Comment by lavabiopsy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lavabiopsy | Hacker News Reader

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Please don't jump to these baseless conclusions based on a misinterpretation of one twitter post. The issue here is with libadwaita, not with GTK, and if you actually read the gitlab issue chain by that person then you will see that progress is being made: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/issues/259

>It's a mistake to consider GNOME/GTK as a community project.

You're getting this wrong -- GNOME is very much a community project, but it's one that happens to be heavily driven by designers. Maybe this is unusual for an open source project? The general point with the request is that you can't just try to make a desktop that re-uses some GNOME components while also throwing out everything their designers did, the end result there is that users have a bad time. This is not about making someone conform to anyone's way, this is about distros working with app developers to provide the best possible experience for users. Switching toolkits is not really going to fix anything here, you will run into the same issues with any other toolkit if you try to restyle apps in ways that were unsupported and unintended by the app developer.

> Please don't jump to these baseless conclusions based on a misinterpretation of one twitter post. The issue here is with libadwaita, not with GTK, and if you actually read the gitlab issue chain by that person then you will see that progress is being made: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libadwaita/-/issues/259

Please don't dismiss my statements as baseless. The presence of an issue does not imply progress. Jeremy is asking for a theming API or a method to let apps use a different theme besides Adwaita.

> Jeremy: I'm curious if you think there is a best way to have GNOME core apps continue to use our own theme.

> Clasen: If you ask me, the answer is no. To the best of my understanding, linking to libadwaita is an explicit decision to use the Adwaita theme.

I don't think there's any confusion or baseless assumption on my end.

> You're getting this wrong -- GNOME is very much a community project

Doesn't look like a community project to me, not in the least. It's as much a community project as Android (AOSP) is.

> This is not about making someone conform to anyone's way, this is about distros working with app developers to provide the best possible experience for users.

And GNOME/GTK devs get to decide what's the best possible experience for the user — removing any customization possibilities for the sake of consistency. If anyone doesn't like that, they can piss off. This is pretty much what "making someone conform to someone's way" looks like.

I'm sorry, but this is still all based on a misunderstanding. Even without this change, apps still have the ability to use a different theme besides adwaita, and with the change it's still a thing that they have to opt-in to. Asking for a theming API will not change the reality of this, and in fact the discussion there is still all centered around things that are still opt-in for app developers. They get the final say when it comes to their own apps, and if they decide they are going to hard code in adwaita (or some other theme) or use some toolkit that doesn't support themes then then that's the way it is. I would advise not putting so much weight on non-technical rants from twitter, and instead I suggesting focusing on finding ways to help app developers deliver you the best apps that they can.

I don't understand why you are talking about Android and/or Google, there is no GNOME Inc. that is directing development. If you want to know more about how the GNOME community is structured, please consider starting by reading this blog series: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2021/06/11/community-power-...

>And GNOME/GTK devs get to decide what's the best possible experience for the user — removing any customization possibilities for the sake of consistency. If anyone doesn't like that, they can piss off. This is pretty much what "making someone conform to someone's way" looks like.

Please don't take such a cynical view, if you look at things that way then using anyone else's code would be "conforming to their way" because ultimately that's what it is isn't it? Someone else decides the best way to write that code and then you use what they wrote. Since I don't think you wrote all your software yourself from scratch, there is obviously some level of compromise there that you already acknowledge, so what is the real issue you're having? And I don't mean something vague like "my theme broke" I mean how does it relate to the end goal of what you're trying to change these programs to do?

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