The end of the nice GTK button • Hacker News Board

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#31

Post by tomduncalf » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

von_lohengramm wrote: post #5

The font rendering on that example of "the perfect button" is rather atrocious. It's kind of sad that Windows is (was?) the last bastion of serviceable font rendering.

Interesting, I always disliked Windows font rendering and much prefer the was MacOS renders fonts. I couldn’t explain why, but I know many graphic designers who say the same. I guess it’s a matter of taste!

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#32

Post by von_lohengramm » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

tomduncalf wrote: post #31

von_lohengramm wrote: post #5

The font rendering on that example of "the perfect button" is rather atrocious. It's kind of sad that Windows is (was?) the last bastion of serviceable font rendering.

Interesting, I always disliked Windows font rendering and much prefer the was MacOS renders fonts. I couldn’t explain why, but I know many graphic designers who say the same. I guess it’s a matter of taste!

Any font rendering looks amazing on HiDPI panels. Have you ever used macOS on a normal monitor? The text looks worse than anything else.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#33

Post by smoldesu » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #8

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 did…

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.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#34

Post by malermeister » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #8

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 did…

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.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#35

Post by MartijnBraam » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #17

MartijnBraam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://stopthemingmy.app

Yes I'm aware of it

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#36

Post by naoqj » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19

Backstory: https://stopthemingmy.app

You can't get any more arrogant than this.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#37

Post by MereInterest » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #19

Backstory: https://stopthemingmy.app

Wow, that's definitely something. Implying that tinkering with the low level aspects of a system are acceptable, but don't you dare apply a different stylesheet, because adjusting colors is delicate work that shouldn't ever be done by anybody but the developer.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#38

Post by mikl » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

Yeah, the new GTK4 UI looks like a clone of Apple’s UIKit with a worse font. Shame that Gnome is following the trend of flat and boring UIs.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#39

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:54 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #29

Wait ten years. New people will start working, old people will move on to other things. The new people will change stuff, mostly for the sake of it as it always happens, and one of the results will be less flat interfaces. Old people will be infuriated by the change. Very old people will rejoice but also complain that those UIs are not as good as the really old ones. New people will shrug them away and keep changing…

It's already happening, new interfaces from both Apple (see Big Sur/Monterey) and Google (Material design) are noticeably less "flat" and going back to 3d effects for "active" widgets. The effects are much as seen in GTK+ 3 - just subtle enough to not look overly confusing when compared to a totally "flat" screenshot, but still helpful to unfamiliar users.

Re: The end of the nice GTK button

#40

Post by von_lohengramm » Thu, Mar 24, 2022, 10:56 PM UTC

naoqj wrote: post #9

von_lohengramm wrote: post #5

The font rendering on that example of "the perfect button" is rather atrocious. It's kind of sad that Windows is (was?) the last bastion of serviceable font rendering.

I agree that the defaults are atrocious, but freetype can be configured and the options are limitless.

Linux font rendering has come a long way in the last couple years. With TrueType2 and Windows fonts taken from an installer ISO (and not the ancient corefonts package), you can actually get some overall mostly okay font rendering. Every now and again, the hinting bugs out and it looks unreadable, but its far better than the olden days.