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Cover image for GNOME 2.20 but its Web Components
Benny Powers ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ
Benny Powers ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

Posted on โ€ข Originally published at bennypowers.dev

GNOME 2.20 but its Web Components

A couple of days ago, this youtube video rolled into my recommendations feed

It's an essay by this youtuber called onion boots on how websites used to be weird and playful. And I got to thinking about how I missed that old timey tinkerer's network. Then I thought at my website, and how it looks like... a website, and decided it wasn't weird enough.

Well, its a few days later and I've turned my website into the GNOME 2 desktop circa 2002. It's built out of web components, using Lit. Specifically I used lit-ssr to generate DSD templates, and the newly baseline View Transitions API to make "focusing" (navigating) between "windows" (pages) feel more fluid and natural.

I'm going for a classic feel here, so I designed the webmentions (which used to appear in a sidebar or under the post) UI to look like a Pidgin IM session, and the slide decks page looks (kinda) like OOO Impress.

It's got two themes. Clearlooks is based on the original CSS, and Clearlooks dark is "inspired" thereby. Maybe I'll add more themes down the line if I'm feeling up to it. I also shipped the default GNOME desktop wallpapers, so pick whichever one you like best.

GNOME appearance panel

It's even got Minesweeper, and calculator!

So yeah this is pretty silly but I'm also committed to the bit ๐Ÿคฃ. Which app should I implement next? Send me a webmention to this page.

Top comments (2)

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harsh2644 profile image
Harsh โ€ข

This looks interesting! Love the retro GNOME vibe with modern web components.

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bennypowers profile image
Benny Powers ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ โ€ข

Thank you