Re: GNOME Theme Package Proposal

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

On Mon, 2004-10-25 at 16:17 +0200, Luca Cappelletti wrote:
> Hello,
> your propose is very interesting.
> I've some idea to improve you proposal.
> 
> I think we've to be not so closed to gnome needs but develop a super
> class that, next future, could be propose to freedesktop.org
> 

Yes, this is certainly something that should be considered, although
apart from the name, I don't think there was anything in my original
proposal that would make it GNOME specific.

> 
> > 
> > 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
> <snip>
> 
> Totally agree.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think that instead to reinvent a binary file format, it's better to
> use a renamed tar.gz or tar.bz2 or like .deb an 'ar' archive.
> In this way we can use the same daily development tools. 

Yes, this is what I was trying to imply. The package would be a tar.gz
of the directory structure and files.

> 
> <snip>
> 
> > 
> > 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).
> 
> Why don't use something like .theme it's more readable to all.
> A .theme could be 'the' standard for every theme out there (Gnome,
> KDE, skinnable applications, Mozilla etc etc).
> We could embed the structure into a something closed to a resource 'Bundle'

I avoided .theme because it is already used by the icon theme
specification (in index.theme) and the existing GNOME theme descriptor
(also index.theme). So do you have any suggestions?

> 
> I've an initial propose like this (not so far to a Bundle):
> 
> MyGnomeTheme.themes
> |Contents/
> |--- Gnome/
> |           Resources/
> |               background/
> |               gtk/
> |                   gtkrc
> |                icon/
> |                    index.theme
> |                    scalable/
> |                index.theme
> |                metacity-1/
> |                    metacity-theme-1.xml
> |                splash/
> 
> So that if you need to develop a them for KDE you should do something like:
> 
> |Contents/
> |    KDE/
> |        Resources/
> |            ..../
> 
> Or ,like bundles, you can embed any resource you need because the
> engines could parse the section they need (Gnome, KDE, application
> specific one, etc etc).

Interesting idea, but this way you may end up with a lot of unnecessary
symlinks or duplicate files. You would usually want the same themes to
be used across different desktops. For example, even in KDE, you would
want GTK applications to use your GTK theme so that your theme has a
consistent look.

> 
> This could be the basis to propose freedesktop to adopt it as a common
> standard for general purposes skinning.
> 
> To start without pain we can embed into this like-Bundle Resource
> folder the same structure tha nowadays Gnome use for it's themes.
> A Meta descriptor could be provided into the root package to provide
> more meta description (like the DEBIAN resource folder into a .deb
> package)

I was hoping to use the existing index.theme descriptor that GNOME
currently uses

> Then you can tar.bz2 that package and rename it into a something like
> .themes or .skins or .somethingwithcompleteandclearpostfix (but not,
> please, gtp or 3 characters cryptic postfixes...we're into an UTF8
> world!!).

I'm open to suggestions!

> 
> Did you?
> 
> bye,
> 
> Luca Cappelletti
> 
>