GNUstep Starts 2019 With Improvements To This Open-Source Apple Cocoa Implementation

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNUstep Starts 2019 With Improvements To This Open-Source Apple Cocoa Implementation

GNUstep, the long-standing implementation of Apple's Cocoa/Objective-C frameworks as open-source and supported on Linux, BSDs, and other platforms, started off 2019 with some new releases. GNUstep GUI 0.27, GNUstep Base 1.26, and GNUstep GUI Backend 0.27 are the new releases out today...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNUstep-2019

[tildearrow]

Typo:

Within GNUstep GUI ).27

[uid313]

But GNUstep is so ugly. It looks like something from the early 1990s.
It doesn't look anything like modern macOS or anything modern.

[starshipeleven]

But GNUstep is so ugly. It looks like something from the early 1990s.
It doesn't look anything like modern macOS or anything modern.

It's a great match for Hurd, then.

[kaidenshi]

But GNUstep is so ugly. It looks like something from the early 1990s.
It doesn't look anything like modern macOS or anything modern.

That's a feature, not a bug. It isn't meant to look like anything other than NeXTSTEP, and its beauty lies under the hood. Besides, if you're that worried about looks, you can use the GNUstep libraries with pretty much any WM or DE.

[cybertraveler]

But GNUstep is so ugly. It looks like something from the early 1990s.
It doesn't look anything like modern macOS or anything modern.

I skimmed through the GUI repo ( https://github.com/gnustep/libs-gui ). I couldn't see any files or documentation directly related to skinning.

GNUMail running on OS X looks nice:


I guess it's using Cocoa there.

The same GNUMail app running with GNUstep:

http://www.gnustep.org/softwareindex/screenshots/00181_0.jpg

:S

The stock appearance on GNU/Linux is indeed very 90s. It looks functional at least. I'd rather use a GTK3+ app though.

I found this shot of GNUstep with a dark look and it looks a bit nicer:

http://www.gnustep.org/images/full-screenshot1.png

This suggests there is some possibility of skinning/theming or at least, tweaking.

[uid313]

I skimmed through the GUI repo ( https://github.com/gnustep/libs-gui ). I couldn't see any files or documentation directly related to skinning.

GNUMail running on OS X looks nice:
I guess it's using Cocoa there.

The same GNUMail app running with GNUstep:

http://www.gnustep.org/softwareindex/screenshots/00181_0.jpg

:S

The stock appearance on GNU/Linux is indeed very 90s. It looks functional at least. I'd rather use a GTK3+ app though.

I found this shot of GNUstep with a dark look and it looks a bit nicer:

http://www.gnustep.org/images/full-screenshot1.png

This suggests there is some possibility of skinning/theming or at least, tweaking.

Even on the OS X screenshot it looks like on the macOS of 10-15 years ago.
And yeah GNUstep it looks terrible.
Yeah, I agree, I rater run a GTK3+ app.

And with the skinning it seems to from terrible to bad.

This GNUstep thing is very unsexy.

[ivucica]

(Disclaimer: I'm an occasional contributor, and I've lately been the person doing the grunt work behind creating new releases.)

I skimmed through the GUI repo ( https://github.com/gnustep/libs-gui ). I couldn't see any files or documentation directly related to skinning.

Not sure about the documentation, but apologies for losing some of the organization during the migration from a monolithical Subversion repo towards a bunch of Git repos.

If I didn't do it (not a small effort), it might be easier to spot the "plugins/themes/Gtk" folder, which is now a separate repo: https://github.com/gnustep/plugins-themes-Gtk

I guess it's using Cocoa there.

Yes, it does; it's been decided long ago that there isn't any point in substituting the Foundation and AppKit implementations (aside from some additions).

And yeah GNUstep it looks terrible.

And with the skinning it seems to from terrible to bad.

I disagree. Here's an image with the Rik theme:



I'm no fan of the default theme (though many contributors are), and I do have my own complaints, but I'm repeatedly surprised by the good work done by theme developers.

There's a GTK2 theme as well.

The general thinking behind GNUstep is still "it's a library, not an environment". If a developer is used to AppKit and Foundation in Cocoa, they can still choose to write an app with a similar API on a non-proprietary platform. There are some apps and games using GNUstep (OOLite, for instance). I'm personally very partial to Objective-C, as a really decent language for writing GUIs, with design of Foundation and AppKit also being a good match for very easily putting together applications while still staying in a C-style environment.

Now, because it's a library (aimed at devs), there's no reference environment that serves users. There are dedicated users that usually build it around WindowMaker and GWorkspace, but there's no recommended environment and settings that core contributors would point you at. We don't have a reference environment showing developers whether it's possible to build a 'modern'-looking environment. Distributions ship with the "default defaults", because we simply don't ship "better" defaults.

Sadly, this results in people seeing the default theme and thinking "this is what GNUstep can be". I'd perhaps compare it with running Windows XP in "safe mode" and saying "this can't go over 640x480".

There's a separate project that I'm aware of which is trying to provide a 'reference environment' called NEXTSPACE: https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace (Although, the latest commit seems to be patching a several releases old (!) version of gnustep-base. That is, it's patching something several years old. I hope the author tries to upstream some of the changes, and migrates to a newer release.)

Thanks for the interest, and I hope this clarifies the situation a bit!

[zzarko]

Nice to see one of contributors here! I really like when someone from the discussed project answers questions and points to problem solving, thanks!

[cybertraveler]

Thanks for your post and your contributionsivucica