They decided to make GTK4 apps exclusive to the desktop environment for which the app was built for. You could use it outside the intended DE but it will look alien.

That is simply not true: https://blog.elementary.io/linux-experiment-interview-cassid...

They have done pretty much the opposite - they added a proper API of theming instead of having a stylesheet override. GTK didn't really have themes before, so this is quite nice.

> They have done pretty much the opposite - they added a proper API of theming instead of having a stylesheet override.

That's not theming, that's just changing accent colors in the same theme. If I don't like dark background color, I can't change it. If I don't like the light background color, I can't change that either. All I can do is change accent colors.

The entire GTK and GNOME ecosystem is heading towards Android like customization and theming, which is basically non-existent at this point.

> GTK didn't really have themes before, so this is quite nice.

What?

GTK1 and GTK2 had zillions of actual themes and engines.

He's being pedantic. He means to say that because GTK had theming via stylesheets, it wasn't "real" theming but a hack.

Now, there's just a re-coloring API where I can't change the dark background if I don't like it and that's "real" theming.