wmaker/WindowMaker/README.themes

Themes For Window Maker
=======================

Note: the information contained in this file is only valid for themes
in the .themed (for theme directory) format, supported in
Window Maker 0.20.4 or newer.


How To Install a Theme Pack
===========================

To install a theme, unpack your theme into your WindowMaker directory
(the same as old-style themes), usually ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker

cd ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker
gzip -dc "xyztheme.tar.gz" | tar xvf -

You can also do this in your system-wide WindowMaker directory (usually
/usr/local/share/WindowMaker) to have the themes be available to all
your users. This will probably need to be done with root access.


How To Load a Theme
===================

Use the setstyle command to load a theme. Example:

setstyle xyztheme.themed

Note that if you move the directory of the theme (for example, from
~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Themes to /usr/local/share/WindowMaker/Themes)
you will have to reload that theme so that path information is updated.


How To Make a Theme Pack
========================

To create a theme pack from your current configuration, use the getstyle
utility with the -p flag. Example:

getstyle -p ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Themes/MyTheme

This will create a theme pack (a new directory in either the current
directory or a directory you specify) named MyTheme.themed, containing
everything it requires, including all pixmap files. In this example,
the new theme pack would be made in your themes directory and be
immediately available in your Themes menu.

Additionally, you can put a text file named MyTheme.lsm in the MyTheme.themed
directory. This file can contain info like copyrights, credits or whatever.

To distribute your theme, just make a .tar.gz of the .themed directory.
This is preferably done from the same directory that you unpack the themes
from to maintain consistancy with the old theme format.

Example:

cd ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker
tar cvf MyTheme.tar Themes/MyTheme.themed
gzip MyTheme.tar


How To Delete a Theme Pack
==========================

Just remove the .themed directory. Example:

cd ~/GNUstep/Library/WindowMaker/Themes
rm -fr themename.themed


How To Save Disk Space
======================

If you have more than 1 theme that use the same huge background image,
you can delete all the duplicated files and then create hard links in
place of them. For example, if you have:

theme1.themed/back.jpg

theme2.themed/backimage.jpg

theme3.themed/back.jpg

and all three files contain the same image, you can do:

rm theme2.themed/backimage.jpg
rm theme3.themed/back.jpg
ln theme1.themed/back.jpg theme2.themed/backimage.jpg
ln theme1.themed/back.jpg theme3.themed/back.jpg