Hello everyone.
I'm new to Litestep, only been using it for a few days now and I'm loving the idea of it.
I've tried a whole bunch of different themes, but nothing really takes my fancy. Austerity seems to be the most useful to me at the moment, but I really want to start making my own.
I've had a look at various bits of documentation, a sample theme from a tutorial and stuff, but so much of what I find isn't OTS2 complaint, always going on about step.rc and so on. I expect most of it is pretty similar anyway, but I want to make OTS2 complaint themes and not get tangled up in old ways of doing things.

Please point me in the direction of some good OTS2 getting started info if you can :)

http://o-t-s.sf.net/

Thanks, I've already looked there, but it's not quite what I was looking for. The point being most obviously made by this quote:

"Please note that the following discussion is not a tutorial on the creation of a LiteStep theme - it merely explains what properties a LiteStep theme must have in order to be OTS compliant."
- http://o-t-s.sourceforge.net/theme_creation.html

maybe try http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=2&id=1939

I've made a really basic theme (only popup and resizeable taskbar; no gfx). You can grab it here:
http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=2&action=details&id=343

Thanks Smurth, that looks like exactly the thing I need :)

you could take the basic files of austerity (theme.rc, base.rc, plus others if you like) and just start with these. that's what i did. austerity is well structured, this can make thinks quite easier. just comment out everything you don't need, then simply start changing basics, later details.
as for the graphics, i always create simple one-color-images as "dummies", then do the .rc stuff, and finally change images again to what they should look like at the end. others first finish graphics, then do the rest. this is up to your like.

(is that right: "your like"? i'm not sure...)

I was actually going to ask the exact same question that spiritofcat did (the same situation). But I don't think we have an clear answer here. Are there no standards for OTS2 defined anywhere? For me, I don't even know what makes a theme OTS2 or not, exept that it seems OTS2 dont use the step.rc for all the information, but using separate texdtfiles instead. But that can't be enough to defina an new standard, can it?

look @ the link sryo posted
http://o-t-s.sf.net/
it might be boring, but it has the info you're after.

Thanks for the help everyone, I'm starting to find my feet a little now, in my mind at least.
Yeah, EagleOwl, the OTS2 standard is nice and clearly defined at that sourceforge page.
As to my learning how to theme, I'm getting there slowly. I'm examining Austerity and the simple theme that Smurth gave us, thought Smurth's one is mostly more confusing than helpful (Sorry Smurth). But I'm starting to understand ("He's beginning to believe" - Morpheous) and it's all beginning to look possible now.

The confusing parts are the scripts about taskbar. If you don't need a moveable, resizeable, smart taskbar, then this theme is very simple :)

Yes, but those confusing bits are in there, amongst all the rest, and it's hard for a newbie to work out which bits are for the fancy taskbar effects and which bits are core.

I understand