Is there any information how mate will handle adwaita applications in the future. Mate could fork nearly all stable gnome apps, but is this the only solution? Adwaita can be patched or the GTK Theme variable set to force another theme. 24.04 has many gtk4 adwaita apps already, how will they be intergated in the os? For yaru its not that much of a problem 'cause its already flat.
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I had been looking to install on my Ubuntu Mate small adwaita app (Tuba to be specific) and it appears I ... can not?
My understanding is that these apps use a library like libadwaita, meaning the app itself is rendering on its own accord - a bit like an Electron or Flutter app which don't look native the system either.
To know for sure, you can list the libraries:
ldd /full/path/to/program
If the library is "linked", in theory, someone could patch the library, but it would be unsupported/hacky territory. For that reason, I don't think Ubuntu MATE could pursuit that, never mind forking apps just to hack in MATE theme support.
GNOME don't appear to be keen have their apps themed, since it doesn't really fit their design philosophy.
Looks like there was a project that could recolour Adwaita apps, but it's been discontinued:
Some blog posts covering it:
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Hi, i did look at it, you would have to fork libadwaita each time and to distribute a custom version for each app. Basically you would need to create an appimage or snap for each Application theme combination or to globally Patch adwaita which might break your Install tm. Kind regards bluedxca93