The blog post explores the renewed excitement around Linux theming, enabled by the flexibility of bootable containers like Distrobox. Previously, trying different desktop environments or themes meant significant system upheaval. Now, users can easily spin up containerized instances of various desktops (GNOME, KDE, Sway, etc.) with different themes, icons, and configurations, all without affecting their main system. This allows for experimentation and personalization without risk, making it simpler to find the ideal aesthetic and workflow. The post walks through the process of setting up themed desktop environments within Distrobox, highlighting the ease and speed with which users can switch between dramatically different desktop experiences.
This post provides a brief introduction to fundamental Emacs Lisp concepts. It covers basic data types like numbers, strings, and booleans, explaining how to manipulate them with built-in functions. The post also introduces lists, a crucial data structure in Lisp, showcasing their use in function definitions and data representation. It delves into defining functions with defun, demonstrating argument handling and return values. Finally, the post touches upon special forms like if and let for control flow and variable scoping, ultimately aiming to equip readers with the foundational knowledge needed to understand and write simple Emacs Lisp code.
HN users largely praised the article for its clarity and accessibility in explaining Emacs Lisp fundamentals. Several commenters highlighted its usefulness for beginners, with one calling it the best introduction they'd seen. Some appreciated the focus on practical examples and the author's clear writing style. A few pointed out minor typos or suggested additional topics, like dynamic scoping. One user mentioned using the article as a basis for an Emacs Lisp presentation, further demonstrating its perceived value within the community. The overall sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, indicating the article successfully fills a need for a concise and understandable guide to Emacs Lisp.
Pets for Cursor is a simple web app that adds a small animated pet to follow your mouse cursor around the screen. Choose from a variety of animals, including a cat, dog, duck, and hamster, each with their own unique walking animation. The project is open-source and easily customizable, allowing users to add their own pets by providing a sprite sheet. It's a fun, lightweight way to personalize your browsing experience.
The Hacker News comments on "Show HN: Pets for Cursor" are generally positive and intrigued by the project. Several commenters express interest in trying it out or appreciate the novelty. Some suggest improvements like different pet options, customizable animations, and the ability to toggle the pet on/off. A few commenters raise potential downsides, such as the pet being distracting or interfering with clicking. One commenter notes the similarity to a previous project called "Cursorcerer," which was received favorably by their team. Overall, the comments indicate that while a simple idea, "Pets for Cursor" has sparked interest and discussion around its potential utility and entertainment value.
The LWN article explores various forks of Firefox, categorizing them by their motivations. Some, like Waterfox and Pale Moon, prioritize maintaining legacy extensions and pre-Quantum features. Others, like Librewolf and IceCat, focus on enhancing privacy and removing proprietary components. The article highlights the challenges these forks face, including maintaining compatibility with the rapidly evolving web, security updates, and attracting enough developer support for long-term viability. It concludes that while these forks cater to niche audiences seeking specific features or philosophies, the significant undertaking of maintaining a browser makes it difficult for them to truly compete with the resources of a project like Firefox itself.
HN commenters discuss the challenges faced by Firefox forks, primarily focusing on the immense effort required to keep up with Mozilla's rapid development cycle. Several highlight the difficulty of maintaining compatibility with the vast web platform, especially considering the resources needed for testing and bug fixing. Some suggest that forking is not a practical solution for addressing specific user grievances and that contributing to the existing Firefox project is a more effective approach. The lack of resources available to smaller teams is a recurring theme, with commenters pointing out that even well-established forks like Waterfox struggle to maintain feature parity and security. The conversation also touches upon the difficulty of attracting users and the need for a truly compelling differentiator beyond superficial customizations.
This blog post details how to implement custom syntax highlighting in Emacs using tree-sitter. The author demonstrates creating a minor mode for highlighting TODO items and FIXMEs in comments within C++ code. This involves defining specific queries that target the comment nodes in the tree-sitter parse tree and then associating faces (colors and styles) with the captured nodes. The example provides a practical illustration of leveraging tree-sitter's structured code understanding to achieve more precise and context-aware highlighting than traditional regular expression-based approaches. The post also briefly covers how to incorporate these queries into a theme for broader application and includes a troubleshooting tip for ensuring tree-sitter highlighting is active.
HN commenters largely praised the integration of tree-sitter into Emacs, highlighting the significant improvements in syntax highlighting accuracy and performance. Some expressed excitement over the potential for more advanced features like semantic highlighting and code navigation enabled by tree-sitter's deeper understanding of code structure. A few users shared their personal experiences with setting up and using tree-sitter in Emacs, offering tips and workarounds for common issues. One commenter noted the wider adoption of tree-sitter across various editors and its positive impact on the developer experience. Others discussed the technical details of tree-sitter's implementation, comparing it to traditional regular expression-based highlighting. A couple of comments touched on the potential for future improvements, such as asynchronous parsing and better support for more obscure languages.
WhiteSur is a GTK theme inspired by macOS Big Sur's visual style. It aims to bring the clean, modern aesthetic of macOS to Linux desktops using GTK-based applications. The theme features rounded corners, translucency effects, and a light color palette, mimicking the characteristic appearance of macOS. It supports various GTK versions and desktop environments, offering a comprehensive macOS-like experience for Linux users.
Hacker News users generally praised the WhiteSur GTK theme for its aesthetics and macOS resemblance, with several noting its successful implementation of the blurred translucency effect. Some expressed concerns about GTK theming fragmentation and the potential for themes to negatively impact performance or deviate too far from native desktop environments. Others questioned the theme's adherence to GNOME HIG, suggesting potential usability issues could arise from mimicking macOS design language. A few users discussed the challenges of cross-platform theming and the intricacies of achieving visual consistency across different applications. Several commenters also mentioned or linked to alternative macOS-inspired themes for GTK and other desktop environments.
This paper argues for treating programming environments as malleable habitats rather than fixed tools. It proposes a shift from configuring IDEs towards inhabiting them, allowing developers to explore, adapt, and extend their environments in real-time and in situ, directly within the context of their ongoing work. This approach emphasizes fluidity and experimentation, empowering developers to rapidly prototype and integrate new tools and workflows, ultimately fostering personalized and more effective programming experiences. The paper introduces Liveness as a core concept, representing an environment's capacity for immediate feedback and modification, and outlines key principles and architectural considerations for designing such living programming environments.
HN users generally found the concept of "living" in a programming environment interesting, but questioned the practicality and novelty. Some pointed out that Emacs users effectively already do this, leveraging its extensibility for tasks beyond coding. Others drew parallels to Smalltalk environments. Several commenters expressed skepticism about the proposed benefits outweighing the effort required to build and maintain such a personalized system. The discussion also touched on the potential for increased complexity and the risk of vendor lock-in when relying heavily on a customized environment. Some users highlighted the paper's academic nature, suggesting that the focus was more on exploring concepts rather than providing a practical solution. A few requested examples or demos to better grasp the proposed system's actual functionality.
The Chrome team is working towards enabling customization of the <select> element using the new <selectmenu> element. This upcoming feature allows developers to replace the browser's default dropdown styling with custom HTML, offering greater flexibility and control over the appearance and functionality of dropdown menus. Developers will be able to integrate richer interactions, accessibility features, and more complex layouts within the select element, all while preserving the semantic meaning and native behavior like keyboard navigation and screen reader compatibility. This enhancement aims to address the longstanding developer pain point of limited styling options for the <select> element, opening up opportunities for more visually appealing and user-friendly form controls.
Hacker News users generally expressed frustration with the <select> element's historical limitations and welcomed the proposed changes for customization. Several commenters pointed out the difficulties in styling <select> cross-browser, leading to reliance on JavaScript workarounds and libraries like Choices.js. Some expressed skepticism about the proposed solution's complexity and potential performance impact, suggesting simpler alternatives like allowing shadow DOM styling. Others questioned the need for such extensive customization, arguing for consistency and accessibility over visual flair. A few users highlighted specific use cases, such as multi-select with custom item rendering, where the proposed changes would be beneficial. Overall, the sentiment leans towards cautious optimism, acknowledging the potential improvements while remaining wary of potential drawbacks.
This blog post details the author's highly automated Vim setup, emphasizing speed and efficiency. Leveraging plugins like vim-plug for plugin management and a variety of others for features like fuzzy finding, Git integration, and syntax highlighting, the author creates a streamlined coding environment. The post focuses on specific configurations and keybindings for tasks such as file navigation, code completion, compiling, and debugging, showcasing a personalized workflow built around minimizing friction and maximizing productivity within Vim. The ultimate goal is to achieve a near-IDE experience using Vim's powerful extensibility.
Hacker News users generally praised the author's approach to Vim automation, emphasizing the balance between leveraging Vim's powerful features and avoiding over-complication. Several commenters shared their own preferred plugins and workflows, highlighting tools like fzf, vim-projectionist, and CtrlP for file navigation, and luasnip and UltiSnips for snippets. Some appreciated the author's philosophy of learning Vim gradually and organically, rather than attempting to master everything at once. A few commenters discussed the trade-offs between using a highly configured Vim setup versus a more minimalist approach, and the potential drawbacks of relying too heavily on plugins. There was also a brief discussion about the relative merits of using language servers and other external tools within Vim.
Summary of Comments ( 69 )
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743784
Hacker News users discussed the practicality and appeal of extensively theming Linux, particularly within containers. Some found the author's pursuit of highly customized aesthetics appealing, appreciating the control and personal expression it offered. Others questioned the time investment versus the benefit, especially given the ephemeral nature of containers. The discussion also touched on the balance between aesthetics and functionality, with some arguing that excessive theming could hinder usability. A few commenters shared their own theming experiences and tools, while others expressed a preference for minimal, distraction-free environments. The idea of containers as disposable environments clashed with the effort involved in detailed theming for some, prompting discussion on whether this approach was sustainable or efficient.
The Hacker News post "The Joy of Linux Theming in the Age of Bootable Containers" generated a moderate discussion with several interesting points raised in the comments section.
Several commenters discussed the benefits and drawbacks of using containers for theming, particularly in comparison to traditional methods. One user pointed out the advantage of containerized theming for easy experimentation and switching between different themes without affecting the base system. They also highlighted the potential for using pre-built, themed container images, simplifying the process for less technical users. However, another commenter countered this by mentioning the increased complexity and resource overhead that can come with containerization, especially for users unfamiliar with container technologies. This led to a small thread discussing the practicality of containers for simple theming tasks, with some arguing that the added complexity might outweigh the benefits for many users.
The discussion also touched upon the broader topic of Linux desktop customization and the challenges involved. One commenter expressed nostalgia for the days of easier theming and customization in older desktop environments, lamenting the increasing complexity and fragmentation in modern Linux desktops. Another user brought up the issue of maintaining consistent theming across different applications and desktop environments, suggesting that containerization could potentially offer a solution to this problem.
Some comments focused on the specific tools and techniques mentioned in the linked article, with users sharing their own experiences and preferences. One commenter mentioned their preferred method of theming using configuration files and scripts, while another expressed interest in exploring the container-based approach described in the article.
Finally, a few comments drifted slightly off-topic, discussing related subjects such as the overall state of Linux desktop usability and the challenges of attracting new users. One commenter argued that the focus on advanced features and customization often comes at the expense of user-friendliness, potentially alienating less technical users.
In summary, the comments section offers a diverse range of perspectives on the topic of Linux theming, with particular emphasis on the potential benefits and drawbacks of using containers. The discussion also touches upon broader issues related to Linux desktop customization and usability.