[Proposal] Meta themes spec.

Tue Jun 12 04:50:02 PDT 2007

Stephan Arts wrote:
> 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. :-)
>
>   
Done, anything else to add, it's a very simple hack, I wonder if I 
should even call it hack.
> Regards,
>
> Stephan
>
>
> [1] http://wiki.xfce.org/gnome-theme-package
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>   

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