Evolve v1.6 - PUBLIC RELEASE! (Patreon)

Read important note regarding Evolve Stable at the end of this post.

Lots of new features, bug fixes and better support for newcomers to Linux/Gnome.

Redesigned online Themes/Icons Store!

Are you confused where to start as a beginner? Now get useful video tutorials on Gnome Customization! These will be updated occasionally with the most popular content! Also, notice the top search bar along with search suggestions. Looks so much better!

Want to do something on your own? Check the Suggestions section for hand picked popular themes or choose one from colour magic if you want a specific colour scheme.



Similar design for the Extensions page (minus the video suggestions)



The search page is also updated. Now lets you go forward/backward, refresh the page or return to the home page. The same design is followed in the themes/icons store.

New AT+ Themes Section

Evolve used to detect AT+ Themes if installed but this was limited to the number of themes supported and hardcoded into Evolve. Now it is more flexible and would support new Theme-packs released later. It has a new preview and apply page for each theme. Other relevant options like revert/uninstall and more are planned to be added in Evolve v1.7



The new section has a better design and shows a short description of the installed theme-packs.

All new install page

The previous animated welcome page is completely removed. It is replaced with a page that gives very important information related to Evolve features and their dependencies. I have found many of the users commenting that something is broken or not working where as it's just a package that wasn't installed on their system. The welcome screen now shows which Evolve features won't work unless the user installs the required packages.

  

You can also apply available quick-fixes just like in the case of User Themes Shell Extension not installed.

 

Update notifications!

Evolve can now check for the latest version and see if there are any major or minor updates. Evolve can also showcase the features of the latest release to the user. You can either skip the update or download and install it.

Theme Installers

AT+ Theme Installers can now communicate with Evolve to save the theming state of the PC before installation as a config.zip file.



Evolve is automatically launched by the Theme Installer and backs up data as a configuration.

This same file is used by Evolve to revert changes when uninstalling the theme, ensuring everything returns to the previous state rather than just resetting to the defaults. However, if you prefer, there's also an option to reset the theme to its default settings.



Evolve automatically applies the configuration when reverting everything to default.

This raises some concerns: What if the user doesn't have Evolve installed? What if Evolve is installed, but the version isn't supported? Or perhaps the configuration file is present, but Evolve isn't installed? Or maybe Evolve is installed, but the configuration file is missing? All of these scenarios are properly managed with appropriate messages.



The user is alerted if the config file is available but Evolve isn't.



A larger alert page during config creation.

And yes, the stability improvements from Evolve v1.5.1

If you are still using Evolve v1.5 then it is recommended you update to v1.5.1 or v1.6 as soon as possible. Serious bug in v1.6 if found would be resolved in the v1.6.1 release which is provided as another free public release after a major version update. You will be notified through Evolve!

Released Early on Patreon 💚

Note:  "Evolve Pro" will continue to offer all alpha features, while "Evolve" will serve as the stable release available on Flathub (It is not out yet). Given, the overwhelming number of requests for the app to be available on Flathub, I will explore this possibility in due course. However, since Flathub explicitly states that it only hosts stable releases (mentioned here), a separate stable release will be maintained. This name change may not yet be reflected everywhere as of now. The changes began with v1.5, though I wasn't entirely sure at the time. I've been pushing myself to introduce new features and fix bugs as quickly as possible, but it's been taking a toll on my health. It’s disheartening when, despite my best efforts, some people remain unappreciative.

Edit - 1

To prevent confusion where by some might interpret "Pro" to be a paid version. I have thought of renaming the stable version of Evolve as "Evolve Stable" where as this version named "Evolve" would be the one with unstable latest features. The zip still is named "Evolve Pro" but that will be again renamed back to Evolve soon.