[gentoo-dev] Re: Themes

[gentoo-dev] Re: Themes

[Bryce Porter]

I have been working on an awesome bash prompt theming mechanism. I could
easily make a format to make color prompts using strings like $red for
red text, etc. And then i could even write a few sample bash prompt
themes. I have all the ANSI colors defined already, and assigned to thier
own unique variable.
Sounds like a cool idea to me.

Bryce

> Hmmm... I'm just thinking aloud here; I'm not even sure if it's a useful
> idea, nor am I sure
> that I can explain it satisfactorialy :/
> Ok, from the users perspective, it would look like this: A default
> configuration skeleton would
> be installed (a default ~/.bashrc etc), as it is currently. The user
> would then be able to apply, um, "themes" to their configuration - for 
> example I like the highlight colour to be red, so I would find myself
> going through ~/.pinerc, ~/.lynxrc etc making them all look the same...
> the same applies to things like prompts, shells, editor of choice, my
> favorite mail program, /etc/hosts etc etc.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Themes

[Thomas Flavel]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 10:32:29PM -0600, Bryce Porter wrote:
> I have been working on an awesome bash prompt theming mechanism. I could
> easily make a format to make color prompts using strings like $red for
> red text, etc. And then i could even write a few sample bash prompt
> themes. I have all the ANSI colors defined already, and assigned to thier
> own unique variable.
> Sounds like a cool idea to me.
> 
> Bryce
> 
> > Hmmm... I'm just thinking aloud here; I'm not even sure if it's a useful
> > idea, nor am I sure
> > that I can explain it satisfactorialy :/
> > Ok, from the users perspective, it would look like this: A default
> > configuration skeleton would
> > be installed (a default ~/.bashrc etc), as it is currently. The user
> > would then be able to apply, um, "themes" to their configuration - for 
> > example I like the highlight colour to be red, so I would find myself
> > going through ~/.pinerc, ~/.lynxrc etc making them all look the same...
> > the same applies to things like prompts, shells, editor of choice, my
> > favorite mail program, /etc/hosts etc etc.
> 

*sigh* That's not what I meant at all ;)

Colouring a prompt was just an example; I was trying to portray a system
whereby everything could be configured from one central datafile... I'll try
to explain it again if anybody wants?

- Tom

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Themes

[Cymen Vig]

Thomas Flavel:

> *sigh* That's not what I meant at all ;)
>
> Colouring a prompt was just an example; I was trying to portray a system
> whereby everything could be configured from one central datafile... I'll
try
> to explain it again if anybody wants?

Wouldn't this have at least a few of the same drawbacks that the registry in
windows has?  Do things die if this file gets corrupted/accidentally
deleted/severly tweaked?  Or is it another layer?

Cymen Vig
cvig@raw-io.com

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Themes

[drobbins]

On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 12:39:05AM -0600, Cymen Vig wrote:

> > Colouring a prompt was just an example; I was trying to portray a system
> > whereby everything could be configured from one central datafile... I'll
> try
> > to explain it again if anybody wants?
> 
> Wouldn't this have at least a few of the same drawbacks that the registry in
> windows has?  Do things die if this file gets corrupted/accidentally
> deleted/severly tweaked?  Or is it another layer?

One of the design goals of Gentoo Linux is to have a clean system with a 
minimum of layers.  If we add new features, we try to make sure that they
don't complicate things too much -- the goal is to simplify, Linux is 
quite complex already.

I designed Portage so that the ebuild scripts would be very easy to create
(hint, hint) rather than cumbersome.  So if someone would like us to add
some features, the first question I have is whether it simplifies or just
adds another layer of complexity -- this part depends mostly on implementation.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.