Re: On disk theme format for icons?

[Rodney Dawes <dobey free fr>]

On Thu, 2003-01-02 at 09:14, Jonathan Blandford wrote:
> Rodney Dawes <dobey free fr> writes:
> 
> > I'd like to also propose putting the theme detection stuff that is in
> > theme-common.[ch] in libgnome or somewhere, that apps can easily use it.
> 
> I thought about that, but couldn't think of it being useful for any app.
> It keeps changing too, so it's definitely better remaining private for
> now.

Right. For now. But if we end up using the spec that I'm working on a
draft for, to use standardized themes, this API will need to be public.
At least somewhat. I will be cleaning it up and including an
implementation for a public API in libelysium to go along with the draft
proposal that I'm working on.

> > Doing this will help with the earlier proposal I made for a standardized
> > filesystem layout for themed things, and will allow applications to
> > handle setting their own themes more easily, based on it.
> 
> I'd prefer it if we had fewer themes rather than more themes.  (-: 

So would I, but that doesn't mean people are going to restrict their
creation of ugly themes to spread upon the world. We all know this is
inevitable, so we should be prepared to deal with it. ;)

> > We really shouldn't try to shove every possible theme setting we can
> > into one single capplet. Having metatheme be extensible enough to
> > handle extra facets of the theme, such as gnomeicu icons or xmms
> > skins, and still keeping them out of the capplet, and keeping the UI
> > simple seems like the best thing to do.
> 
> For 2.2, there's no way we are going to do a generic theme
> implementation.  Getting all the bugs out of the current code is my
> number one priority.

Right, I would not expect it to be a 2.2 goal now, especially with
GTK+ 2.2 being out and all the freezes that are supposed to be in
effect. However, I would like to get this on the radar as a goal for
the 2.4 stuff. It seems a good time to do it, since there are also a
number of other large changes happening at that time.

> > If people are actually interested in the filesystem stuff I proposed
> > back in August, and won't just go straight for the implementation now,
> > as one exists (albeit a poor one, due to the haste and lack of design),
> > I would be glad to create a theme standard proposal for freedesktop.
> > The propsal would consist of filesystem layout and API specs for
> > allowing individual applications to comply easily.
> 
> I don't like the spec either, and have complained to Alex already.  By
> all means, propose an alternative to xdg, and see if you can get
> consensus.  It would be nice to have a unified theme system in the
> future.

I proposed the change to the Icon Theme spec, but people are reluctant,
mainly due to KDE's use of /usr/share/icons. I am working on the
MetaTheme spec draft and will hopefully get something ready soon.

-- dobey