Stop by the Snap Store website today you’ll see it’s undergone a revamp – the second design rejig to the online storefront in the past 12 months but more substantive than the first.
The search bar is now shorter and incorporated into the header section (which also drops the “Search thousands of snaps used by millions of people across 41 Linux distributions” strap line its shown since 2019).
The “Featured snaps” section remains at the top of the content area but is no longer topped by a featured banner graphic. Icon, title, uploader, and description for each of featured snap is now housed in a card/box rather than floating free as before.
A new categories sidebar has been introduced. This is a navigational difference to before where categories were surfaced as sections on the homepage requiring scrolling (each section highlighted featured apps within its grouping + link to ‘see more’).
Only one section is shown on the new Snap Store homepage: ‘Featured snaps’. This should lessen the cognitive load allowing visitor focus to fall firmly on the featured picks, rather than them having to compete for attention with multiple categories highlights too.
Web Store, Snap Store, What?
Most of us open the desktop App Center (or Ubuntu Software in 23.10 and below) when we need to search, browse, and install snap packages on our systems.
The web-based store makes it possible to sift through the entire catalogue of snaps using any browser on any OS — handy if you want to check something is available while on your phone, for example.
But as snap apps run on most Linux distributions (even if those Linux distributions don’t support snap as part of its default install) the web-based Snap Store has a dual role: promoting the packaging format’s cross-distro support.
Indeed, do a web search for “install {app} on Linux” and a Snap Store link is often among the top results (often the top result) meaning this redesign is sure to be gawked at by a fair few eyeballs.
I’ll avoid offering any of my own thoughts on the redesign as I’ve noticed any critique or musing (however constructive or well-meaning) I make about snaps is met with a royal roasting from passionate fans of the format.
Since all my flame-retardant underpants are in the wash I’ll leave the hot-takes to you folks down in comments — I’d love to know how you think this redesign compares to the recently updated Flathub website…
Thanks Chardinson