[Proposal] Meta themes spec.

[Matthias Clasen]

On Fri, 2007-06-08 at 12:53 +0200, Stephan Arts wrote:
> 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.
> 

I'd start by looking at existing solutions...what you are asking for
largely works today in Gnome, I'm sure it does in KDE, too.