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goMac · Mar 21, 2003, 05:30 PM

I happy to announce the availability of ThemeKit, the core of our 3rd generation theme technologies. ThemeKit is a Cocoa framework that handles theme parsing, creation, import and export. This is the first time one unified standard has been created, allowing all theme applications to speak the same language and all work together. ThemeKit is the creation of multiple groups, including Conundrum Software, Geekspiff, and Ricci Adams.

ThemeKit runs XScheme natively, allowing for rapid adoption of XScheme without the need for writing a new parser. ThemeKit also provides bridges that can handle the use of DLTA's and .theme's also, meaning a developer does not have to leave legacy formats behind. The DLTA parser in ThemeKit is fully compliant with all DLTA files, and support all DLTA functions.

In addition, ThemeKit supports new functionality, including hashes (for far greater security), and compression. ThemeKit is fully object oriented. and allows developers to work with themes as objects in code. ThemeKit is fully documented.

To find out more about ThemeKit go to:

http://conundrumsoft.com/3G

The download link for the runtime version of ThemeKit:

http://conundrumsoft.com/Download/Th...taller.pkg.tgz

The download link for the developers package is:

http://conundrumsoft.com/Download/Th...ersVersion.tgz

bbxstudio · Mar 22, 2003, 11:26 AM

Originally posted by goMac:
ThemeKit is fully object oriented. and allows developers to work with themes as objects in code.

This is stuff for Theme-oriented application developers and not themers, right? A guy shouldn't have to learn code to build a theme...

wagmedia · Mar 22, 2003, 11:51 AM

Originally posted by bbxstudio:
This is stuff for Theme-oriented application developers and not themers, right? A guy shouldn't have to learn code to build a theme...

Agreed. If I've got to start learning hardcore programing, my theming days are pretty much over. That, and after looking at the documentation, it's confusing as all hell. I think I'll maybe wait and see with this one.

NetworkShadow · Mar 22, 2003, 12:54 PM

Ya the coding part is why I haven't made any themes... I think we'd see a lot of cool themes if it was more easy to build them. Most of the best designers aren't programers...

goMac · Mar 22, 2003, 01:26 PM

This would be a tool for theme application developers. You do not have to know ThemeKit to build themes, it is more like a front end for XScheme files. However, it is very hard to create XScheme's from scratch. You will need a ThemeKit based program to assist in creating XSchemes. We are working on a few, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.

wagmedia · Mar 22, 2003, 01:35 PM

Originally posted by goMac:
This would be a tool for theme application developers. You do not have to know ThemeKit to build themes, it is more like a front end for XScheme files. However, it is very hard to create XScheme's from scratch. You will need a ThemeKit based program to assist in creating XSchemes. We are working on a few, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Yeah, I guess if I could see some examples of themes using this new format I'd have a better understanding of how they are created. Can't wait to see some samples.