I'll do whatever I want whenever I want, thanks for your input though.
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Please don’t theme our apps
41–50 of 84 posts
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. WTF? If I release an open source app I would LOVE for you to theme it, mod it to your heart's content, and have a party. Send me a pull request if you come up with something cool looking.
>This is aimed at distributions breaking apps by default, not tinkerers playing with their own setup. The objection here is that distributions are building incompatible system themes that break standard GNOME expectations and make applications more confusing for users. They're not talking about individuals messing with their systems.
If I pick eOS because I like its look and feel, I sure hope eOS attempts to make that look and feel as consistent across apps as possible.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#43I'll add it to the list of reasons why Linux desktops have a long way to go before becoming mainstream. Brings back memories of jwz. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/04/i-would-like-debian-to-stop... please be careful clicking this link from HN. He doesn't like the HN crowd very much. I understand the app developers, if you have to support end users because unexpected changes were made not even by the users themselves,…
Which other mainstream operating systems allow to apply global themes?
Windows, up until at least XP, had deep support for restyling.
But this is beside the point: what drew me to Linux in the first place was that it empowered people to remix all the aspects and encouraged people to share these remixes (or “rices” as they’re called on r/unixporn: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/pfue6h/gnome_2_fo... )
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apps should be designed with the goal of being themeable. Applications need to supply hints and avoid e.g. icons with baked in BG.
apps are designed with many goals, and have to make compromises on where they put their efforts. i'm sure they would all love to have the resources to devote to theming, but it's not realistict to expect apps to prioritize theme support over core functionality. and even if they were designed to be themeable, that doesn't address many of the other concerns here - designing an app to be themeable doesn't automatically…
There’s a sort of antagonism between users, distro developers and app developers these days in the Linux community that’s a bit sad to see.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#45What an excellent piece of writing. Written communication is darned hard, especially with an audience you don't know. Apparently I'm already so used to bad writing that this letter jumped out to me for the quality of its writing alone. Something like this takes several iterations of work, not just inspiration and good luck. I can only commend the authors for putting it in.
Also,
> We believe that a technical solution would likely not be effective, because this is not a technical problem.
That's another manhole we developers tend to fall into. Props for avoiding it.
Needless to say, I do agree with the letter's appeal.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. WTF? If I release an open source app I would LOVE for you to theme it, mod it to your heart's content, and have a party. Send me a pull request if you come up with something cool looking.
Of course. If someone themes your app . But if distro xy creates a shiny new look that breaks your app, you probably are not so happy.
Especially when you have a wave of users complaining to you about it being broken or saying your app is bad but the broke part was a downstream patch.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#47Sure - as long as you provide dark/night mode.
Ah, the one size fits all approach. I guess the user better find a different app if he doesn't like the default themes. Lots of light and dark themes are sloppy and poorly designed. Some of them have too high contrast which makes me see after effects of text everywhere on the screen. Some of them have poor contrast and require users to ruin their eyes. But no, let's assume everyone on Earth is fine with a single ligh…
Your words not mine - I'm just saying that I'll take an imperfect dark theme compared to the white/bright background that apps usually provide.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I changed my Firefox icon to go away from the POS it became, I'm totally going to blame any Firefox bugs on my icon. This page is ridiculous.
Debian had a really good solution to this problem -- they just called Firefox "Iceweasel". I don't even remember what they were mad about but it makes me giggle every time it shows up.
Mozilla didn't release the Firefox branding under the same license as the rest of Firefox (and, iirc, the branding license was non-free per the DFSG). So, Debian forked Firefox, Thunderbird and a couple other things and replaced all the branding with the Ice* names and icons. Mozilla eventually gave up and so Debian now distributes Firefox with the Firefox name and branding.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#49The article says clearly they are talking about distros that apply system wide themes without checking that all GTK applications still look good and not taking about people tinkering. Distros do this because it looks good in screenshots and give the system a unique flare, but it gives all these applications a bad image when people try them and they look terrible. Is the expectation that programs like geary should loo…
An option here would be to have a new item in the top left menu (by default, your theme may move or even remove this) on the window: Untheme
App looks like crap? Untheme it and file a bug if it still looks like crap.
Icons don't make sense? Untheme. Looks more sensible now?
A one off patch to GTK (other toolkits are available) and this problem has a solution.
Re: Please don’t theme our apps
#50This is the antithesis of open source and the things that drew me to Linux in the 90s and 00s
To expand: the web gave us a mindset where developers and designers dictate to everyone else how their app will look. Beforehand, that was up to the OS, the windowing system and/or the user. Now, it’s fair to ask that problems with appearances be reported to the intermediate themers first, but this invasion of the web mindset is profoundly anti-user and anti-community.
Was it, really? When Microsoft implemented arbitrary shapes for windows, Windows apps started to come in all shapes, sizes, and with custom theming engines. Music players were particularly prone to this - not even talking about apps like Sonique, but Microsoft's very own Windows Media Player was like that.
So no, it wasn't web; the dominating desktop OS always lacked the UI consistency.