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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Styles vs themes
From:       Gergely Peli <ply () cs ! elte ! hu>
Date:       2001-05-23 14:05:29
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Hi all!

I also find the current style/theme setup rather confusing. As I can
remember the official statement, styles should give a "general appearance"
to the desktop, and the themes are to "fine-tune" it. Let's look at the
current setup:

 * The "styles" are OK, they do what they should. Although there are few
   of them. :-(
 * The "theme" currently is not for the fine-tuning, but for changing the
   global look of the desktop. Hmmm.
 * There's a menu called "colors". Ooops: sometimes it is completely
   ignored (when pixmaps are used), and sometimes changing something else
   changes it too. In fact it's a kind of theme thing: it depends on the
   current style. If the style uses colors (plain colored desktop,
   gradients, etc), then it should have this config-page, if it
   doesn't (for example it uses pixmaps), then this page is not needed.
 * There's az "icons" page, where you can customize the icons' behaviour
   (highlight, effects, etc). It's also a fine-tuning, so a style should
   decide, how to draw the icons. I'd be happy to have extendable effects
   (for example emboss-ing the icons onto the button's background :-) ). 
 * Window decorations. This is not a fine-tuning of the style, so it
   should be a separate menu.

So what the control-center "look&feel" should look like IMO?

 * Select style: you can select here your favourite.
 * Style options: you can fine-tune it here. It means choosing the colors
   OR pixmaps, setting the effects for the icons (if the style doesn't
   have an unique effect). So every style should have a capplet here.
 * Window styles: everything for the borders. Independent of the above.
 * Icon sets: load your favourite.
 * Sound sets: The same.
 * Background: to complete the "look" options.
 * Themes: here you could load a configuration for all of the above.

I'd like to hear opinions about all these: would you like it / is it hard
to implement? 


Gergely Peli
ply@cs.elte.hu

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