Screenshot of GNOME 42 desktop showing Elliott Shugerman’s light theme that includes the top bar and system menu. Files app is also open for comparison with the light mode window appearance.
In theory this is cool. In practice very few apps across the Linux spectrum will ever respect this. We for example try so hard with TROMjaro Linux to make pretty much all apps respect the system's theme. And we managed to do it. So if you switch from a dark to a light theme, some 90-95% of all apps will respect that theme. With Gnome if you do that, probably only 10% or less of all apps will respect that.
Actually because of libadwaita, that is behind this dark/light gnome mode, we see inconsistency in TROMjaro and all otehr distros.
So yeah...Gnome is making things more limited in fact, buy not allowing any custom theme to work with libadwaita.
I’ve been criticial of GNOME’s approach in the past before it was neither here nor there. I do see their decision to go with libadwaita as a positive step towards enforcing consistency, though.
The problem is they’re not an operating system. They’re a component used in multiple operating system.
The approach makes perfect sense if you think of what you’d want for an OS. And, I’d argue that they are defacto, part of an OS (given the Fedora/GNOME relationship)…
… I don’t think I have enough space to go into this properly here. But, basically, I feel that distributions would save themselves a lot of work (and free those resources for other aspects) if they adopted stock GNOME.
I really don’t think any distro building upon GNOME at this point is going to improve on the experience enough to warrant maintaining a fork.
Instead, I’d suggest working with GNOME to improve it for everyone…
… and, hopefully, in the process, create a consistent experience for people and an incentive for app devs to support standards like light/dark mode also.
It goes beyond aesthetics. The time/effort saved can go into implementing better accessibility, refining the experience of apps, etc.
This is at least how I feel now having used stock GNOME 42 on Fedora Silverblue for the past few months after several years on elementary OS.
PS. Thank you for the work you do; it’s inspiring 💕
I don't think making the panel and shell UI and the applications match in style is really "important" at all... I think having mixed light/dark elements can actually look nice and more calming than having a completely all-white UI
the design examples shown in the issue look especially harsh, like everything on the screen is trying to draw your attention at once
I respectfully disagree. While I have no objections to a setting for mixing and matching elements (just as I have no objections to apps implementing colour scheme override options so people can do so if they wish), the default should be that all elements of the interface are consistent with whatever colour scheme is selected. That’s the whole idea behind a colour scheme. And, for that matter, behind consistency in design :)
lebout2canap
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Screenshot of GNOME 42 desktop showing Elliott Shugerman’s light theme that includes the top bar and system menu. Files app is also open for comparison with the light mode window appearance.
Tio
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Actually because of libadwaita, that is behind this dark/light gnome mode, we see inconsistency in TROMjaro and all otehr distros.
So yeah...Gnome is making things more limited in fact, buy not allowing any custom theme to work with libadwaita.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Tio • • •The problem is they’re not an operating system. They’re a component used in multiple operating system.
The approach makes perfect sense if you think of what you’d want for an OS. And, I’d argue that they are defacto, part of an OS (given the Fedora/GNOME relationship)…
Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •I really don’t think any distro building upon GNOME at this point is going to improve on the experience enough to warrant maintaining a fork.
Instead, I’d suggest working with GNOME to improve it for everyone…
Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •It goes beyond aesthetics. The time/effort saved can go into implementing better accessibility, refining the experience of apps, etc.
This is at least how I feel now having used stock GNOME 42 on Fedora Silverblue for the past few months after several years on elementary OS.
PS. Thank you for the work you do; it’s inspiring 💕
Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •:aeevee:
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •the design examples shown in the issue look especially harsh, like everything on the screen is trying to draw your attention at once
Aral Balkan
in reply to :aeevee: • • •