Some snap desktop integration shortcomings

Desktop
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I would like to increase visibility of some specific aspects of snap in the desktop that are lacking. I’m opening a new thread because I feel the ramblings in Please, do not use snap into UBUNTU, it's too early have become pointless. I know this is better done in a bug tracker, and I’ve already done it weeks ago. Here I’m pointing to a number of somewhat unattended desktop related issues:

  1. The common themes snap is missing some themes. In particular the high quality, popular Materia theme that has superb coverage and is even ported to qt (using kvantum). This is the theme for Ubuntu Studio so it qualifies for the snap. My request was opened some weeks ago and recently Ubuntu Studio maintainer kindly offered help to package the theme (https://gitlab.gnome.org/Community/Ubuntu/gtk-common-themes/issues/13). Yet the report (and hence Erich offer) has received no answer and, in general, their Gitlab repo seems quite inactive. You might miss an opportunity there.

  2. Flatpak is ahead of snap in matters of theme packaging. A common themes snap is a temporary solution, this was already acknowledged, fine. But it is not clear if there is a roadmap or plan to allow independent sources to provide theme snaps.

  3. Qt theming is imposible (https://bugs.launchpad.net/snappy/+bug/1836054). There is no qgnomeplatform, no qt5ct, no kvantum support. One of them should be provided. Qgnomeplatform should work mostly out of the box AFAIK (in flatpak, they provide a qgnomeplatform package, similar to their gtk theme packages). Qt5ct and kvantum would require access to some config files. Also, in hidpi qt apps ignore scaling factor environment variables so they don’t scale at all (https://bugs.launchpad.net/snappy/+bug/1834061).

That’s it. Thank you very much for your impressive work in the snap system and store.

11 Likes
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Thanks for doing this. That other thread was not helpful.

1 Like
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Is there already a bug for the Firefox snap not picking up the Yaru theme?

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$ snap connections firefox
Interface               Plug                            Slot                     Notes
avahi-observe           firefox:avahi-observe           :avahi-observe           -
browser-support         firefox:browser-sandbox         :browser-support         -
camera                  firefox:camera                  :camera                  -
cups-control            firefox:cups-control            :cups-control            -
desktop                 firefox:desktop                 :desktop                 -
desktop-legacy          firefox:desktop-legacy          :desktop-legacy          -
gsettings               firefox:gsettings               :gsettings               -
home                    firefox:home                    :home                    -
network                 firefox:network                 :network                 -
network-observe         firefox:network-observe         -                        -
opengl                  firefox:opengl                  :opengl                  -
pulseaudio              firefox:pulseaudio              :pulseaudio              -
removable-media         firefox:removable-media         -                        -
screen-inhibit-control  firefox:screen-inhibit-control  :screen-inhibit-control  -
u2f-devices             firefox:u2f-devices             -                        -
unity7                  firefox:unity7                  :unity7                  -
upower-observe          firefox:upower-observe          :upower-observe          -
x11                     firefox:x11                     :x11                     -

they would need to connect the theme to gtk-common-themes snap. File a bug to Mozilla. Can’t remember if I did…

2 Likes
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Note that https://forum.snapcraft.io/ exists. I’m not sure which venue would be better, but AIUI all the snap-related developers follow that other Discourse more closely.

5 Likes