Documenting gtk2 themes....

["Robert A. McNees" <ramcnees umich edu>]

Hi everyone,

   Maybe this post belongs on one of the gtk2 lists, but I think people
here might have given this some thought. There is a horrible lack of any
kind of meaningful documentation for how one produces gtk2 themes. The
best example I have found is the beginnings of a how-to by Andrew
Johnson, at:

http://www.ajgenius.us/gnome/gnome2-gtk2-themes.html

On the other hand, there is great documentation available for putting
together metacity themes, like:

http://developer.gnome.org/doc/tutorials/metacity/metacity-themes.html

Does anyone know of any ongoing projects intended to produce some useful
gtk2 theming documentation?

   I've seen this sort of question asked in several places, and
invariably the best answer is along the lines of "read the gtk2
documentation" or "grep a source tree for instance of
install_style_property" or something similar. These are just different
ways of telling people that unless they want to learn the API then they
shouldn't bother trying to figure out how to make good gtk2 themes. Of
course, people can always cannibalize and modify other themes, which is
a good way to learn. But its one thing to modify a few pixmaps in a
theme you like, and another thing entirely to understand the various
hierarchies in gtk2 for how things are drawn, how widgets inherit
various properties, etc.

This is why I'm asking about "useful" documentation above. Wouldn't it
be great to have the kind of documentation that a non-programmer could
read, something that would explain to them how gtk2 lays out and draws
its widgets, so that people who don't want to immerse themselves in more
technical gtk2 documentation could apply their talents to beautifying
gnome?

   The reason I'm pointing this question at a gnome mailing list is that
it seems like the biggest base of users actively producing and
distributing gtk2 themes are all associated with gnome in one way or
another. There are more gtk2 themes available at art.gnome.org than
there are on freshmeat. So perhaps gnome users should try to improve the
situation. While I'm not volunteering to take the lead on such a project
:) I am willing to help out. I really enjoy putting together gtk2 themes
and have learned quite a bit, but as a non-programmer the learning curve
is, frankly, a little steeper for me than it would be for someone more
familiar with how gtk2 works.

   So if anyone is interested in putting something together, I'd like to
hear ideas.

Robert A. McNees
Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics
ramcnees_at_donotspammefools_umich_Imnotkidding_edu