For reference I agree with a lot of what you said here. Things like this would be very helpful for not only getting people interested in Enlightenment, but also themeing itself.
The problem is that it is a big task, the first step of which requires actual themes to feature. Existing quality E themes are few and far between because of how complex they are. Some that even work fine with E, do not include an elementary components so the "native" applications look more out of place than the GTK/Qt applications often do. I find in their current state sites like http://e17-stuff.org/ just confuse most end users because of how powerful E themes are. When they are old/no longer work they can break/mangle no end of things causing users to think E is the issue when in fact it is just a bad theme. I manually confirm themes are fully functional and look reasonable before listing them on the Bodhi site -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/softwaregroup/themes/ and as you can see only a few exist for E19 that fit this description. On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 6:54 PM, Andrew Williams <a...@andywilliams.me> wrote: > Hi all, > > Please excuse the somewhat random / rambling email but I've been thinking > more about E17/E18 etc theming, sharing of custom setups and release cycles > and the impact they have on the E user community and potential new users. > > E17 may have been a long time in the making but during that period we were > able to create and run (two different?) theme / background support sites > that proved to be very popular. They were a great way share content, get > updates and also to promote the beautiful desktop phenomenon that was the > future of Enlightenment. More recently conversations have been brought up > around config sharing or promoting desktop setups - I love that as an > extension to what has worked in the past and I've seen it hook new users on > other systems. > > In the new regular release cycle of E18/E19 etc (which has a huge number of > benefits) it's much harder to point people at a place to get themes and > even to manage the custom themes you downloaded as the version bumps can > break what you've got. On community supported sites it's harder to manage > this upgrade cycle and from what I've seen this could have contributed to > many places still having the most popular themes being for E17 and not > later versions. > > Another related topic of conversation that's been floating around for a > while is Marrakesh - or the more general topic of how to we distribute our > apps easier to many different platforms. Is this actually a new problem or > is it related and we've just managed to avoid it due to great sites like > exchange and get-e? > > And so to my point. As we approach the landmark version number of E20 is > there an opportunity to draw a line in the sand from which point forward we > can better support themes, their upgrade paths and their sharing / > installation? > What I wonder is this. Can we create, sponsor or simply endorse a central > site for (initially) theme sharing etc that would be better integrated into > the environment either by creating a native desktop app or even integrating > it into theme selection dialogs etc so discovery is a breeze? If we take > this opportunity to create a "LTS" or "stable" theme base then it would be > on us, rather than every themer, to ensure that future upgrades to Edegrade > somewhat gracefully if an out of date theme is selected. As something > better tied to the core product there would be an opportunity to manage > version requirements, integrate config sharing or whatever the next cool > thing is and build all of this out ahead of the full dream of app > distribution through our own delivery mechanism. > > I could be way off the mark here but I think this could help to increase > engagement whilst giving us a little more exposure / experience with an > "app store" like system for distributing / engaging / promoting our work. > Additionally the web frontend could be a great showcase of the cool things > that E enables beyond the current screenshot setup and less up to date > external theme sites. > > Thanks for sticking with me through the long post - I hope some of it is > interesting. Apologies if this steps on previous threads - I've been away > from the group for a while but hoped the outsider returning's point of view > could be useful :-) > > Cheers, > Andrew > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website, > sponsored > by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for > all > things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs > to > news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the > conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/ > _______________________________________________ > enlightenment-devel mailing list > enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel > -- ~Jeff Hoogland <http://jeffhoogland.com/> My Projects on GitHub <https://github.com/JeffHoogland> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website, sponsored by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. 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