Re: Why aren't gtk color variables used in the Adwaita scss?

[Matthias Clasen <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 7:10 PM, Wayne Rowcliffe <wrowclif gmail com> wrote:
> I was looking to extend the Adwaita theme to use some different colors.
>
> This would be very straight-forward if Adwaita used @define-color
> variables throughout the theme since I could just redefine those
> values. However it looks like the Sass $variables are used instead.
>
> Is there a technical reason why we can't use GTK's variable support?
> It seems like it would be good on multiple levels, both because
> theme's would be easier to customize and because we would be using our
> own features.

There's several answers to this.

First, there _are_ some defined colors in Adwaita:
https://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/tree/gtk/resources/theme/Adwaita/_colors-public.scss

Second, defining colors like this effectively turns them into an API
that has to be preserved: Applications and theme authors start to rely
on them and complain when something changes. We want the freedom to
change things.

Third, Adwaita is not meant to be a theme construction kit, but rather
a complete, fully-defined experience. Making it
tweakable/configurable/extendable is not a goal.