Theme support

[Marcel Pol <mpol gmx net>]

Hello,

There is an idea that's been on my mind for some time that I'd like to
share. I'd like to discuss it on the list, and if there's some
consensus about it make it into a ticket.
For the record, I'm not a programmer, so the real work needs to be done
by someone else.


Problem:
- The default blue theme of mc is nice, but it's also a bit dated
  looking. It should be easy to change to a different theme, that is
  more modern. We should provide some of those in the distribution of
  mc.
- Also the changing of theme is quite hard now. When you have set "Save
  settings on exit", and want to change your theme, you have to quit
  all instances of mc, then edit the ini file, with a digged up theme
  from somewhere, and restart mc, and hope the theme works out ok. It
  should be easy to change from within mc.


Implementation:
We could have an item in "Options" called "Themes", which gives a
submenu. This submenu gives a list of themefiles, located
in /usr/share/mc/themes/ and ~/.mc/themes/.
Selecting one of these themes saves the theme config in ~/.mc/theme
instead of in the ini file.

We could provide a set of default themes, like:
Default_blue
Red (for root user, optionally, if wanted)
Transparent_black_on_white (can someone provide one?)
Transparent_white_on_black, like:

[Transparent white on black]
base_color=normal=white,default:input=white,brown:errors=white,brightdefault:gauge=brown,black:selected=black,white:marked=yellow,default:markselect=yellow,white:directory=white,default:executable=brightgreen,default:link=lightgray,default:device=brightmagenta,default:special=brightmagenta,default:core=brightdefault,default:menu=black,white:menuhot=yellow,white:menuhotsel=brightdefault,black:dnormal=black,white:dfocus=white,lightgray:dhotnormal=yellow,white:dhotfocus=brightdefault,lightgray:editnormal=lightgray,black:editmarked=yellow,white


Some considerations:
- The location of theme files could also be based in /usr/share/themes
  and ~/.themes/ but since these themefiles are only used by mc, I think
  it would be less clutter and more straightforward to place them in a
  directory owned by mc.
- The naming of the themes gives sometimes a really long name, like
  "Transparent black on white". Maybe it's not a problem, but if it is,
  then I don't have a solution.
- There's a possibility of a screwup, like selecting white text on a
  white background. There should be an easy way to get back to default
  blue. Just let the user manually delete ~/.mc/theme?
- It could be an idea to overhaul the markup of the theme-files, and
  make it a bit more like .desktop files or similar, with entries like:
Name=Transparent white on black
Type=Theme file for Midnight Commander
Hint=Transparent theme. It gives transparent panels, with white text,
on a black or dark background. Don't use it on a white background.
Base_color=.... [etc]


Thoughts, comments?


-- 
Marcel Pol