This is what I was thinking when I read this. Wouldn't it just be easier to use GTK (or Qt) everywhere? They are already well supported on every other platform and can look very native the last time I checked.
> Wouldn't it just be easier to use GTK (or Qt) everywhere?
Which of those? GTK apps look alien on KDE desktops, and Qt apps look alien on GNOME desktops. Also, if you only need to create a window with a GL or Vulkan canvas, pulling in an entire UI framework dependency is overkill. There's SDL, GLFW, winit etc etc - but those also don't fix the 'native window chrome' problem in all situations and they all have to work around missing Wayland features. The bare window system functionality (managing windows - including window chrome and positioning(!), clipboard, drag'n'drop, ...) should really be part of the OS APIs (like it is on *every other* desktop operating system). Why does desktop Linux have to do its own thing, and worse (in the sense of: more developer hostile) than other desktop operating systems?
Frankly I don't get your problem or how is it different on any other OS. So your solution to GTK or qt looking alien is to look alien to everyone? Like there is no universe where "GTK doesn't look good, I will go with a custom written vulkan canvas" is a realistic scenario. Especially when all this has been blown way out of proportion when companies happily wrap their web apps into a browser and ship it as their software.
So again, how is it different elsewhere? What about windows, where even their own frameworks look alien because they have 3-4 of them? How is that the fault of Wayland somehow?!
> So your solution to GTK or qt looking alien is to look alien to everyone?
No? Where did I write that? I want my window to look and feel consistent with all other Linux desktop applications, and this is mainly achieved by having common window decorations (a problem that had already been solved by any other desktop operating system in the last 50 years).
> a problem that had already been solved by any other desktop operating system in the last 50 years
I just gave you an example of Windows that by default fails this requirement (see settings vs control panel or what that is called), let alone when you install applications using sorts of different frameworks.
Maybe other OSs solved this, but Windows didn’t - it just kept adding new UI libraries replacing older ones so that old software could still run and look old.
