual WMs - and by extension, GTK apps and apps designed to be used on Gnome are harder to customize/break more when you do theme them. But I disagree that "customization of Linux [being] half-dead" is a bad thing; on the contrary, I support the lack of theming options, and I like that there's someone on the Linux desktop that pushes this hard for consistency. To make my biases clear: I'm a software developer that uses Gnome daily, and is developing a GTK/Adwaita app. I used to rice a lot back in the i3 days, but I don't particularly care about that nowadays, and stick to the defaults when I can. For my purposes, GNOME and Adwaita is perfect since it's very opinionated by default, and you can make good looking apps with minimal effort. Since all Adwaita apps are supposed to look similar and follow the same HIG, most of my desktop apps have the same look - but more importantly, the developers of the apps can also be confident that their apps look correct on my desktop. This is something that developers in the GTK space generally want, and for good reason[0]. One argument is that you as a user of the desktop should be able to have the final say on how your apps look, which is a totally valid take! And there are DEs, WMs, and apps which give you this freedom like Hyprland. But this doesn't guarantee that those apps will look good, or look consistent with each other, or even act consistently across apps. On the other hand, I as an app developer want to guarantee that my app looks good on your desktop, and the easiest way to achieve that is to target a single desktop environment, rather than an infinite combination of possibly-similar-but-maybe-completely-different desktops. Every preference has a cost[1][2], and when you take this philosophy beyond just preferences and expand it to color schemes, padding, margin, iconography, typography, it becomes unmanageable. This isn't to say that GNOME is perfect, and I disagree with the project on some fundamental technical things like not supporting xdg-layer-shell[3], and refusing to accommodate server-side decorations for apps which don't want to render decorations themselves. (On the cultural side I can't comment, since I have no experience with that.) But in my opinion, this is the project that can deliver a usable and consistent Linux desktop to the average person the most effectively. [0]: https://stopthemingmy.app/ https://stopthemingmy.app/ [1]: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2021/07/13/community-power-4/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2021/07/13/community-power-... [2]: https://ometer.com/preferences.html https://ometer.com/preferences.html [3]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1141 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1141
zzo38computer 2y ago
I think there are many problems with GNOME and GTK. Some programs require GTK, but other than that I avoid them when I can. The theming is not the only problem, but it is one of them.
- robinsonb5 2y ago
  For me its biggest issue (apart from the imposition of hamburger menus) is the awful keyboard handling in the file dialog.
shmerl 2y ago
KDE is more popular DE than Gnome these days and it's pretty flexible for theming.
- WD-42 2y ago
  I highly doubt this. KDE users are far more vocal. Most people install Ubuntu (which is GNOME by default) use it and are happy with it and never comment about it on the internet. It's near impossible to have a Linux GUI environment without GTK applications, while the opposite is not true for QT. I have a full desktop setup with GNOME and my machine doesn't even have the QT libraries installed.
  - shmerl 2y ago
    Some trends and stats on sites that collect info on DE usage indicate that: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=statistics&view=trends https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=statistics&vi... It's totally expected for me, KDE is just better if you want any kind of customization. It also comes preinstalled on Steam Deck for instance. From some of the big GTK applications I use are Firefox and Gimp. That's about it, most of everything else is using Qt or is in the process of switching to Qt in my experience (like Audacity). And from the above, Firefox isn't really using GTK due to some integration with Gnome, they just didn't want to write their own Wayland handling bits. It works on KDE all the same.

by WD-42 2y ago

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

Even before that, GTK app theming was a bit hit or miss, likely because of the way GTK uses CSS for themes. Personally I believe CSS to be quite ill-suited for the purpose. It’s ok if you’re writing a theme for a bespoke one-off app but breaks down in the system theme use case. In particular, CSS inheritance makes for a lot of unnecessary trouble for both third-party themes and accessibility affordances. Last I knew there was something of a disinclination away from paramaterization in the GTK dev sphere too, which is another significant problem for third party themes and accessibility. Hardcoded fonts, colors, etc makes for pointless brittle rigidity.

WD-42 2y ago
Before css there were engines, which were like families of themes. One of them was the pixmap engine which was what it sounds like: it used images to make up elements of the theme. Some of the most ambitious themes used this engine. CSS didn’t come until much later.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  Yeah I recall having to install engines for some themes. One of them was murrine I think?
ChocolateGod 2y ago
GTKs CSS engine is great for app developers because it's powerful and easy. You can make something look slick with little work. But its terrible for themers, it's like running a CSS override on every site that runs Bootstrap and expecting it to work properly. It won't. I don't run any themes anymore so it doesn't bother me.

Vilian 2y ago

The upsude is a more stable applicationand less headaches for the developers

gnomeluvscorpo 2y ago

Perhaps with all these changes to GUI since initial Shell release their goal is to enter some niche mobile market and call job done. Because nothing else explains all this interface gutting out they did over 14 years. Once they finish sucking donations and other forms of financial support they'll probably announce it's time to "sunset" Gnome/gtk because it sadly didn't met unspecified expectations of unspecified group of people. Gnome team, what they did and what they still want to do, their attitude towards users - especially those who dare to criticize them is THE result of polluting FOSS with corporate style of software development. Theming and customization of Linux is half-dead because of what happens at Gnome.

Mountain_Skies 2y ago
Chasing after The Year of Linux on the Desktop is the community's great white whale. The thinking seems to be that if Linux can be made to look enough like the major mainstream OSes, the masses will flood into Linux and the people who lead them there will get to be the heroes of the day. Problem is the mainstream OSes make UI decisions for many reasons, and the end user often isn't the main concern. Linux could, and in the past did, make itself the OS of user empowerment and choice instead of being a watered down version of whatever is in fashion with the PMs at Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
aecsocket 2y ago
This opinion of "Gnome is killing customization" is something I see quite a lot, but which I think people take the wrong way. It's absolutely true that Gnome is designed to be less themeable than other DEs like KDE, or individual WMs - and by extension, GTK apps and apps designed to be used on Gnome are harder to customize/break more when you do theme them. But I disagree that "customization of Linux [being] half-dead" is a bad thing; on the contrary, I support the lack of theming options, and I like that there's someone on the Linux desktop that pushes this hard for consistency. To make my biases clear: I'm a software developer that uses Gnome daily, and is developing a GTK/Adwaita app. I used to rice a lot back in the i3 days, but I don't particularly care about that nowadays, and stick to the defaults when I can. For my purposes, GNOME and Adwaita is perfect since it's very opinionated by default, and you can make good looking apps with minimal effort. Since all Adwaita apps are supposed to look similar and follow the same HIG, most of my desktop apps have the same look - but more importantly, the developers of the apps can also be confident that their apps look correct on my desktop. This is something that developers in the GTK space generally want, and for good reason[0]. One argument is that you as a user of the desktop should be able to have the final say on how your apps look, which is a totally valid take! And there are DEs, WMs, and apps which give you this freedom like Hyprland. But this doesn't guarantee that those apps will look good, or look consistent with each other, or even act consistently across apps. On the other hand, I as an app developer want to guarantee that my app looks good on your desktop, and the easiest way to achieve that is to target a single desktop environment, rather than an infinite combination of possibly-similar-but-maybe-completely-different desktops. Every preference has a cost[1][2], and when you take this philosophy beyond just preferences and expand it to color schemes, padding, margin, iconography, typography, it becomes unmanageable. This isn't to say that GNOME is perfect, and I disagree with the project on some fundamental technical things like not supporting xdg-layer-shell[3], and refusing to accommodate server-side decorations for apps which don't want to render decorations themselves. (On the cultural side I can't comment, since I have no experience with that.) But in my opinion, this is the project that can deliver a usable and consistent Linux desktop to the average person the most effectively. [0]: https://stopthemingmy.app/ https://stopthemingmy.app/ [1]: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2021/07/13/community-power-4/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2021/07/13/community-power-... [2]: https://ometer.com/preferences.html https://ometer.com/preferences.html [3]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1141 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/1141

zzo38computer 2y ago

I think there are many problems with GNOME and GTK. Some programs require GTK, but other than that I avoid them when I can. The theming is not the only problem, but it is one of them.

robinsonb5 2y ago
For me its biggest issue (apart from the imposition of hamburger menus) is the awful keyboard handling in the file dialog.

shmerl 2y ago

KDE is more popular DE than Gnome these days and it's pretty flexible for theming.

WD-42 2y ago
I highly doubt this. KDE users are far more vocal. Most people install Ubuntu (which is GNOME by default) use it and are happy with it and never comment about it on the internet. It's near impossible to have a Linux GUI environment without GTK applications, while the opposite is not true for QT. I have a full desktop setup with GNOME and my machine doesn't even have the QT libraries installed.
- shmerl 2y ago
  Some trends and stats on sites that collect info on DE usage indicate that: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=statistics&view=trends https://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?module=statistics&vi... It's totally expected for me, KDE is just better if you want any kind of customization. It also comes preinstalled on Steam Deck for instance. From some of the big GTK applications I use are Firefox and Gimp. That's about it, most of everything else is using Qt or is in the process of switching to Qt in my experience (like Audacity). And from the above, Firefox isn't really using GTK due to some integration with Gnome, they just didn't want to write their own Wayland handling bits. It works on KDE all the same.