On Friday 21 September 2007 19:47:33 kyle.nitzsche wrote:
I think the theme SDK should provide a single approach/tool set for all
themeable images, whether they are gtk, hildon, window manager or icons.
(Not just widgets, as it seems to do now.)
This would enable third-parties to easily create a whole theme without
having to understand those distinctions.
I can see the point that for 3rd parties it sounds like it would be easier to
look at a couple of pics and then edit them but....
Perhaps the good work with the template.png and related tools could be
readily expanded to include all themeable images by using multiple png
files: * one for all themeable images in the UME base
* one for each application
Each application does not need it's own interface theme or icons except,
perhaps, the actual application icon itself (at this time any 3rd party
application icon belongs in HiColor). The typical action icons (forward,
back, file open, file save, etc.) are generic and not applicaiton specific.
Certain interface elements can be indiviualized per app but requiring this
only makes things more complicated.
Perhaps the home area background is themeable but isn't templatized png,
since its just a single big file.
This approach would bring all themeable images under control, so that a
new comprehensive list of images with their locations doesn't have to be
created every time a custom theme needs to be created. It would also enable
pulling together custom sets of applications for a distribution and
themeing them.
One issue that comes to my mind is licensing. How would one correctly
attribute an image with it's license if everything is in one file?
In addition, adding upstream changes to an icons file would be a horrendous
undertaking, again and again. All in all there are many hundreds of icons
taking different sizes in to account. Add to that the fact that an OpenedHand
interface will require SVG icons - I see now way to put lots of SVG's in one
file and then somehow cut them out in real-time.
When I made a list of all such base customizable UME images a month or so
ago, it included gtk, hildon, and window manager called images.
If we rule out using any open source artwork or any whatsoever with differing
licenses and keep the number of apps on all systems down to a bare minimum
and exclude ever having to use SVG icons natively using one big pic could
work, I guess.
--
Ken
