ChristianWS

...you sure the pictures aren't an argument against CSD? The wallpaper on those pics looks the same, so I'm assuming they are on the same system, but they are inconsistent with one another. Meanwhile Blender and Gimp on my system look right at home.

...ain't that supposed to be part of the window manager tho?

Yeah, I have no idea what is going on

Oh, I definitely don't, I did go out of my way to purge header bar apps from my system. The last one was Flatseal, but KDE integrated most of the options into system settings. I still do have some CSD apps, but they are either used full screen non-stop, like Firefox, or rarely used.

...where? No seriously, I don't see any picture, there's only the link to DWD. I don't use Nextcloud, but both Blender and Gimp use SSD on my system.

And I'm quite confused by the idea of CSD looking like SSD. I know it can, however, I don't see how that isn't an argument for continuing to use SSD. What is the benefit of changing from SSD to CSD if the end result is to look like SSD, but have all the issues that come from using CSD?

...how do you hope to have a discussion about a design feature without discussing the visuals? The entire CSD vs SSD debate is one of UX/UI Design

You still haven't provided an example of CSD without a Header bar. I'm familiar with the DWD proposal, the technology used might be different, but the end result is still a Header Bar in all but name.

...they are all taken from the GNOME Circle website you linked, the first screenshot of each app

I'm genuinely curious: What exactly do you have in mind with CSDs without the use of a Header Bar?

CSD and Header Bars are practically synonymous, and I don't think I've seen, or even heard, about CSDs without the context of a header bar

It is definitely not consistent, even when they have the same buttons.

AudioSharing has the hamburguer button on the left side, while Decoder has on the right side.

Citations has the header bar split to follow the panels inside the app, where Boatswain is divided into two panels, but the header bar isn't.

And that is not to mention how some apps style the header bar itself, but I'm going to assume it is a problem with the screenshots not being taken on the same system.

I don't want to be mean to GNOME, as KDE is also guilty of this and both are built by maintainers, but the GNOME Guidelines is bare bones. It offers too little information on the best practices and what should be done. It is a totally not-fair comparison, but compare it with the Top App Bar Component guideline of Material Design, and yet it is still not enough as it overlooks some common edge cases.

I don't understand the Latte Dock argument because it is only relevant to the window buttons, there is still the rest of the header bar.

I picked some random apps in the "Circle" and all of them are inconsistent, I don't understand. They have inconsistent number of buttons, placement, and organization

It doesn't work for CSD cause you either have a very strict guideline to prevent inconsistency, limiting the number and location of buttons. At which point it is so limiting that Developers need add another bar to hold whatever they can't put on the header bar, rendering the CSD implementation moot.

Or you do like GTK and allow inconsistency. You can't win with CSD.

And that is not even mentioning if CSD is even a good idea in the first place. Some users deliberately went with Plasma due to the lack of CSD in the first place, those would migrate to LXQT or XFCE.

Design follows technology and vice-versa. Once you allow devs to use CSD they can and will use that space to put buttons on it, and that inevitably leads to inconsistency between apps, because they will never share the same amount of buttons or be divided by the same amount of panels.

CSD is a Pandora's box that is best left unopened.

I don't understand the Latte Dock argument.

And I was having GNOME in mind as the example of the inconsistency natural to CSD.