Next time you stop by the Snapcraft website you’ll notice it has undergone a revamp.
Canonical unveiled the changes today saying it “embarked on a project to redesign snapcraft.io and give it a more modern look”.
This ‘more modern look’ is now live on the web for everybody, including you, to go gawk at.
If you follow @omgubuntu on Twitter you’ll may have seen a tweet earlier the week in which I expressed slight surprise™ at the new logo. What previously said “Snapcraft” now says “Canonical Snapcraft” – which in light of those “proprietary backend” claims levelled against the format perhaps makes sense.
That change apparently rolled out months ago — which shows you just how often I visit! 😅
So what’s the new design like?
It’s mostly like the old one.
The main page continues to be dominated by a search bar and a (debatable) statement of being “the app store for Linux”. Underlining the search box is a new 3D geometric motif that riffs on similar 3D protrusions in the Ubuntu 23.04 default wallpaper – nice touch.
As before, 3 snaps are showcased across 4 categories: ‘featured’, ‘development’, ‘games’, and ‘sever’. The presentation of these is much improved here, with more prominence given to app icons, and more clarify around publisher and status (e.g., verified, community, none, etc).
If I had a complaint it’s that the 3 snaps showcased are the same ones as before – and those have been the same 3 showcased for (in some cases) years. Showing identifiable/higher quality apps does make sense but some sort of rotation or variance would give people a reason to visit more often.
Keen to promote its standing with prominent developers, the new page continues to feature a bar promoting “official snaps from major publishers” replete with logos for companies like Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and KDE displayed.
Rounding off the page — which serves as the “landing” site for the packaging format as w whole — is a dive-in guide how “how to snap an app in 30 mins” for languages including Python, C/C++, Flutter, etc. This section was there before but is now more immediate with documentation shown from the off.
Hopefully these changes help attract new apps to the Snap Store as, from an outsider POV, it’s shelves do seem a tad stale these days…