Re: [ELPA] New package: gnome-dark-style

[david]

Ship Mints <shipmints@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Mar 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM Ship Mints <shipmints@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  On Sat, Mar 8, 2025 at 10:24 AM david <davidimagid@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Ship Mints <shipmints@gmail.com> writes:
>
>  > On Sat, Mar 8, 2025 at 9:13 AM Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>
>  wrote:
>  >
>  >  david <davidimagid@gmail.com> writes:
>  >
>  >  > Hello Emacs maintainers,
>  >  >
>  >  > I would like to submit my package "gnome-dark-style" to GNU
>  ELPA.
>  >  >
>  >  > * Repository
>  >  > https://github.com/dimagid/gnome-dark-style
>  >  >
>  >  > The code is licensed under GPLv3.
>  >  >
>  >  > * Description
>  >  > The gnome-dark-style package automatically synchronizes the
>  Emacs
>  >  > theme with GNOME's color scheme. It allows users to define
>  custom
>  >  light
>  >  > and dark themes, ensuring a consistent look and feel across the
>  >  GNOME
>  >  > desktop environment and GNU Emacs.
>  >  >
>  >  > * Features
>  >  > - Automatically switches between light and dark themes based on
>  >  GNOME's
>  >  >   color scheme.
>  >  > - Supports custom light and dark themes.
>  >  > - Monitors GNOME's color scheme in real-time and updates the
>  Emacs
>  >  theme
>  >  >   accordingly.
>  >  >
>  >  > * Requirements
>  >  > - GNOME Shell 47.4 (tested with this version).
>  >  > - The gsettings command must be available on your system.
>  >  >
>  >  > Please let me know the next steps to move forward. I will be
>  attentive
>  >  > to ensure everything is in order.
>  >  >
>  >  > Thanks!
>  >  >
>  >  > David D.
>  >
>  >  Would you generalize this package to employ the recently
>  standardized
>  >  xdg-portal APIs for retrieving and receiving notifications of
>  changes to
>  >  this preference, and submit it for inclusion in Emacs?  It is a
>  frequent
>  >  request that Emacs should adapt to desktop theming preferences,
>  and
>  >  not
>  >  always just GNOME's.
>  >
>  >   
>  > 
>  
> https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/docs/doc-org.freedesktop.portal.Settings.html
>  
>  >  
>  >
>  > +1
>  >
>  > And +1 to make this, per the earlier emacs-devel discussion this
>  week,
>  > sufficiently generic to eventually process Windows and macOS
>  theme-change
>  > notifications.  I would avoid using the term "dark" in the package
>  name, I find
>  > it unhelpful.  Better might be something like system-theme.el which
>  would be
>  > more precise.  I did offer to assist on API and indicated WIP on
>  something
>  > similar to detect and notify of system-level sleep/wake events.
>
>  Hi developers,
>
>  The gnome-dark-style package does not require D-Bus. As far as I
>  know,
>  Emacs only uses D-Bus when compiled with the respective library,
>  see
>  configuration option --with-dbus. However, I’m not sure if Emacs is
>  compiled --with-dbus by default.
>
>  There are packages that attempt to solve this synchronization issue
>  using D-Bus, but they didn’t work as smoothly as I wanted for
>  automatic
>  theme switching. I tried hacking the code, but I ran into more issues
>  and ultimately decided to tackle the problem in the simplest and
>  most
>  direct way possible, without introducing unnecessary complexity.
>
>  Personally, I believe the ideal solution—though potentially
>  cumbersome
>  and, as someone previously noted, possibly inelegant—would be to
>  create
>  a separate package capable of handling all desktop communication
>  methods across different desktop environments and operating
>  systems. gnome-dark-style is not that package; it’s specifically
>  designed for GNOME. The current implementation is minimal,
>  straightforward, and easy to understand. Could gnome-dark-style be
>  used
>  by such a package? Yes, of course, but that depends on whether
>  there’s
>  interest in pursuing that work.
>
>  Emacs has dbus support even on macOS when dbus is available.  dbus is
>  likely available on most platforms and most builds.
>
>  I think the more important concern for introducing such a package is for
>  people who use the same Emacs configuration across multiple operating
>  systems.  I use macOS, Linux, and occasionally Windows.  I do not want to
>  have three different packages to detect sleep/wake, or system theme
>  change.  The underlying implementation details might be different, but in
>  my init, it'll be one package with one configuration, not the Emacs version
>  of ifdef everywhere for platform specifics.  This is what I expect
>  sleep/wake will look like.  A single "API" with a single set of functions and
>  hooks to use regardless of back-end implementation.  Don't you agree
>  that's a good way to go?
>

Perhaps, but gnome-dark-style is specifically designed for GNOME (it
could potentially be used in other desktop environments, but that would
require testing to see if gsettings and the color-scheme variable
interact in the same way). I believe we can have packages in GNU ELPA
that work across all environments and operating systems, as well as
environment-specific packages.

Today, Eli mentioned a function I wasn’t aware of,
w32-follow-system-dark-mode. I looked for it, but it’s not available in
my Emacs because I use GNU/Linux. That doesn’t mean the function
shouldn’t exist—of course not! It serves its purpose and works
specifically for Windows (or whatever w32 encompasses).