GNOME Theme Package Proposal

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

Below is the outline of a proposal I have, with the view of creating a 
standard method of packaging and distributing themes and artwork. 
Suggestions and comments welcome.


GNOME Theme Format Proposal
===========================

Author: Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>


The Problem
===========

There is no mime-type or file format for packages that contain themes 
and
artwork that control the appearance of the GNOME desktop. Historically, 
if an
author has wanted to distribute a theme he has made, then it is just a 
case of
zipping up the directory of the theme. However, these days authors 
often want
to distribute several different types of themes within the same package 
to
create an overall appearance across the whole desktop (window manager, 
icons,
background, e.t.c.). So far there is no standard format for theme 
packages...


The Proposal
============

A New Mime Type
```````````````
Since this is a new file format, it needs a mime-type associated with 
it to
integrate well into modern desktops.

With a mime-type for GNOME theme packages, it should be possible for a 
user to
click a theme package and be shown details (and preview) of the theme 
and asked
if they wish to install it. Ideally this would be implemented in
gnome-theme-manager.


A New File Format
`````````````````
The directory structure should look something like this:

.
|-- background/
|-- gtk/
|   `-- gtkrc
|-- gtk-2.0/
|   `-- gtkrc
|-- icon/
|   |-- index.theme
|   `-- scalable/
|-- index.theme
|-- metacity-1/
|   `-- metacity-theme-1.xml
`-- splash/


This should then be wrapped up in a gzipped tarball and given the 
extension
.gtp (Gnome-Theme-Package).


Extensions to gnome-theme-manager
`````````````````````````````````
gnome-theme-manager currently handles GTK, Metacity and Icon themes, 
but could
be extended to handle splash screens and backgrounds (possible 
integration with
current background chooser?).