[Proposal] Meta themes spec.

[Stephan Arts]

On 6/12/07, Matthias Clasen <matthias.clasen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/11/07, Thomas Wood <thos at gnome.org> wrote:
> > Hi Stephan,
> >
> > Regarding your Metathemes proposal, it all sounds good and
> > similar to what we basically have in GNOME already. However, in GNOME
> > we use a .desktop style file to describe what the package contains.
> > Currently this can be any combination of icon, gtk+, metacity themes,
> > and a gtk+ colour scheme string. It can also indicate font names and
> > sizes, and a wallpaper (although in the theme manager, these are only
> > implemented as "suggestions"). The data for the themes are then kept in
> > specified directories within the archive. For the most part, this also
> > means that simply extracting the archive to ~/.themes should be
> > sufficient to install it.
> >
> > GNOME has recently introduced a custom mime type to allow easier
> > installation of theme packages. However, it has not yet achieved wide
> > spread adoption and I think there would be little opposition to
> > replacing it with a freedesktop.org specification.
> >
> > I would be happy to help out with the creation and adoption of a
> > freedesktop.org specification for these types of archives.
> >
>
> I think the first step would be to describe the existing approach in
> some detail,
> to see what (if any) changes are desirable to turn in into a freedesktop spec.
>

Good idea, I took the liberty of creating a wiki-page on
wiki.xfce.org[1] with the things about the format I thought I knew.

On 6/11/07, Alberto Ruiz <aruiz at gnome.org> wrote:
>
> > <snip>
>
> I did the job to create the new MIME, and I don't have any opposition at all. In fact, I tried > to start a thread like this before I started the gnome implementation. I think that define a > > standard MIME for theme package could be a good start, and from there, start working on > how different theme elements can be together inside this MIME type.
>
> In fact, create a new one should be as easy as rename the current .gtp (Gnome theme
> package) to .dtp (desktop theme pacakge) or something like that, any comments?

I have taken a look at it, and I think you could be right.

However, for a general desktop-theme-package some adjustments need to
be made to allow other themes to be included too. For example, ppl
tend to replace metacity by sawfish in Gnome, or xfwm4 by openbox in
Xfce. It would be nice if the format would provide means to
(optionally) include a theme for both window-managers and let the
software handle which to install. Or, in a more realistic matter:
create one theme which works with both Gnome and Xfce default setups.

@Alberto:
Could you please take a look at the wiki-page[1] and complete/fix the
description of the .gtp package format? Then we have some concrete
information to talk about. :-)

Regards,

Stephan


[1] http://wiki.xfce.org/gnome-theme-package