Linux Mint
Replies: 6 comments 6 replies
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The problem you are trying to solve is caused by apps not following the system theme in the first place, a problem that is very slowly going away, splitting the themes would only add fuel to the fire, and still not be followed for a very good while. I would instead recommend you change the themes manually to fix the problem, gnome apps to this all the time for me, I have the system theme set to dark, and I have the advanced theme setting set to "prefer dark mode" which I believe is now automatically set now to match the theme preference. And while most apps that don't give an option what theme you want will now be in dark mode, some gnome apps usually the ones with their own theme options still need to be manually set for some reason. It's a decent idea but the biggest hurdle beyond the already mentioned theme settings not being respected already is the ability for the system to detect which is which, and I suspect short of needing to select every application manually it will not happen within my or your life time. Just getting a oom killer that already exists added by defualt to keep users systems from crashing when RAM runs out has been a 60 comment affair and still has barely started to get anywhere. So I wish you luck with your idea but do not get your hopes up. |
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Judging from the number of complaints on the forums, getting certain apps to respect the user's themes seems to be a problem. I'm glad that someone has brought up the issue and made a proposal for solving it. Unfortunately, this issue may have to be taken to the teams that develop these apps. At least we can propose LibreOffice as an example, since it allows the user to choose among three viewing modes: "System", "Light", and "Dark". (Dark mode is not for me, since it poses accessibility problems for these old eyes, so I salute those who still have good enough eyesight to be able to use it.) |
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This seems like the issue the 'color-scheme' setting addresses, but it's up to individual apps to full implement this. You've got a global setting (for Cinnamon here, but it works for many other desktops): When that's set to 'let applications decide' (the default), individual apps can have their own preference. Xed (default Mint text editor): Celluloid allows you to choose: |
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my idea is that most apps would no longer choose to override the system theme preference based on being text‑focused or media‑focused, if the theme preference is split into "text-focused apps" and "media-focused apps". the current rationale that many developers have is that light mode is ideal for text‑focused apps and dark mode is ideal for media‑focused apps. but not all users share this opinion, so it would be good if they could decide for themselves
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this mechanism has nothing to do with recklessly changing the developers' theme. |
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"Dark mode" is just a name. If you want "dark mode" to be not dark, you can create a theme with "dark mode" that doesn't look dark. Maybe it will be fun if we automate such "light mode" theme A + "dark mode" theme B composition. |
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I would prefer if the all apps properly used the system theme I set in the first place, unless I want to manually select it.
gedit for reference has a default dark theme that works fine when just writing and reading text files, but any shell scripting with it's changing color highlights and text colors make things nearly unreadable last I checked, so I forced it to use a dark theme that actually works well, the problem is that their are 6 themes, 3 dark and 3 light so they can not optimize any one of them. When applications like gedit can follow the 3 above guide lines then we can talk about split theming, their would also need to be a line added to the .desktop standard along with mobile application tags like "mobile_app= (yes-no)" if split themes or mobile Linux phones and tablets are to make any sense. I have dealt with mobile a Linux smartphone before (as if you can't tell) it was a decent experience, phone calls were garbage, usable apps were slim without a monitor available, but the biggest problem was the de was unable to sort the mobile friendly and non-mobile friendly applications. My vent rant aside Linux in general needs to catch up to windows xp and old android versions before split theming could ever work properly. Linux theming is stuck for the most part stuck 10 years in the past, theming was worked out then new and/or useful UI trends such as dark themes which are almost required if you plan to use your computer all day or late at night, or save battery life with an oled display which Thu theming into a tornado of problems, we need fix the currant problems first, and stop this "stop theming my app" stuff if anything else is to be done with theming at this point. |
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Please forgive a slight correction: while it was perfectly true that CRT's run with a dark theme used about 20% less power, there is no power saving from running LCD and LED monitors in dark mode. On the other hand, today's LCD/LED monitors consume so much less electricity than CRT's, that the fact that dark mode offers no additional saving on top of that is irrelevant. In my view, people who like dark mode ought to use it, regardless. |
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I said "OLED" not LED, LED displays use a backlight, OLED displays have the pixels generate their own light so they don't have a backlight, so any parts of the screen not needing to be lit will not be lit allowing for better contrast, darker blacks, power savings, and a ever so slight increase in burn-in risk. And you are correct about the CRT connection, because they use the same idea, it's just that OLED displays can be thinner then a standard LCD, and use less power overall then both LCD and CRT displays do, assuming you are not overdriving them for faster pixel switching times anyway. |
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i suggest adding a "fallback theme preference" option to account for apps which did not yet adjust to the split theme preference |
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I just read billyswong's second link. Fascinating! One of my frustrations with Windows over the years was the constant narrowing down of what visual aspects were settable by the user. That is sort of understandable in the case of Microsoft and Apple; it seems odd, however, to read FOSS developers talking about their "brands" being diluted. In my view, the more customizable things are, the better. I guess the question comes down to whether I should have control over my computer, or whether some random developer should. I can see the logic on both sides, but my main concern is that many developers are not aware enough of the accessibility issues involved. If you take too much control away from the user, you risk making your app unusable. For example, in my case, white text on a black background is a no-go. My eyes are too old to cope with that. If a developer thinks it's cool and wants to make it an unchangeable feature of the app, it would be totally understandable, but it would make that app unusable in my case. There's got to be some way of accommodating both sides. |
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main idea
i noticed that some apps don't use the system theme setting by default.
in particular, it is common:
so i thought we should split the "apps" theme preference into "text-focosed apps" and "media-focused apps", so developers of these apps no longer have to decide if they should follow the system's app theme preference or override it — they could just read the "text-focused apps" or "media-focused apps" system theme preference.
while these settings are called "text-focused apps" or "media-focused apps", they don't necessarily have to apply to whole apps. some apps have both text-focused parts and media-focused parts, so for example Pix could use the "media-focused apps" theme preference for the gallery and image viewer, and the "text-focused apps" theme preference for its settings menu.
a different idea that is related
right now, the "system UI" theme preference is either light or dark. but after splitting the "apps" theme preference into "text-focused apps" and "media-focused apps", it makes sense to shuffle that around too:
the "system UI" theme preference could be split into "persistent system UI" and "fleeting system UI":
don't make the system theme preferences too granular
i suggested splitting the "apps" theme preference in system setting into "text-focused apps" and "media-focused apps" because i sense that's a common split that users and developers want. of course, apps can have more theme preferences from there, but except for "high contrast mode" (which is a different system setting) they are app‑specific, so they should stay in each app's theme settings and out of the system theme preferences.
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