I really like Hyprland but I hate theming

[Cphusion]

In the past years I’ve used Gnome as my DE and in the recent few years I have run Hyprland for a while and then went back to Gnome, but always ended up going back to Gnome because I like how good it looks and it not needing much for me to look nice. In the two times I switched to Hyprland for a while I have used Waybar and Hyprpanel as my panel.

With Waybar I used an example config with Waybar and changed some things around to my needs and it looked alright and quite usable for me. However I wasn’t satisfied and so I went back to Gnome, the second time I went to Hyprland I found Hyprpanel. That was an improvement because it has quite a few builtin modules and a gui to configure it and some pre-set themes. The only thing I disliked about it is that it’s an AUR PKGBUILD and has quite a few AUR dependencies and I prefer to limit my AUR PKGBUILD now days. I still wasn’t happy enough, so I went back to Gnome.

Over the years I have used two other tiling window managers. i3wm and Sway, I started thinking why I never stuck for good to a tiler and whey I do keep going back. I came to the conclusion that I do like the workflow of a tiling window manager but I just really hate having to customize, theme/rice my panel(and dock) and run launchers etc.

I just installed Hyprland again, redid my config and used some of my old config. However I didn’t want to go back to Hyprpanel because of having so many AUR PKGBUILD dependencies. So I went look and I found a panel(nwg-panel) that has a gui settings menu and a dock(nwg-dock-hyprland) that so I that I can set my most used apps there if I forget the keybind. I have mostly kept everything default except for some small changes in the settings of the panel.

Everything is functional and my setup kind of reminds me of my Gnome setup. However I kind of just feel guilty not customizing it to make it look more unique. But on the other hand my pc is for me and how I use it and that is how I used Gnome so I guess it doesn’t matter if doesn’t look unique as some of the rices you see online.

I still have part of me that would like to give it a bit more of a unique however as said before I had having to spend hours and days figuring out how to customize and do theming. I have no desire to spend time learn css or some other style script and Quickshell. I have looked at things like end4 and dankmaterial shell, but stuff like that is all so tied together and I don’t want to spend days reverse engineering how to apply just panel theme and modules to my own setup.

This topic was longer that I intended it to be, so I hope I still get some responses. That being said I can’t be the only one that likes the workflow of tiling window managers but hates spending hours on customizing and theming but still would like a bit more of a unique look. Does anyone have any tips for those type of people so that it might be easier to a bit of a nicer look than the default and not having to spend days on figuring how how to configure it? Or should I just be happy with what I have setup since I didn’t care too much with Gnome about theming except for chaning my Gnome-shell theme to make it look different?

Thanks for reading if you got all the way to the end of the post

[cactux]

@Cphusion

In the past years I’ve used Gnome as my DE and in the recent few years I have run Hyprland for a while and then went back to Gnome, but always ended up going back to Gnome because I like how good it looks and it not needing much for me to look nice.

Perhaps this won’t get you the tiling flexibility/fluidity that you can get with a proper tiling wm but with some compromises you could get a “tiling GNOME”:

Tiling Shell - GNOME Shell Extensions

But perhaps you already know of it.

[Cphusion]

@cactux

Perhaps this won’t get you the tiling flexibility/fluidity that you can get with a proper tiling wm but with some compromises you could get a “tiling GNOME”:

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/7065/tiling-shell/

But perhaps you already know of it.

Thanks for your reply. I’ve experimented with different tiling extensions but the experience just doesn’t come close to what you get with Hyprland.

[erne.d.98]

@Cphusion

Does anyone have any tips for those type of people so that it might be easier to a bit of a nicer look than the default and not having to spend days on figuring how how to configure it? Or should I just be happy with what I have setup since I didn’t care too much with Gnome about theming except for chaning my Gnome-shell theme to make it look different?

Well, my bspwm setup is not far away from the default, especially Polybar. I have set it in the way I find the most legible and I don’t feel the urge to change it in any way now.

You might just ask yourself if the “enhancement” you’re willing to make is an actual enhancement or just change of look. If latter, don’t do it.

[Cphusion]

@erne.d.98

You might just ask yourself if the “enhancement” you’re willing to make is an actual enhancement or just change of look. If latter, don’t do it.

That’s a good way of looking at it. I guess looking at rices can make my own setup seem too boring even though it’s functional and looks good enough for me Thanks for that!

[Cphusion]

You removed your replies but I did get notification emails so I could still see what you wrote in your deleted replies. Agreed, I can’t have it both ways. I have come to the realization for myself that looking at too many rices makes my own setup looking boring and less good even though it works for me and looks good enough for me. I might have a look at Cosmic once it’s released but will see when it’s around. Thanks again for your replies!

[cactux]

@Cphusion

I have come to the realization for myself that looking at too many rices makes my own setup looking boring and less good even though it works for me and looks good enough for me.

Same for me. I always prioritize the function. When I have a setup that works well for me and I am content with, I make just a few aesthetic changes to make it a bit more pleasant to look at.

At any case, I aim at minimal setups.