[openbox] theme question

[Ben Jansens]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 01:12:26PM -0500, John Russell wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 13:03, Jesper Louis Andersen wrote:
> > The removal of XML from Openbox would be welcome to me. The problem is
> > that the XML is really just an AST which can be provided by a simple
> > yacc grammar and give much easier configuration files to edit (by hand).
> 
> An easy configuration file in a format which would need to be explained,
> regardless of how simple it was.  At least xml is something that people
> are getting used to seeing.  Its just as easy as anything else you are
> going to come up with and it is becoming/has become the standard for
> configuration.  I think that if nothing else, the theme format should be
> moved to xml.  

Not only would a format have to be explained, a parser would have to be
written. Libxml provides a fine parser, with zero effort involved in making
it work. Fabulous. I don't see any justification for writing, debugging and
documenting a new parser "just because".

> What I was thinking before I read the design document about engines, was
> that the metacity xml format could be used.   My original idea when
> starting this thread was that metacity has far more flexible theming
> than ob.  Everyone says they like the simple themes. That may be great,

Its all about the work:reward ratio. Curved edges and pixmap themes didn't
and don't justify the effort involved for me. Maybe they do for you.

> but you could also have the _option_ of having cool _shaped_ themes.  I
> know this would require a lot of change in the way themes are done, but
> I think it would be amazingly cool. It would also provide the ability to
> use metacity themes, of which there are thousands, and you still have
> the ability to have simple ob style themes because it is flexible.  
> 
> I know I'm going to get a lot of shit for this, but just think about it
> slowly before responding in an irate manner.  I think it makes sense.

It does. Now all you need is some code. :)

Cheers,
Ben
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