Unsolved Need for a Vivaldi Theme store
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And now more serious considerations:
Mods don’t work well together. This is especially true for js mods, but is also an issue for css ones. You take a ton of mods from the forum, but who is gonna test them, who is going to assure they work together and which mods function in what configuration and what steps need to be taken to assure it all works? Who is gonna test everything after every Vivaldi update? Let’s not forget there is stable and snapshot, is this going to be two branches and then it all goes into an app? Is there an app for stable and an app for snapshot? How are you going to collect mods, do you decide for yourself what you want and then go with it, or can anyone submit a mod? Who are you to decide what goes in and what doesn’t and how are you going to enforce it?
We already have a mod collection done by a very talented individual which caters to users who want their mod experience more casual ☛ https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/11298/vivaldihooks-more-useful-mods. It’s a limited collection of mods done by a handful of people and from what I can gather it’s still not simple.
It’s not as simple as you might believe.
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This idea already came up & was discussed at least here weeks ago. I don't think anything come to fruition so far…
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@luetage said in Need for a Vivaldi Theme store:
See for yourself https://discord.com/channels/170121320825225218/366674001470423042
It’s locked behind login, so I cannot. (But your summary has been enough for me.)
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@luetage Makes sense. Thanks for the detailed reply!
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I had volunteered to build the social and web parts of such a theme/mod-sharing website. I’ve done similar things before (my GitHub, if you’re interested).
I think the challenges brought up by @luetage, if difficult, are quite surpassable, as long as they are undertaken by the entire Vivaldi modding community.
One thing I just want to clarify is that we’re not suggesting a mod-pack, but a mod distributor and loader, so every user could pick what mods they want to install.Vivaldi browser has no inbuilt way to share themes
As you mentioned, this could be accomplished by a mod. It would be easy for a mod-loading app to also load a theme-loading mod by default.
Modifications break and Vivaldi changes
This is the biggest problem with modding right now—many mods on the forums are out of date. I think the easiest way to address this is with a centralized repository of mods. That way, if one goes out of date, any of the users can report it as broken, any of its users can submit a fix, and all of the users reap the benefits.
Mods don’t work well together
It would of course be possible to install a combination of mods that would be broken, but this seems like less of a concern than installing a single outdated mod. And again, with a website dedicated to tracking mods, you could share incompatibility bugs and report them so that others don’t run into them.
Let’s not forget there is stable and snapshot
My preference would be to only support the current stable version of Vivaldi, and hide mods that don’t work on that version. Updating mods for every snapshot indeed would be a lot of work.
@luetage has certainly been vocal in opposing standardization or centralization of Vivaldi customization, but it’s something that keeps getting brought up, so I think there is demand for it. I haven’t jumped on it when it was brought up in the past, but when @mynameismon suggested it this time, I thought it would be worth giving it a shot. Of course, it’s too big of a project for us to approach alone, so I would need help from some other Vivaldi modders. I’d be interested in what they have to say.
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We probably can use something like Vivaldi Mod Manager, it make handling js a lot more easier, unfortunately it only support Windows: https://forum.vivaldi.net/post/241847
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THAT IS
EXCELLENT
. They gotta make the source code open-source, thereby making devs easy to add it via PRS. -
(from discord)
Here's my two cents. Minimize work on yourselves, otherwise whatever you make will be abandoned.- Don't make a store, make a repository/collection.
- Don't bother with themes auto-installing, let people just copy-paste code, and if it breaks, they check the repository for a newer version.
- Don't bother making mods work together. If a certain mod maker wants too, then let them of course, but don't make it necessary.
- If you make a website, make it a simple static thing only for searching/filtering. Don't bother with accounts and stuff, that can be done through github (or whatever you use).
It puts responsibiliy on the user, but in return makes it actually viable
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to the general question - what you are suggesting exists - its this part of the board - its fluid it ebbs and flows as the browser evolves and members come and go
but [imo] we dont need anything else - the mods are here - maybe a little chaotic but any other place would become the same over time and just be a mirror of here
so why do we need a second place - with respect it seems a vanity project that would likely grind to a halt after time if and when those involved grew tired of running it or left
this place whilst not directly supported by Vivaldi [the mod section that is] is a contently changing place but seems likely to have continuity whilst Vivaldi exists
just my 2 penneth
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@adacom , agree, aside from the fact that Vivaldi already by default has a huge capacity to configure, which makes many other Theme settings somewhat redundant, it cannot be forgotten that some modifications with CSS do not necessarily work well with new versions of Vivaldi and can cause conflicts, the same as it happens with many extensions of the Chrome Store that affect the UI (I firmly believe that the problems reported by some users are due to this cause).
Obviously a store of mods requires maintenance that a small Vivaldi team cannot guarantee.
Of course, you can modify Vivaldi with scripts, but by definition this can only be done at your own discretion and risk. -
@matthias1 Yes, I’m against centralization in this specific case, because I can guess the issues all too well. These suggestions/projects are always brought up by people who are either very new to, or not part of the modding community. And I understand it, there is a desire to have a click and forget way to install modifications and leisurely try out things without breaking a sweat, or, in the worst case, Vivaldi. But you dramatically underestimate the issues, they are not quite “surpassable”.
In this specific case I have another problem. You are trying to get the modding community to switch to a third party site of your creation. All the work and innovation is being done on the forum, but now users should go to your site, all actual modifications should be submitted to this site/project and from what I could gather bug reports, fixes should happen there too. But the actual work (the modifications) is done by people not in control of the project.
Doing this for only Stable is impractical, next to no one around here uses it. Featuring mods that clash with each other is impractical, it goes against the very nature of the project—making it easier. Have any of you tried VivaldiHooks yet? This is how it should be done, present a collection of mods which can be freely toggled and make sure they work on all versions. And if you haven’t tried it, why would you expect casual users to try out your new project? The chance for this happening is even smaller.
Don’t get me wrong, we need more people getting active in the modding community, it’s a good thing. But what we need first of all is people writing new mods and working on the requests/issues of users who are in need. Mod collections aren’t a bad thing per se, but they require real dedication and they should be very limited and focused from the outset, then they can be a way to interest more people in modding Vivaldi and growing the community. Moving the community to a third party site and blindly throwing mods on the wall in the hope something will stick, is not a good plan.
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@luetage said in Need for a Vivaldi Theme store:
But what we need first of all is people writing new mods and working on the requests/issues of users who are in need.
I’d say that we need someone to sort out all the old mods & fix them / ask a mod to mark broken ones as broken. Adding more mods makes the mess even messier.
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I think with all the discussion from these experienced modder, u guys have reduced this project into just a pin topic in modification forum featuring collection of good JS & CSS mod with link to each topic.
Of course, first we will need a group of dedicated mod
hoarderscurators to scout the entire forum for good & usable mods to be included into the list!
VivaldiHooks
I think VivaldiHooks is still consider too difficult to use by non tech people, can it work with Vivaldi Mod Manager? Like set it up once, & then just click a button to reinstall the script after each update?
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@dude99 My initial idea was a topic which doesn’t collect mods, but collects willing modders, who curate their own collection of mods. Whether this is on Github, or on the forum itself doesn’t matter. Each modder without Github could make their personal forum topic or website, where they collect their mods and make clear which are active and maintained. And the Github or forum collections are linked from this main topic. This way users would have easy access to working modifications without too much effort. Well, let me know whether you guys/any gals? are interested in that.
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This forum, it's all here.
I don't understand anything about CSS or JS, but I've found anything i need/like here. Well, with a some try'n'error. It might need a bit of work, but if you're intrested enough...