this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
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Programming

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Hey guys, I just wanted to share that I made a browser extension that enhances the ChatGPT UI (lemm.ee)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/programming
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It's not the most fancy thing out there, but if you're still using ChatGPT 3.5 and are looking for something a little different, why not give GPThemes a try? It's a free and open-source browser extension for Chrome and Firefox (Desktop and Android) that'll give your ChatGPT website a fresh new look.

WHAT AWAITS YOU:

  • Modern themes: Light, Dark, and Black (AMOLED) for a stylish and more visually appealing experience.
  • Effortless theme switching: Change themes on the fly with a single click using floating button. Well, fine, Mr. Nitpicker, technically it's a two-click saga 🥲
  • Chat bubbles: Modern and sleek conversation design that clearly differentiate your messages from the AI's responses
  • Clean and spacious layout: No more feeling cramped, just generous spacing and clean lines for smooth chat sessions.
  • Subtle animations: Enjoy a touch of elegance with subtle animations that enhance readability and flow.

⌛SOON: Custom theming to personalize your chat experience with your chosen accent color, adding a unique touch to your conversations. See the live preview as you're selecting your perfect hue via colorpicker.

SAFE AND TRANSPARENT:

  • GPThemes requests two permissions:
    • Storage: To remember your chosen theme across all ChatGPT pages.
    • Access to chat.openai.com (old) and chatgpt.com (new) domain: To modify the website's appearance within ChatGPT.
  • Open-source code: You can see exactly what GPThemes does.

DOWNLOADS:

(The attached image is only a sneak peek)

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not downvoting because I appreciate the effort…but ChatGPT is about as opposite from the ethos of open source as you can get imho. 😄

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hmm, let's leave GPT and this extension aside for now, those are just themes. But what bothers me here is that it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) you are saying that a closed source platform necessarily makes a foss plugin meaningless?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

All right, I'll correct you because you're wrong.

What bothers me is an open source tool enhancing a proprietary service which by its very nature breaks open source licensing and in face copyright protections of all sorts across the entire internet.

[–] towerful 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'm here on Lemmy because I liked RIF and RES.
Reddit, the proprietary platform, made those pieces of software obsolete, and not in a good way.

I'm pretty sure open source software can extend closed license, proprietary even obfuscated software. That's the cool thing about open source.

It's just... Whether it's worth the effort to hang your hat on proprietary software.... That bit quite a few 3rd party Reddit apps in the ass

[–] tyler -3 points 5 months ago

What bothers me is an open source tool enhancing a proprietary service which by its very nature breaks open source licensing and in face copyright protections of all sorts across the entire internet.

lol no it doesn't. what in the world gave you that idea?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Ah, this is my first post, so I wasn't sure if PNG images are supported. I uploaded a JPG instead, so please forgive the broken appearance and white asymmetric edges of the image 🥲

EDIT: reuploaded image

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (4 children)

This looks really cool! Is it down voted because people hate ChatGPT or what?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago

Yes, I've noticed that even here (on Lemmy), there's been some kind of unfounded downvote culture emerging. I'm not saying it's unfounded in this case, btw. Of course, not everything is to everyone's taste, but generally, there are plenty of downvotes on very high-quality and relevant content. I remember when downvotes were a great way to quickly filter out low-quality content. But now, I'm not so sure.

It seems a bit "lame" that a plugin for a project "fails" if it's not inherently bad, but the project itself is disliked by someone, but okay, it is what it is.

By the way, thanks if you think this is cool. I would definitely love to hear your opinion if you decide to try the extension eventually.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Correct, ChatGPT is proprietary spyware.

If the interface would support self hosted (local/offline) LLMs, then I'm sure people would be much more interested.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Who wouldn't want to afford a PC setup and components that would support local LLMs, there are so many benefits to that.

But the reality is that even when I start Docker, my poor PC turns into a smoker 🥲

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I get that, but OP clearly put a lot of effort into this in a good faith, made it open source, and now when he posts it here, he gets downvoted without any comment (as of when I wrote mine) with reasoning behind it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The thing is I literally said at the very beginning of the post:

If you're still using ChatGPT 3.5 and are looking for something a little different...

that someone who isn't interested in or doesn't use ChatGPT shouldn't waste their time and shouldn't read further.

It's still very difficult to find an adequate Lemmy communities for posting such things. Although GPThemes is FOSS, I didn't consider it appropriate to post on a foss-focused communites because I'm aware that it operates on a closed platform and assumed that people wouldn't like that. I thought 'programming' would be an okay place for this, but it seems I misjudged.

And thank you @[email protected] for your attempt to get to the heart of the matter.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Speaking for myself, yes, mostly that.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Well, I guess I'll just have to take those bullets for ChatGPT then 🥲

EDIT: 'mostly'? Shoot it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

So, first off, none of what I'm about to say would, on its own, be enough to cause me to downvote something. But since you asked about the "mostly..."

Browsers are ridiculously bulky these days without adding plugins. On top of the bulkiness of the browser itself, "simple" web apps these days without adding to it. Animations use CPU and take time. Rounded corners and extra spaciousness use screen real-estate. I'm typing this on a Raspberry Pi 4. Chromium is unusable. Firefox is barely tolerable. And it doesn't have to be that way. I've got a more powerful box, but it's not what I'm using right now.

(Yes, GPTheme is only 34k. But it'd have to be negative in size for that to be an argument that would work on me.)

Plus, customizations like browser extensions require maintenance. One day OpenAI is going to update their markup and GPThemes is going to break. And if I was using GPThemes with ChatGPT I'd have to either uninstall it or go research whether there's an update for it. If I set up a new device anywhere, I'd need to either be happy with an inconsistent experience of ChatGPT across devices or make sure I installed GPThemes on all of my devices, which is another step I could leave out to save time.

Yes, this bit applies to all customizations. I don't have any aliases in my .bashrc. I honestly prefer to just memorize things. The only real "customization" I ever do to my machines is remapping caps lock to escape. I'm just the sort of person who is very selective about what kind of customizations I consider worth it.

Again, in the absense of my distaste for "AI" nonsense spilling over into non-AI-specific forums, none of this is a reason to downvote. Just a reason to scroll past. "Not my bag." And some folks love customizing in ways like this. I definitely don't have any problem with the fact that other folks' calculus is different than mine in that regard.

Since I've been so negative here, one thing I do like about GPTheme is the use of GPL-3.0 . I think copyleft is a hell of a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

tbh i don't think the theme in rhe screenshot is an improvement, all that excessive padding doesn't look that great

[–] alexdeathway 9 points 5 months ago

Looks neat, Good work.

[–] RagnarokOnline 6 points 5 months ago

I think this is neat.

[–] tyler 5 points 5 months ago

not that I dislike the project, by why not just a standard userstyle?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is it better? Or just different?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

From the first post's sentence:

and are you looking for something different

It seems like it all comes down to personal preference. For some, a more modern design is better, while for others it's not, as we can see that here too. It's so hard to know what would be best for you personally without knowing you, but you can help me by sharing that with us

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So just new CSS?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The plan was for it to be just CSS, but as advanced as CSS is today, some things still aren't possible with it alone. Javascript had to come into play, so no, this isn't CSS-only.

But if your intention was to belittle CSS, how rude. I dare you to center a <div>

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh no, I dare not belittle CSS. I haven't even done any real website development yet. It was all just Rust and Python backends.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, I see. That explains why your website's front-end isn't loading

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Well, I haven't really started building it yet. I do plan on using Leptos for an upcoming project I have.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's cool. Have you explored Leptos's features? I totally get why you went for a RS framework over Py's, even though Py's might be more stable for now. But is your project focused solely on the web, or do you plan for it to be cross-platform with support for mobile and desktop OS as well? I'd love to know why you chose Leptos over Dioxus?

(This is not suggestive question, I’m just really interested to know why you made that choice)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Dioxus is indeed nice, however it feels too "bloated". The WASM files are bigger than what Leptos produces and Dioxus is not just focused on web development but also desktop and mobile apps. I don't need that. Leptos is good enough. I do plan on releasing a mobile app if this project gets significant interest, I'd probably do that in Kotlin so that the app is native and not web rendered.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago

I'm not a fan of modern web design at all and by extension of this design, but the idea is a good thing for practice!