In your opinion, when you first got litestep, did you guys (litestep veterans/long time users) think it was difficult to makes themes? I mean, did it take a long time to get good and stuff?
[Btw, tell me what you think of my current litestep in my profile, its not my theme, but I think it goes well with the desktop and stuff.. and i want your guys opinions]
When I started using Litestep, OTS2 was already in place, and RC3 had just come out. I had no problems understanding theme structure at all.
I'm betting it was harder before OTS came on to the scene, though.
[Haha I just looked at the theme in your profile. I made that. =) ]
It was harder before, because every theme was basically a full distro. Getting others' stuff to work could be a real PITA. OTS was an amazing breath of fresh air, and OTS2 really refined it.
For maybe the first week, I was like: "Wtf!? Amazing!" then I looked at the themes .rc's and read around abit, but generally its easy to understand (most modules have !bangs, some have *settings etc...)
And yeah, OTS was great, I think i was just starting when OTS came out... can't really remember, damn drugs screwing up my brain... :D
Its just experience, basically, that makes it easier to understand themes (well, anything I guess...) so just looking at themes adds to your understanding of theming.
For me, I just check out the themes section once in a while. If I see something cool, I download the theme and figure out how they did it. Once you get used to how litestep works, just looking around at cool things is usually enough for you to figure out how to create it yourself or base something off of it. Once in a while, though, you get really crazy things (@!%$* Lock.Solid) where you look at the code and realize you're going to have to teach yourself another programming language to duplicate the functionality or figure out a way on your own. Those are the times you really have to think. Here's a hint, though - you can do nearly anything with just xlabel, xpopup, xtray, xtaskbar, xtextedit and mzscript.
I like xmodules - can you tell?
p.s. When was OTS2 released?
Back when I started it was horribly complex. There were no docs and nobody to answer any questions. You had two types of themes, just like you do now...the horribly complex and those that are so minimal they are pointless.
It took me a good 3 months to rewrite the default b24 theme to what I wanted. And that was after using it for a while. OTS did change things a lot. It took a lot of things we were doing in the community and standardized it. I still think that OTS2 while refining the OTS standard increased the learning curve to LiteStep.
I really hope that OTS3 really dumbs some more of it down and makes it easier for new users to pick things up. We shall see though.
It does seem to have a pretty steep learning curve, but I'm willing to try. I know I've already asked some really dumb questions but I guess I'll figure it out.
I don't know that the learning curve's that steep - I've only been at it a few months and I'm pretty comfortable with the language.
OTS3: yes, I hope so, too. OTS2 was, overall very good, but removed some of the transparency that OTS had. Given how good most module docs are now, that's good enough even for n00bs, once they dig .chm docs out; meanwhile, the OTS2 docs are more a set of specs and standards than documentation on actual use (part of me wants to propose something simple, while another part wants to make 10 wiki articles explaining it :)).
The learning curve itself isn't as much trouble as actually allowing people to get hooked in, instead of pushing them away (ATM, Takagami and tactical-golem come to mind). Even a steep learning curve isn't much a problem, as long as there is confidence that is not overwhelming. Humans are resourceful in all endeavors, as long as the carrot is close enough that they don't give up.
Cerbie: See...I somewhat agree with you. However the two of them are attempting to learn on their own and are asking smart questions, most fo the time. If everyone learned LS like that there would be no issues. But everyone wants to have their hand held and that just won't work with LS. If you don't understand the concept of how/why things work the way they do you will always be asking the same stupid questions.
Meh. I have been using Litestep for about, I dunno, 3 whole weeks.
There definately is a steep learning curve, and Cerbie's tutorials at
http://wiki.litestep.com/Themes:Development helped me understand things alot. IMO, there are two learning curves. Understanding the who litestep.rc format ...and then understanding how to script stuff to make things more automated. Ain't over that second hump, yet.
One of the actual bigger reasons I tried LiteStep out was because of the amount of themes made for it and the quality and awesome look of them.. honestly, I've never made a theme for a shell. I am studying to make one for litestep, though. :)
I actually think it was easier before when it comes to making your own themes. All config was done in step.rc, scripting wasn't used much at all, just some basic !execute stuff. And the modules weren't very complex.
But it was much harder trying other themes out, and releasing your stuff for others to try. OTS, and especially OTS2, made theme sharing *so* much easier!
Speaking of OTS3, who's responsible for creating the standards? Do we have a voice?
They have a forum over at
http://www.lsdev.org I believe. It has been posted on the irc channel for a while if I remember correctly.
Tobbe: it depends...if you don't want to do anything really complex, you can make simple themes now, without much work. With some work, you can make some very simple themes that are genuinely amazing (read: Sryo).
Dev: yes, but, as you say, hand-holding just does not work. You can hold their hand until the epiphany of how the configuration works. After that, it will not work, and anyone who needs that is simply not going to be able to do much with LS, because LS and its modules are a bunch of features, which need a human's vision and effort to make into a task-/work-oriented interface.