view pixmaps/smileys/THEMES-HOWTO @ 4359:5fb47ec9bfe4

[gaim-migrate @ 4625] Wow, okay, where to begin with this one ;) I rewrote the whole conversation backend. It is now core/UI split. Here's how it works.. Every conversation is represented by a gaim_conversation structure. This branches out into gaim_im and gaim_chat structures. Every conversation lives in (well, normally, but it doesn't have to) a gaim_window structure. This is a _CORE_ representation of a window. There can be multiple gaim_window structures around. The gaim_window and gaim_conversation structures have UI-specific operation structures associated with them. At the moment, the only UI is GTK+, and this will be for some time. Don't start thinking you can write a QT UI now. It's just not going to happen. Everything that is done on a conversation is done through the core API. This API does core processing and then calls the UI operations for the rendering and anything else. Now, what does this give the user? - Multiple windows. - Multiple tabs per window. - Draggable tabs. - Send As menu is moved to the menubar. - Menubar for chats. - Some very cool stuff in the future, like replacing, say, IRC chat windows with an X-Chat interface, or whatever. - Later on, customizable window/conversation positioning. For developers: - Fully documented API - Core/UI split - Variable checking and mostly sane handling of incorrect variables. - Logical structure to conversations, both core and UI. - Some very cool stuff in the future, like replacing, say, IRC chat windows with an X-Chat interface, or whatever. - Later on, customizable window/conversation positioning. - Oh yeah, and the beginning of a stock icon system. Now, there are things that aren't there yet. You will see tabs even if you have them turned off. This will be fixed in time. Also, the preferences will change to work with the new structure. I'm starting school in 2 days, so it may not be done immediately, but hopefully in the next week. Enjoy! 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.