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(sawfish.info)Themes

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Themes
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   Themes and frame styles are currently almost synonymous, the slight
difference being that themes provide a mechanism for loading frame
styles from the filing system as they are required. Although it is
possible that themes may include other user-interface settings in a
later version, at the moment it seems unlikely.

   When a frame style is requested, if it is not already available (i.e.
if the `add-frame-style' function hasn't been called for that style)
then the window manager will attempt to load a theme of the same name
from the filing system.

   Each theme is stored in a directory; this directory must have the
same name as the name of the theme itself. Within this directory there
must be a Lisp script named `theme.jl' or `theme.jlc'. This script will
be evaluated, it should provide a frame style of the same name as the
theme (by calling `add-frame-style').

   While the theme script is evaluating the `image-load-path' variable
is set to include the theme directory as its first element.  This
ensures that any image files stored in the directory can be loaded
using the `make-image' function.

   Since rep has no module system, any global variables defined within
the theme must be prefixed by the name of the theme to ensure their
uniqueness. For example, in the theme `foo', a variable `bar' would
actually be called `foo:bar'.

   In most cases however, rep's lexical scoping can be used to avoid
declaring any global variables or functions, the only usual exception
is when declaring customization options with `defcustom'; these must be
globally visible.

   Since themes are generally passed around very casually, sawfish
evaluates all theme code in a very restricted environment; the idea
being that themes should only be able to affect the look of the window
manager. Despite this, it is still possible for malicious themes to
lock, and possibly crash, the window manager; in the first case sending
a `SIGINT' signal may unblock it. Hopefully themes are unable to affect
the rest of the user's environment, but there are no guarantees...

 - Variable: theme-load-path
     A list of directory names, provides the search path for locating
     theme directories. By default this includes the user's theme
     directory and the system theme directory.

 - Variable: user-theme-directory
     The name of the user's theme directory, by default
     `~/.sawfish/themes'.

 - Variable: system-theme-directory
     The name of the system theme directory.