[SOLVED] Gnome Shell Themes fail

[Dan]

*Sigh!*

Sheesh! Not again with the "no themes" shenanigans! Whussup with this?

[Dan]

Hmmmm. Gonna have to mark this as solved ... but the catch is ... I don't know how, nor why.

Bottom line is, I ripped all those packages out by the roots, and re-installed them, and now themes work ... but the additional hot-corner on the right doesn't.

Yeah, we're into the second generation/go 'round on Gnome Shell and its extensions ... but methinks the tools for customizing this beast are still mostly broken.




<....>

[fpmurphy]

but the additional hot-corner on the right doesn't.

You talking about the extension that I wrote for you?

[Dan]

Ayup. And also the one in the repos. Neither one is working.

Originally Posted by Dan

Ayup. And also the one in the repos. Neither one is working.

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpo...64&postcount=4 extensions that dont work and do work

[Dan]

Well, the interesting part about that is, Greg, both of them pull in each other as dependencies.

[fpmurphy]

Originally Posted by Dan

Ayup. And also the one in the repos. Neither one is working.

I have just started work on porting my extensions to GNOME Shell 3.2. Not as simple as it should be because of a number of subtle and not so subtle changes in the JavaScript code. In particular, monkey patching does not work as in 3.0.

In many cases, what took 4 lines in 3.0, is now taking 20 lines in 3.2.

Should have your extension working within a week.

[DBelton]

I am still having issues with the alternate status menu extension. Works fine if I start it after gnome shell is running,, but if it's enabled when I start gnome shell, then I get that big fail screen.

I can see now that this method extensions just isn't going to work good. Especially on providing things that should be in gnome shell by default anyway.

[LightDot]

I was unable to get any extensions from the repos to work so far.

I tried:
gnome-shell-extension-user-theme
gnome-shell-extension-theme-selector
gnome-shell-extension-remove-accessibility-icon (this one has an obvious bug)
gtk-unico-engine

I'm using gnome-tweak-tool and have of course restarted shell.

So, no packaged themes for me... No Unico. I haven't tried manually installing yet.

I also took the time to package the rpm for the Gnome Shell Weather Extension version that should be compatible with Gnome 3.2, but it crashes Gnome Shell after enabling it (big bad black screen).

Hmm. So, Dan, you have uninstalled the themes packages and installed again? With gnome-shell-extension-user-theme? That's it??

Did you also uninstall/install the gnome-tweak-tool?

[Dan]

Originally Posted by LightDot

So, Dan, you have uninstalled the themes packages and installed again? With gnome-shell-extension-user-theme? That's it??

Did you also uninstall/install the gnome-tweak-tool?
Edit/Delete Message

I ripped it all out by the roots, and reinstalled, including gnome-tweak-tool..

Originally Posted by DBelton

I can see now that this method extensions just isn't going to work good. Especially on providing things that should be in gnome shell by default anyway.

Ayup. It kinda seems that way, doesn't it? I understand that it's a growing thing and they're still working the kinks out, but this is a little counter-productive.

Originally Posted by fpmurphy

I have just started work on porting my extensions to GNOME Shell 3.2. Not as simple as it should be because of a number of subtle and not so subtle changes in the JavaScript code. In particular, monkey patching does not work as in 3.0.

In many cases, what took 4 lines in 3.0, is now taking 20 lines in 3.2.

Should have your extension working within a week.

I really do appreciate all the work you are putting into this. The irony here, I suppose, is that there is an extension for that present in the repos already, but it is in full failure mode. 3.2 totally ignores it. Which is a good thing, in a weird sort of way. A number of the other extensions in the repos flatline the GUI with no mercy or warning. <....>

So I suppose the root question here is, from your point of view as a code contributing member of the community, are these changes in 3.2 and the attending headaches with extensions a good thing ... or not? Which then begs the question, is user preference extensibility now being treated with respect and progress ... or once again with disdain and a certain amount of passive aggressive resentment?

[bob]

Oh no, he DIDN'T!

The Staff & Management Of FedoraForum.org Completely Disavows Any Knowledge Of The Man Known As Dan And Of His Negative Statements Toward Our Beloved Overlords.

[Dan]

Yeah ... (Sigh!) ... he did. <....>



<....>

[DBelton]

That is odd, Dan.

The user theme extension works ok for me here. (Not the one written by fpmurphy, though. I like his better, but he hasn't updated it yet to work right with 3.2, but as he stated above, he is in the process of updating his extensions)

gnome-shell-extension-user-theme works ok

gnome-shell-extension-theme-selector does not.

And I also had the issues with the gnome-shell-extension-remove-accessibility-icon like lightdot above. So far it hasn't crashed the shell, but it just doesn't work. So, it got uninstalled until I figure out how to get it to work for me. (I'm getting tired of that funky little dude icon up there, though)

But, for now, at least.. The gnome-shell-extension-apps-menu, gnome-shell-extension-places-menu.and gnome-shell-extension-user-theme works, so at least it makes gnome shell somewhat usable for me.

What really gets me, though..

How many desktop environments do you know of that don't let you change the theme? And I don't mean by adding a plugin or extension to do it. Just about EVERY desktop environment written in the past 20 years has a way to do it easily. That is, except for gnome 3 shell. Heck, even my phone that is ancient by today's standards allows me to change the theme without a lot of trouble (only device I have that is running windows now)

And no, this isn't another "bash gnome shell rant" I have tried to calm those down, even though I haven't gotten to where I like gnome shell any more than I did back during the F15 alpha.

This is more of a "wondering why they shuffle off to extension some of the core functions that should be included in the desktop" rant. Just about every body I know at least wants to be able to change the theme of the desktop. So, if they had that functionality included in the desktop instead of an extension, then it lowers the number of people that would have problems running gnome shell.

But anyway, most of my rants on gnome shell have been about things that SHOULD be in every desktop environment but for some odd reason the gnome developers have decided to either leave out completely or push off onto others by means of extensions. Problem is, the current extension system isn't going to work too well.

Heck, even with extensions, it's still a pain in the butt to change the themes how you want them to be. You can't see what the themes look like as in previous versions (the cursor, window, icon, and GTK themes especially) At least there was a preview window in gnome 2 where you could see what you were getting. With gnome 3 its... hmmmmm.... AgingGorilla sounds like it looks great! You set it, nothing.. oops.. you have to restart the shell to see what it looks like.. A big step backwards if you ask me.

[fpmurphy]

Originally Posted by Dan

I
I really do appreciate all the work you are putting into this. The irony here, I suppose, is that there is an extension for that present in the repos already, but it is in full failure mode. 3.2 totally ignores it. Which is a good thing, in a weird sort of way. A number of the other extensions in the repos flatline the GUI with no mercy or warning.

Aagh! Never was informed that it was in the Fedora repos. Apparantly, along with other extensions that I wrote, it was packed by a Fabian Affolter. It should never have been packaged for F16/GNOME 3.2! I looked at a number of other extensions and they also will not work with F16/GNOME 3.2.

Somebody needs to examine all the GNOME Shell extensions packaged for F16 and pull all the packages that are not GNOME 3.2 ready. Should probably be a showstopper or at a minimum be clearly documented in the release notes. Adam W - are you listening?

So I suppose the root question here is, from your point of view as a code contributing member of the community, are these changes in 3.2 and the attending headaches with extensions a good thing ... or not?

Neither good nor bad. Just a severe headache for somebody like myself whose extensions go deep into the Shell.

Which then begs the question, is user preference extensibility now being treated with respect and progress ... or once again with disdain and a certain amount of passive aggressive resentment?

Hah, a leading question! Extension developers such as myself get the mushroom treatment by the self-anointed gods of GS. Don't you know that! "Not invented here, therefore no good" would appear to be their catchphrase. Seriously, though, there will always be a certain about of tension between the GS core developers and peripheral developers such as myself. That is simply the nature of the beast.

[LightDot]

I just tried again, removed everything extension related, restarted gnome-shell, reinstalled in one step with 'yum install gnome-tweak-tool gtk-unico-engine gnome-shell-extension-user-theme gnome-shell-theme-*', restarted gnome-shell again.

No apparent errors. But... Yes, as always, there is a "but"... There is still an orange triangle next to Theme -> Shell theme in gnome-tweak-tool. Nothing under "Shell Extensions". Sigh. And no "Unico" to choose anywhere either. Second sigh.

Ah well, I'll play with it more later. I'm gonna fire up my mock devel machine and get gnome-shell-extension-weather rpm fixed, the lack of that is annoying me more.