[ubuntu-art] Firefox theme set 0.3 released

[Ian Jackson]

Frank Schoep writes ("Re: [ubuntu-art] Firefox theme set 0.3 released"):
> 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.

Right.  Or we could have the conversation here if you like.  It's
probably going to be me doing the packaging, unless you're keen to do
it yourself.  (We're in a bit of a hurry because we want it in Dapper,
of course.)

> 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.

I don't have a good feel for how often those upstream icon sets
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.

Right.  Well, we can leave it there for now and I'll treat the
tarballs from your cvsweb as upstream versions.

> 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.

Yes, it looks reasonably good to me.

I took a snapshot from your website earlier today and have some
comments:

* Trying to build it says:
   Fatal error: no icon for human actions back 24
   mv -f *.jar ../bin
   mv: cannot stat `*.jar': No such file or directory
   make: *** [all] Error 1

* In the above, note also that createtheme.php has exited zero despite
  the fatal error, which seems wrong to me.

* Normally I wouldn't check the output files such as the .jar's into CVS.

> 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.
> 
> 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.

Having looked at it I think it should perhaps be a package by itself.

And we should have one binary package as you suggest:

> 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.

Feel free to discuss this on ubuntu-devel but I think I should be able
to answer most of your questions if you want to carry on here or in
private email.

Regards,
Ian.