Re: Fancy menu theme

[Colin D Bennett]

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:36:54 +0000
"Matt Sturgeon" <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi, I was looking at xfce themes and i notist that xfce has another
> feature, missing from GRUB 2:
> 
> GRUB 2 uses the following system:
> 
> [image: Box_slice_names.png]and[image: Box_slice_example_terminal.png]
> 
> where as xfce uses this system:
> 
> [image: Pixmaps of a xfwm4 window]
> 
> they are exactly the same, except that xfce gives you the feature of a
> background for a title, and two edges for it.
> so if the fancy menu project by Collin Bennett could include a title
> option for the menu, and then incorporate a bg field for it, then
> GRUB 2 will be able to look similar to the OS of the theme creator
> (for example if they distributed GRUB with there OS) more easily.

Yes, there are several ways that the theme support can be made more
flexible.  Particularly, we could allow the themed boxes (which are
used for windows, selection highlights, etc.) to be composed of a set
of any number of pixmaps, where each pixmap has a placement and size
policy.  The current configuration looks like this:

- 4x corners : placed in the 4 corners of the box. Not scaled.
- 4x sides : placed along the top, bottom, left, and right of the box.
             Scaled to the correct length to fit the side based on the
             box's runtime size.
- center : pixmap scaled to fit the area not used by the sides/corners

A more flexible arrangement with arbitrary pixmap placement could allow
the addition of other pixmaps, such as

- title : title bar placed below the "north" side but above the
          "center". Centered. Not scaled.


The actual format used to specify the pixmap placement and size
policies would have to be decided, and a more advanced layout algorithm
would have to be implemented.  The one I have currently implemented is
obviously quite simple.


> it would also be good to include a close-window button on the terminal
> window, to make closing it easier.

Well, that would make sense if/when mouse support is added down the
road.  (It may not be too difficult, and I hope to tackle it some time.)

Regards,
Colin

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