When many gnome developers released this blog post, a whole lot of people freaked out. Attacking the developers, claiming that they were anti-features and trying to limit user freedom. However, I believe that not only are the writers of this blog post completely in the right. I am going to explain why I agree with them when it comes to theming apps.
That’s why I think it’s ironic how devs are the ones who want to place the blame on the user “Distro”, asking them to not theme it. It’s perfectly possible to make a Gtk app that doesn’t break with theming, just how it’s possible to make a beautiful HTML page that supports user stylesheets and doesn’t rely on modern overcomplicated layers of frameworks.
Imho, app, theme and Gtk devs need to seat and set up the semantic rules that separate what’s content from what’s style.
A Gtk app should not try to define the style, the theme should.
I get that some apps might want to differentiate themselves from the rest… but then that’s completely against the idea of having a toolkit that’s shared and that gives a consistent look. If what you want is a unique look for the app, go the Google Chrome route and build your main UI without relying on GTK theming. Or shoehorn the clusterfuck into the app, harcode it all at static compilation or with a wrapper to define the user environment if need be. It’ll be defeating the point of having a consistent toolkit… but well… if you don’t want users to have that theming freedom, don’t give it. Just don’t pretend it was the distro’s or the user’s fault that they used the theming options. Gtk themes are indeed meant for theming, not for individual apps to define their branding. They were designed to be set by the user environment.
That’s why I think it’s ironic how devs are the ones who want to place the blame on the user “Distro”, asking them to not theme it. It’s perfectly possible to make a Gtk app that doesn’t break with theming, just how it’s possible to make a beautiful HTML page that supports user stylesheets and doesn’t rely on modern overcomplicated layers of frameworks.
Imho, app, theme and Gtk devs need to seat and set up the semantic rules that separate what’s content from what’s style.
A Gtk app should not try to define the style, the theme should.
I get that some apps might want to differentiate themselves from the rest… but then that’s completely against the idea of having a toolkit that’s shared and that gives a consistent look. If what you want is a unique look for the app, go the Google Chrome route and build your main UI without relying on GTK theming. Or shoehorn the clusterfuck into the app, harcode it all at static compilation or with a wrapper to define the user environment if need be. It’ll be defeating the point of having a consistent toolkit… but well… if you don’t want users to have that theming freedom, don’t give it. Just don’t pretend it was the distro’s or the user’s fault that they used the theming options. Gtk themes are indeed meant for theming, not for individual apps to define their branding. They were designed to be set by the user environment.
Just a personal opinion.