[Proposal] Meta themes spec.

[Stephan Arts]

Hello all,

I would like to propose starting to work on a specification for  metathemes.

Theme packages which are equipped with multitude of themes, like Gtk+,
metacity, icons, cursors, wallpapers, xfwm4, KDE-theme-manager, Kwin,
kde-sounds... etc.

With the introduction of these 'meta-theme'-packages (lacking a better
word for it), artists will be able to provide the user with a complete
UI experience in one go.

However, this is only going to work if it is going to encapsulate
existing theme standards. A metatheme not being a theme by itself, but
a package of different real themes, aimed towards providing the user
with a complete set of icons, wm-themes, wallpaper(s), cursors and
widget-styles.

Typically, a metatheme package can be a .tar.gz archive, containing
the different themes in folders:

/gtk-2/
/metacity/
/xfwm4/
/kth/
/kwin/
/icons/
/wallpapers/

And an index.metatheme or metatheme.xml file containing information
about the contents of the package. Like which components are
available, a package might not contain an xfwm4 theme for example, and
the author, license and release-version/date information.

Extensions of some sort might be nice to have too.

Example:
Some gtk-themes might require a theme-engine to work correctly. The
metatheme package should be aware of this so implementations can
inform the user about such requirements.

I would like to know what you think about this.

Regards,

Stephan Arts