GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 661724
Need a set of guidelines on the proper use of dark gtk variants
Last modified: 2020-12-04 18:20:22 UTC
Since 3.2, applications such as eog and totem now use the dark variant of GTK themes. I predict that without proper guidelines explaining - what is the use case for dark themes (why they exist in the first place) - when to use them - when not to use them - whether or not the application needs to provide the user with a choice ...many application writers will be tempted to just use dark variants wantonly. I, for one, would like to have such clarifications for my own use.
GtkSettings:gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme already has the beginnings of a usage guideline: """ Some applications benefit from minimizing the amount of light pollution that interferes with the content. Good candidates for dark themes are photo and video editors that make the actual content get all the attention and minimize the distraction of the chrome. Dark themes should not be used for documents, where large spaces are white/light and the dark chrome creates too much contrast (web browser, text editor...). """ so we can reuse it. in general, I'd say that if you don't already know why your app should have darker controls then you shouldn't be using them. :-)
I have a page stub with advice on colour: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/HIG/Color This needs working up and integrating.
Bug #737595 is a tiny bit more general (thats why I'm marking this as a duplicate) but essentially covers this. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 737595 ***