I need the Snap budgie-common-themes, flugir-budgie-theme, pocillo-icon-theme and linux-mint-themes to automatically connect to apps that have the gtk-2-themes, gtk-3-themes and icon-themes plugs.
What is needed to achieve auto-connection?
hi @Desire_Kyuyrii, sorry for the delay!
Just to clarify, is you request for the budgie-common-themes, flugir-budgie-theme, pocillo-icon-theme and linux-mint-themes snaps to auto-connect to gtk-2-themes, gtk-3-themes and icon-themes via the content interface?
Thanks!
1 Like
That’s right, so that Snap apps can use GTK themes, icon themes, and cursors without requiring the user to use commands for this to happen.
Just like what happens with gtk-common-themes and icon-theme-papirus.
As per the details from Process for aliases, auto-connections and tracks under “content for theme snaps”, these snaps are:
- appear to contain only (valid) content files
- does not ship any commands, daemon or hooks
@Desire_Kyuyrii - are you a member of the budgie or mint upstreams? Just looking to get a better idea of assurance from the snap publisher that they will maintain a stable “API” for the content interface and hence won’t remove things from it etc which could then break other snaps which use the content interface. Similar to the comment in this thread
I’m not a member of any of these, I’m just a user who migrated to Budgie a few weeks ago, but since I had problems with themes involving Snaps, I decided to find out how to make Snap versions of themes, to help those who have the same problems as me.
For example, Ubuntu Budgie comes with Pocillo icons, but they are not used by apps, and are not available in gtk-common-themes or gtk-theme-pocillo, so anyone who uses Ubuntu Budgie may have a bad experience with the system because of this, and having to use commands so that the user can use a simple theme doesn’t seem ideal to me.
The experience of using Snaps on other systems can be a nuisance due to the lack of themes that that distro uses, so much so that I chose most of the themes used in budgie-common-themes based on Ubuntu Budgie, Fedora, Ultramarine and Arch.
You can see everything that is inside my Snaps on my Github, I use local files, the files used, the Snap files and the snapcraft.yaml are there.
I forgot to mention one thing, I put the complete files in the folder used to create the Snaps, in case someone wants to use exactly the same ones I used to create the Snap.
In my releases on Github I leave a compressed file with “snapcraft” in the name, so that people know that these are the files used to create the Snap.
I noticed that when the Snap file is created, the Snap “snapcraft” does not copy all the GTK theme folders, it only chooses the gtk-2.0, gtk-3.0 and gtk-4.0 folders, which are the necessary ones, ignoring anything that is not important.
I saw some Snap themes that do not have the gtk4 files, which prevents Snap Transmission from using the user’s theme, since it uses the gtk4 files, and creates the feeling that there was a bug or that it is a problem with the Snap version of Transmission, which is not the case.
That’s why I added the Matcha, Materia, Pocillo and QogirBudgie themes to budgie-common-themes, with gtk4 files, since they don’t have these files in the Snap themes where they are available.
I also added several icons, including ePapirus, which is not available in Snap icon-theme-papirus for some reason.
Sorry for talking so much, but during the time I’ve been using Ubuntu Budgie, I’ve noticed a few things about themes, and I really like Ubuntu Budgie. I don’t want to go to another distro. I want to help solve these problems, especially since Ubuntu Budgie encourages customization. However, it’s not a good experience for Ubuntu Budgie users not to be able to use their themes in Snaps, or need commands, just as it wouldn’t be a good experience for users of other distros not to be able to use their themes in Snap applications.
I really like Snaps, and I want more people to be able to use them, and ensuring visual consistency already makes a good first impression.
@review-team @alexmurray @zyga @jnsgruk
I saw that you guys also analyze the requests, so I’m tagging you guys too.
I made the snapcraft.yaml files easier to see by putting them outside the tar.gz file, but the files for the themes used are still in the compressed file.
Please stop doing this, when you added your request to the store-requests category it went into a queue which gets processed in order, please let the reviewers do their job, nagging them all the time will not speed anything up but just annoy people…
1 Like
Sorry, but since there is no confirmation that I joined any queue, it seems that for the request to be valid, those who can vote need to see it.
And since the other requests had been completely ignored, I thought that no one had noticed that they had been made, since no one had shown up to at least confirm that they had been received, if they were made correctly, or if more information was needed to be able to analyze whether or not the Snap could win what was requested.
Hey @Desire_Kyuyrii
Sorry for the really long delay processing your requests. I confirm this request is in the queue but we need a little more time to clarify a couple of aspects internally. I hope we will be able to proceed with this request early next week.
Again, sorry for the long wait
2 Likes
We are still discussing this snap internally but wanted to let you know we haven’t forgotten about it. Sorry for the delay!
1 Like
hi @Desire_Kyuyrii,
Thank you for your patience whilst we were discussing how to proceed with this request.
After our discussion, the best way forward would be for you to reach out to the upstreams about them owning these snaps. Because of the nature of these type of snaps and our process around publisher vetting, we would require the owner of this snap to be the upstream or a tarred / verified publishers in the store.
I saw there are some budgie theme snaps on the store already so reaching out via their git repo or via the forum DMs may be a good place to start!
Sorry for the question, but what is the purpose of making it so difficult to use a theme in Snap applications?
It’s not like the lack of automatic connection prevents the use of themes, it’s not even necessary for the Snap themes to be in the Snap Store in order to be installed.
This ends up only harming the experience of Snap users, as well as making it difficult for the creators of the themes.
When they make the themes available for download, they want people to use them, regardless of whether it’s a native package, Snap or Flatpak. If it’s so difficult to use them in Snap applications, that goes against the intention of their creators.
And you didn’t answer about Flugir-Budgie, which is the theme I made based on Qogir, I’m the publisher of it.
hi @Desire_Kyuyrii, sorry for the delay.
I’ll add it to the other request about Flugir-Budgie but similarly to what jslarraz said, I’m happy to +1 pending publisher.
For your first question, it is all dependent on the publisher vetting and support process. To ensure consumers of the themes that the content is stable, up to date and maintained. Linking back to what alexmurray mentioned in this topic:
So there are two main things here - since this is a content interface we need an assurance from the snap publisher that they will maintain a stable “API” for the content interface and hence won’t remove things from it etc which could then break other snaps which use the content interface.
The second thing is since this is using greedy plugs to ensure it is auto-connected to any plugging snap then we need to get some assurance that the snap is “safe” (ie that it doesn’t ship say a daemon or hook or any command etc, and to vet the publisher as well).
For the theme snaps that are shipping the budgie or mint themes, because they are being snapped with no upstream relation or collaboration, we can’t complete publisher vetting or ensure the two points made in the quote above.
That is why we think the best course of action is to reach out and involve upstream so these themes can be shipped and people can enjoy the benefits of your snaps!