using theme without overwriting ~/.config/gtk-4.0 ?

[4e554c4c]

Hi!
I use more than one colorscheme daily. In particular, my desktop changes colors on day/night, since I usually prefer high contrast, but have an issue with too bright of a screen at night.

The installation instructions for these theme specify overwriting ~/.config/gtk-4.0 for gtk4-theme installation. Is this really necessary? I don't want it to affect the gtk theme that I use that's not rose-pine.

[ThatOneCalculator]

The only way to use it without overwriting is to use the Rosé Pine theme(s) on Gradience.

[4e554c4c]

this may be a solution, Gradience appears to provide an API that could be used to customize libadwaita directly.

I'm a bit confused why this is not planned, however.
Modifying libadwaita colors directly seems a bit destructive, and limits where this theme can be used.
Other themes that I use (e.g. https://github.com/vinceliuice/Orchis-theme) define their colors in SASS files, and compile to a gtk compatible theme format, which can be distributed directly without modification to the system.

Could you help me understand the technical reasons that this is not possible, and why this theme is not distributed as a single-folder GTK theme like others?

[ThatOneCalculator]

None of us have made a GTK theme "properly" before, if you want to PR and make it a bit more normal you could do that too.

[4e554c4c]

I'm happy to look into it!
is there anything stopping this issue from being open until the issue is solved?
I think it'd be easier for discoverability, and to track a solution.

[sofiedotcafe]

I don't know if this is related, but this theme compared to all the others, does not seem to respect GTK_THEME=<theme dir name>. Catppuccin GTK and Tokyo Night GTK work just fine with it?

This would be useful e.g. on nix cause its easier to set default env variables than default XDG Gradiance configs!