I am interested in applying for GSoC 2025 and would love to contribute to GNOME. I wanted to check if my project idea aligns with GNOME’s goals before finalizing my proposal.
My idea is to develop a Dynamic Theming Engine for GNOME Shell, which would:
Enable automatic theme switching based on ambient light, battery status, or user-defined conditions (beyond just time-based switching).
Introduce smooth theme transition effects instead of abrupt changes.
Provide users with more customization options in GNOME Settings.
I searched GitLab but didn’t find an exact match. Before proceeding, I wanted to ask:
Has this feature been proposed or is it already in development?
Would the GNOME community find this project useful?
Are there any technical constraints I should be aware of?
I’d love to hear your thoughts before refining my GSoC proposal. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for your proposal. I’m one of the coordinators of the GSOC and Outreachy internships.
The issue here is that GNOME doesn’t prioritize theming. Theming in GNOME is mostly focused around usability - eg high contrast or specific things like accents.
From a more practical perspective, a dynamic theming engine is something that maintainers would have to maintain for the life of the project. If you put the initial proposal i, who will maintain it for decades to follow?
So, when adding major features like this - maintainability and supportability are important considerations.
Your project would incur a lot of work to get right, possibly years. It’s best to start with something small but impactful.