+
+\section{How to create your own theme}
+\label{sec:how_create_theme}
+
+A Theme is a base class object that is created and customized as \textit{ThemeName}.
+It is constructed during program initialization in a theme plugin
+\texttt{PluginTClient},
+defined in a \texttt{plugins/theme\_name} source directory.
+
+\texttt{theme\_name.C} and \texttt{theme\_name.h} are derived \textit{Theme} class object constructors.
+
+A Theme is constructed during initialization in \texttt{init\_theme} (\texttt{mwindow.C}). The theme plugin is accessed using the \textit{name} from preferences, and that theme plugin is loaded, and it contains the code to construct that theme. A Theme object has functions and data that \CGG{} uses to do a variety of customizations, such as \texttt{default\_window\_positions}, and it can modify GUI defaults, like \\
+\texttt{default\_text\_color}, when it is initialized.
+
+The theme plugin contains a \textit{new\_theme} function, that allocates and constructs a
+\textit{ThemeName} object, with a base classes of \textit{BC\_Theme} (gui setup), \textit{Theme} (\CGG{} defaults), and \textit{ThemeName}, with definitions and overrides that create the custom theme. To create a new theme, a new plugin is needed:
+
+\begin{lstlisting}[numbers=none]
+ #include "header files.h"
+ PluginClient* new_plugin(PluginServer *server)
+ {
+ return new NameMain(server);
+ }
+
+ NameMain::NameMain(PluginServer *server)
+ : PluginTClient(server)
+ {
+ }
+
+ NameMain::~NameMain()
+ {
+ }
+ const char* NameMain::plugin_title() { return N_("Name"); }
+
+ Theme* NameMain::new_theme()
+ {
+ theme = new ThemeName;
+ extern unsigned char _binary_theme_name_data_start[];
+ theme->set_data(_binary_theme_name_data_start);
+ return theme;
+ }
+
+ Name::Name()
+ : Theme()
+ {
+ }
+
+ Name::~Name()
+ {
+ delete stuff;
+ }
+\end{lstlisting}
+
+When a theme is constructed by \texttt{NameMain::new\_theme()}, it sets a pointer to a
+block of data created in the plugin build that contains all of the png data
+files in the \texttt{plugins/theme\_name/data} directory. These images may define or override the appearance of gui images, such as \textit{ok.png} (the ok button). There are usually a large number of images that need to be defined. The theme plugin adds them to the theme image data in the \texttt{theme $\rightarrow$ initialize()} function. The best list of theme image setup is probably in SUV (\texttt{plugins/theme\_suv/suv.[Ch]}).
+
+The easy way to create a new theme is to copy an existing theme and change
+its name to \textit{ThemeName}, and be sure to \texttt{change plugin\_title()} to the new name, then tweak the definitions until you are happy with the results. The file
+names and Makefile also need to be updated to the new theme \textit{name}. The source
+can by manually rebuilt by invoking make in the \texttt{plugins/theme\_name}
+directory.
+
+Once it is built into the plugin library, it will be discovered by the plugin probe,
+and it will become an available theme in the \textit{Preferences}.
+
+If you are ready to add it to the main build, then \textit{theme\_name} should be
+included in the DIRS targets of the \texttt{plugins/Makefile}, and the \texttt{plugin\_defs} needs \textit{theme\_name} in the themes list.
+
+Themes usually require considerable time to create from scratch. For
+example, the SUV theme has over 800 lines in the initialize function, and has over
+500 png images in the data directory. Most of these images and data values are
+required to be initialized by the custom theme constructor; very tedious and
+time consuming work. Creating a new theme is usually a lot of work.
projects / goodguy / cin-manual-latex.git / commitdiff
