view pixmaps/smileys/THEMES-HOWTO @ 7612:3ae88e96dde2

[gaim-migrate @ 8236] This is an attempt to both fix the directory creation permissions and simplify the creation of nested directories from within gaim at the same time. If you need nested directories, simply call gaim_build_dir with the same arguments you would have given to mkdir and it will recursively create the tree for you. I spent way too much time on this. committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

Gaim Smiley Themes Documentation
Sean M. Egan
5 Jan 2003

Version 0.60 of Gaim brings up all themable smileys.  In the preferences dialog, a user can choose from a selection of looks his smileys will take.  This guide is to serve as a reference to those interested in creating third-party smiley themes.  

(SME: I'm doing this at 6:30AM; I'm tired, but I can't sleep.  Someone make sure I fix this up to make sure it all makes sense when I'm not tired anymore.  Right now it's mostly just unassembled thoughts)

Your theme should be contained in a single directory.  This directory will be installed in the Gaim smiley theme directory (SME: There should probably be a $HOME/.gaim/smileys/ that the theme could go in too.).  This directory will contain a file called `theme' that specifies the theme and image (SME: And possibly sound) files that are used by the theme.  The format of the `theme' file is as follows.

The beginning of the file contains some metainformation about the theme in the format

Key=Value

Valid keys include:
Name - Name of the theme
Description - Description of the theme
Icon - An image used to represent the theme in the theme selector UI
Author - The author's name

Following this meta-information are "sml" groups.  A "sml" group is a group of smileys that will be shown together.  For example, each protocol has its own "sml" group (MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu, etc.).  The name of the group is surrounded in square brackets, and each line beneath it (until the next sml group or the end of the file) defines a smiley.
Each line of the group starts with a filename of the icon (SME: Or sound?) followed by a space-delimited list of the characters that represent it. 

Example:
[AIM/ICQ]
smiley.png  :) :-)

In the smiley selector UI, each icon will only be shown once, and the first string representing it will be used.  To keep a smiley out of the selector altogether, make the first two characters of the line "! " followed by the filename and emoticons.