[ubuntu-art] Firefox theme set 0.3 released

[Frank Schoep]

On Monday 08 May 2006 19:01, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Frank Schoep writes ("[ubuntu-art] Firefox theme set 0.3 released"):
> > Get it here:
> > http://www.ffnn.nl/pages/projects/ubuntu-firefox-themes/download-install.
> >php
>
> Thanks for your effort.
>
> What process do you plan to use for updates in the future ?  We need
> to decide where the master or upstream source is for this theme data.
> If you're going to continue to work on it in your CVS then perhaps we
> should treat you as the upstream.

As weird as it may sound, I set out with this project to see if it could be 
done, creating a theme "on the fly" from the GNOME icons and the default 
Firefox theme. So far it works out perfectly, even ironing out a bug in the 
original theme.

Now that the proof-of-concept stage is passed I wanted to get ubuntu-devel 
involved (see my mail from yesterday to ubuntu-art if you have it) to discuss 
exactly the questions you're asking me now. 

I haven't planned out the process for updates yet, because I haven't got a 
clear view on the packaging and maintenance process in Ubuntu. I see this 
package as one which will not get a lot of updates, it'll only be reactive: 
if the default Firefox theme or one of the relevant GNOME icon sets get 
updated, this one should be updated too, but only if themed icons or theme 
data change.

Regarding development I'm not necessarily tied to my own CVS server, I'd 
rather have it hosted somewhere "big" so that noone is dependent on me or my 
server alone. My personal CVS server works well for a quick setup and small 
projects, but as soon as my work is going to be used in a larger context I 
wouldn't feel comfortable with it being hosted here.

> And of course we need the Ubuntu package repository to contain all of
> the source images as well as the processing script(s) you've written.
> That's what constitutes the source for this theme, as I understand it,
> as that's what you'd ideally have if you wanted to edit the theme.

The source images and processing scripts are exactly what is included in the 
CVS module right now. There isn't much more to it either, as the scripts 
"borrow" the rest of the data from the default Firefox theme and GNOME icons 
on the fly. I think everything combined (excluding theme binaries) is less 
than 100 Kb.

To edit the theme, it's only a matter of changing references to the icons 
which are used. I've abstracted all "difficult" code to the background.

> Should this theme, and the generation script, should go into the
> ubuntu-artwork package ?  Should there be a different package ?

I'm not sure on this one. I haven't got enough experience with the Ubuntu 
development process to be a judge on this question. Any suggestions are 
welcome.

For distribution, only the three JAR files are necessary, the build scripts 
should only be part of the source package (is this the correct terminology?).

As far as I can see now, the themes could be bundled either separately named 
like:
mozilla-firefox-theme-human
mozilla-firefox-theme-tangerine
mozilla-firefox-theme-tango

Or one theme package like:
mozilla-firefox-themes-ubuntu

> I'm looking through the CVS repository now.
> Is http://cvs.ffnn.nl/index.cgi/ubuntu-php-firefox-human/
> the right place to go to get the most recent version or am I in the
> wrong subdirectory ?

You are at the right place. I could set up an external CVS over SSH account 
for you if you'd like, or you could use the "Download as tarball" link at the 
bottom to immediately get what you want.

So, to return to the first question you asked: I would like to discuss 
inclusion of the theme with the ubuntu-devel list. Is this a good idea and 
could you help with getting a decent proposal out there? I think the themes 
are in good shape already and they're technically fine, so I'm confident they 
won't cause any problems later on.

Thanks for reading, I hope we can solve the remaining issues.

With kind regards,

Frank Schoep