Re: Supporting more color schemes

[Giuseppe Fuggiano <giuseppe fuggiano gmail com>]

Thomas Wood wrote:
> Hi Giuseppe,

Hi Thomas :-)

> First off, thank you for taking the time to create a patch for
> gnome-control-center. It's great to have new contributors! Please don't
> be disheartened by the discussion on bugzilla, but I think that colour
> schemes is unfortunately a complex issue.

I think so, don't worry for the discussion on bugzilla, we want to 
produce good software. My patch has been a first contact with you, I am 
happy! Certainly I would like to continue studying a good solution for 
this problem. Let me analyze the problem.

> I've managed to condense the "saving colour schemes" idea into two basic
> requirements:
>
>  * A user creates a set of colours (a colour scheme) he or she likes and
> wishes to save it for later or share it with friends.
>
>  * A theme author wishes to include a set of complementary colour
> schemes with his or her theme.
>
> The problem here is there is a conflict between the user creating and
> sharing colour schemes, and the theme author adding a set of colour
> schemes to a theme. For the user, colour schemes are independent from
> themes but for the author, a set of colour schemes can be associated
> with on particular theme.
>
> Setting aside how the actual data is stored, do you have any thoughts on
> how you want to solve this?
>
> Regards,
>
> Thomas

 Preliminary considerations

Actually, appearance supports only a single colour scheme that is stored 
into the gtkrc file in a given format or in gconf if modified. Thus, 
each theme has a default colour scheme for all users, registered in that 
file. If an user changes manually the scheme it is stored into his own 
gconf and overrides the default one.


 Cases

Custom colour schemes must be accessible by all local users and all 
themes because:

 * users want to add/remove their custom schemes;
 * users want to share with each other and world wide;
 * users want to install/uninstall other's colour schemes.
 * themers wishes to supply their own colour schemes set with his theme.

In my opinion we could manage them into a /usr/share/colorschemes/ 
directory using ini-like files thinking them as stored into "sets". 
These schemes would be shared with all local users and themes. At the 
same time, a themer could add his theme's colour schemes set, simply 
adding a file into that directory.


 Questions and possible solutions:

1) Q: how can we add and remove a colour scheme to a set?
  A: we could add remove a colour scheme to a set and share it with 
other local users modifying a file into /usr/share/colorschemes/ 
directory (i.e. /usr/share/colorschemes/John or 
/usr/share/colorschemes/mycustom etc).

2) Q: how can we set the current colour scheme?
  A: we could sets the current colour scheme selecting a set and a 
colour scheme using a GUI and changing the relative key in gconf when apply.

3) Q: how can we install or uninstall a colour schemes set?
  A: we could install or uninstall a colour schemes set copying or 
deleting the file into the /usr/share/colorschemes/ directory, and share 
it with other local users.

5) Q: how can we export a colour schemes set for world wide sharing?
  A: we could export a colour schemes set simply copying the file from 
/usr/share/colorschemes/ directory.

6) Q: how can a themer add a default colour scheme set for his theme?
  A: a themer could add his default colour scheme for his theme 
installing a file into /usr/share/colorschemes/ directory.


The idea of colour schemes stored in various custom sets (files) is born 
generalizing the need of colour schemes set by themes (as requested). I 
am sure that this is only a possible solution and there are many others 
even more valid. I will continue searching one we can consider "the best".

Regards,

Giuseppe