Theme Package Specification (Draft)

Introduction

This specification is designed to provide a desktop neutral way to package multiple themes inside a single 'metatheme', it does not explain where themes should go.

It should bring artists and users together, allow artists to create a collection of themes building a certain look and users can install that same collection at the touch of a button to get the look the artist designed.

Themes should be installed as specified by the DesktopThemeSpec.

Theme Package Structure

A theme-package is an archive containing several different kinds of themes and a themepackage file describing all the contents. The archive should be a gzip-compressed tarball with a .theme extension.

Individual themes are located in different folders, see below:

    /
    /ThemePackage.index
    /gtk-2.0/
    /metacity/
    /xfwm4/
    /icons/
    /cursors/

Theme Package Description

The ThemePackage.index file should be formatted as followed:

Theme Name

    [ThemePackage Entry]
    Name=Example theme

The Name of the theme, it is required for identification-purposes.

Desktop-file version

    Version=1.0

The Desktop-file syntax version, this field must be present.

Mime-type

    Type=X-ThemePackage

The mime-type, this field must be present and have the value X-ThemePackage.

Maintainer

    Maintainer=John Doe <john DOT doe AT freedesktop DOT org>

The ThemePackage maintainer, this field should be present and formatted as followed

Name < email >

If for some reason this field is not available, Theme-manager implementations may choose to warn a user about this fact.

Theme version

    Theme-Version=1.0

The ThemePackage version-number (increases with every update), this field should be present and formatted as followed

a[.b[.c[.d[.e]]]] Where a, b, c, d and e are numbers between 0 and 4294967296 (32 bits unsigned integers).

Theme components

    Contains=gtk-2.0;xfwm4;metacity;icons;wallpapers;cursors

A list of themes contained within the ThemePackage, these strings MUST represent the folder-names inside the archive. However, since not every theme-category might be available, some of the items from this list could be missing. (eg, if it does not contain an icon-theme, just leave out the 'icons' entry from this list)

It is possible to include any theme-category to a theme-package, given it adheres to the following rules:

the category should be unique (eg, it can't be called gtk-2.0 and conflict to existing gtk themes)
the theme should be installed in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/themes
- This means that the theme data-files can be found in $XDG_DATA_DIRS/themes/THEME_NAME/COMPONENT_NAME/ where THEME_NAME equals the Name field from the ThemePackage.desktop file, and the COMPONENT_NAME equals the name of a theme-category.

Applications which install themes may choose which components to install but it should also provide an option to install all available components.

Component-related information

You may add an individual section for certain package-components, this can be used to add additional information regarding the individual theme-author and license related to the specific themes.

Author(s) / Artist(s) name(s)

    [gtk-2.0]
    Authors=Jane Doe <jane AT freedesktop DOT org>; John Doe <john AT freedesktop DOT org>

The author(s) of the component theme, this field may be present.

Name < email >[; Name < email >[; etc...]]

Theme Component Name

    Name=Component Theme Name

The component's theme name, this is optional and overrides the ThemePackage name for a component. It is useful when a ThemePackage is filled with several pre-existing themes.

Theme Component Description

    Description=This Example theme gives the User Interface an olive-greenish look.

This field provides a description about the specific component.

Theme Component License Information

    License=GPL;Creative-Commons

The License under which the component is distributed, if this field is missing or empty a theme-manager may choose to notify the user about such fact.

ThemePackage.index Example

    [ThemePackage Entry]
    Name=Example theme
    Version=1.0
    Type=X-ThemePackage
    Maintainer=John Doe <john AT freedesktop DOT org>
    Theme-Version=1.0
    Contains=gtk-2.0,xfwm4,metacity,icons

    [gtk-2.0]
    Authors=Jane Doe <jane AT freedesktop DOT org>; John Doe <john AT freedesktop DOT org>
    Description=This Example theme gives the User Interface an olive-greenish look.
    License=GPL;Creative-Commons

    [xfwm4]
    Authors=John Doe Jr. <john_jr AT freedesktop DOT org>
    Description=This Example theme provides window-decoration with round borders.
    License=Creative-Commons

    [metacity]
    Name=Existing Theme
    Authors=John Doe Jr. <john_jr AT freedesktop DOT org>
    Description=This Example theme provides window-decoration with round borders.
    License=Creative-Commons
    
    [icons]
    Authors=John Doe <john AT freedesktop DOT org>
    License=Public Domain

ThemePackageSpec