Nick: Is theming the desktop important for a distribution? Is it just an aesthetic or a branding issue? Are there other advantages?Ĭassidy: So before I really answer this, I think we need to clearly distinguish the parties involved in these discussions and decisions.įirst, you have the people making the GNOME desktop. So I could see us using LibAdwaita in future elementary software, and because we’re in constant collaboration with GNOME contributors, that won’t be an issue for us we will be able to use the bits that make sense while basically ignoring GNOME specific design bits.Īll together, LibAdwaita is making it easier to make high quality GTK and GNOME apps without having to reinvent common patterns which is a boon to GNOME, elementary OS, and any desktop using GNOME or GTK. By adding these GNOME-specific widgets and utilities to LibAdwaita rather than GTK, it keeps GTK itself more neutral and more flexible for desktops like elementary OS.Īt the same time, there are some intriguing bits of LibAdwaita-especially around multi-touch gestures and animation-coming from its history as LibHandy, which we’re using heavily in elementary OS today. So in the past GTK may have forced GNOME-style dialogs or layouts that we had to work around, which we should see less of. elementary OS uses GTK, how does that move impact elementary?Ĭassidy: This is a great move from our perspective, and is actually a solution we’ve been asking for for some time we use GTK, but we don’t always use the same UI patterns or styling as GNOME. This has led to the creation of LibAdwaita, which regroups all GNOME-HIG related elements into a single lib that developers can target. Nick: GNOME, much like elementary OS, seems to want to put more effort into becoming a more stable and reliable platform for application developers. We hope they help share a bit of perspective on this topic! To help distill this information, Nick from The Linux Experiment interviewed elementary co-founder and CXO Cassidy James Blaede for his recent The FACTS about GNOME’s plans for THEMES video.īelow are the questions provided by Nick and Cassidy’s answers, lightly edited for spelling, grammar, and formatting. Recently there’s been a lot of discussion within the open source desktop space about GNOME, LibAdwaita, and the future of “theming” on GTK-based platforms like GNOME and elementary OS. Nick The Linux Experiment Fri, Nov 12, 2021

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