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Please don’t theme our apps

stopthemingmy.app

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Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#61

Post by lousken »

anoncake wrote: post #12
lousken wrote: post #9

Icon themes - should be more standardized, that's true. GTK stylesheets - mostly a problem of different GTK versions they're made for, because GTK versioning is a mess. App Icons - so what? I think most people like consistency - look at Windows 10 and its ~4years of development, it's still a mess and if I had an option I'd switch right away All in all I think the choice should be left on the user after distro install…

> Icon themes - should be more standardized, that's true. Why? There is already a standard. It does not specify what icons look like, but what they mean. Replacing an icon with another that has the same meaning is not a problem. Of course, if you, say, abuse the "system-search" icon to show a looking glass, this will not work with a theme using a different metaphor. The icon theme displayed in the open letter is just…

I had to write quite a lot of messages to icon theme devs to add icons I was missing in XFCE with their theme. They happily added them but from users point it seemed like they needed someone to tell them which ones were missing because they just didn't know. So having a more complete list would be nice.

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#62

Post by anoncake »

JasonFruit wrote: post #38
anoncake wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Icon themes - should be more standardized, that's true. Why? There is already a standard. It does not specify what icons look like, but what they mean. Replacing an icon with another that has the same meaning is not a problem. Of course, if you, say, abuse the "system-search" icon to show a looking glass, this will not work with a theme using a different metaphor. The icon theme displayed in the open letter is just…

> The icon theme displayed in the open letter is just garbage. A lot of icon themes are pure garbage, or at least incomplete. I don't think the example chosen here is any worse than what I've seen on my own system. Honestly, most icon themes are a failure; visual metaphors are just plain hard, and there's no substitute for literacy.

True. But what about the icon themes major distributions pick?

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#63

Post by NeedMoreTea »

cuddlecake wrote: post #17
anoncake wrote: post #2

> GTK Stylesheets can make applications look broken, and even unusable. Bugs are bad, yes. > Icon Themes can change icon metaphors, leading to interfaces with icons that don’t express what the developer intended. That is not a problem if you use icons for the purpose they are intended for. > Changing an app’s icon denies the developer the possibility to control their brand. Good. My computer is not your billboard. Co…

Your entire comment feels awfully dismissive and egocentric. The author presents valid and sensible issues with the state of theming on the GNOME platform. And the overarching topic is essentially User Experience. Even the slightest change in color can introduce friction between UI elements. Or to be more extreme, if a theme turns your entire app into a white blurry mess, you would get mad at the application, and not…

The only egocentrism I see is all in the pompous article requesting that users do not make perfectly reasonable choices on their own computers. Then attempts to justify on some absurdly contrived grounds. Neither reasonable nor sensible.

Imagine if Apple asked users not to apply stickers to their laptop as it denies Apple the possibility to control their brand, or could make the laptop look broken, even unusable - shock I may even apply a sticker that shows a broken circuit board or simulates cracked aluminium. Apple's view is that applying a sticker to the case or keyboard render Appley documentation useless as they don't look like the pictures we screenshotted in moments.

> Even the slightest change in color can introduce friction between UI elements

Yeah, and? They might be the difference between unusable discomfort and usable, or allow ageing eyes to cope with arrogant and restricted developer choices, or missing sense of aesthetic. You might not like the colour car I buy or the decorating scheme I choose for my house. Mind your own damn business.

> On the topic of branding

Yeah, about that. It's branding that has led computer and phone makers to give highly limited theming capability. Firefox or my desktop is no longer my own to adjust and fiddle to unusability (sic) or perfection - as I see fit. Like the paint I use inside my house, mind your own damn business. I might LIKE my phone, Windows box and Linux box to all look highly distinct from each other for my own personal reasons. Mind your own damn business.

It is not another surface on which to stimulate my neurons to be further programmed by the brand. Baa.

Edit: Specifically on icons, I have been changing icons since the days of Workbench 1.3 in about 1986 or 87. I won't stop now. I've chosen wildly different icons for some apps at times - because they worked better for me. Icons as space for a logo is an entirely negative fashion to my mind as I prefer a hint, however vague, of what that a rarely used app does.

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#64

Post by 781 »

Legogris wrote: post #57
781 wrote: post #26

Write the app in Electron. Problem solved. No more OS overriding your look.

I can see why the Electron-haters are downvoting you, but you're completely right. Don't build your apps in GTK if you don't want to have overridden GTK configurations affect your UI. I would really like Electron to add an on-by-default standard interface to override CSS rules for Electron apps, though. (I don't have a horse in the Electron-is-great-or-crap race)

> I would really Electron to add an on-by-default standard interface to override CSS rules for Electron apps

That's a hard problem to solve, since there are many ways of styling Electron - Bootstrap/Bulma/Material Design/custom stuff. So it's hard to just override CSS rules.

On the other hand, it's the kind of problem perfectly suited for Machine Learning - just take the whole screenshot/image of the app and use a stylistic ML to change it - make it Dark Theme/whatever...

I suspect in 10 years OSes will support ML-based automatic themeing/customization of all apps, regardless of what they are written in.

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#65

Post by faissaloo »

On the contrary, I think GNOME allows people too much freedom to theme and it opens the system up to really broken theming. One of the things I love about Serenity OS is that it has one simple theming engine so everything looks the way you'd expect between applications.

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#66

Post by anoncake »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #46
random45345 wrote: post #15

The whole letter sounds weird when talking about free software. Software freedom main benefit is that the user can change the software. Theming it is probably the most accessible form of modification and should be celebrated. Asking not to theme is contrary to the free software ethos itself. The situation is even more tricky as what is being modified is not even the software itself but the system dependencies. Essent…

This isn't about the user theming. It's about distros theming. There currently is a growing conflict between upstream developers and distributions, because some of their interactions and dependencies bare badly managed. For example, upstream maintainers see an influx of bug reports and angry users due to bugs, where the distributions are at fault. Sources for this can be changes to the code that the distributions mak…

> This isn't about the user theming. It's about distros theming.

Distros are agents of their users. A user can't make each choice involved in assembling a distro themselves (except for the few who use LFS), so they express their choices by choosing a distro.

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#67

Post by JasonFruit »

anoncake wrote: post #62
JasonFruit wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The icon theme displayed in the open letter is just garbage. A lot of icon themes are pure garbage, or at least incomplete. I don't think the example chosen here is any worse than what I've seen on my own system. Honestly, most icon themes are a failure; visual metaphors are just plain hard, and there's no substitute for literacy.

True. But what about the icon themes major distributions pick?

That's fair; the major distributions usually choose better themes. There are also minor distributions, however…

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#68

Post by icegreentea2 »

onli wrote: post #55
sp332 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this letter is not aimed at end users. "If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us."

That paragraph continues. The letter is absolutely also aimed at end users: > If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us. However, if you change things like stylesheets and icons, you should be aware that you’re in unsupported territory. Any issues you encounter should be reported to the theme developer, not the app developer. Just not with the same vehemence as its message directed at distros.

But I mean it's also technically correct. How could an application developer make any kind of guarantee in the face of arbitrary theming and tinkering by the end user?

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#69

Post by anoncake »

Legogris wrote: post #57
781 wrote: post #26

Write the app in Electron. Problem solved. No more OS overriding your look.

I can see why the Electron-haters are downvoting you, but you're completely right. Don't build your apps in GTK if you don't want to have overridden GTK configurations affect your UI. I would really like Electron to add an on-by-default standard interface to override CSS rules for Electron apps, though. (I don't have a horse in the Electron-is-great-or-crap race)

This is about free software. If a distribution insists on theming your Electron app, it can do so.

Re: Please don’t theme our apps

#70

Post by Zak »

code_duck wrote: post #30

It reminds me of how Reddit allows subs to put in their own stylesheets. Each sub can change the look, placement, and existence of just about every UI element. It makes for the most inconsistent interface I've ever seen for a website.

The redisign used for new.reddit.com doesn't give moderators as much control, much to the displeasure of many of us who have been on the platform for a long time.

Although I dislike it when people significantly change UI controls.

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