[mythtv-theming] How to set up a test bed for a theme

[Kenneth Emerson]

I'm new to theme programing, but trying to learn.  I currently use the
blue-abstract-wide theme and wanted to make some small changes to one of the
menus (baby steps in the learning process).  Trying to follow the
instructions on the (several) theme wikis, I created a directory in the
mythtv user's home directory:

/home/mythtv/.mythtv/themes/blue-abstract-wide/

Then I copied the xml file I wanted to modify to that directory.  I believe
the wiki said that the frontend will search this directory first and then
the /usr/[local]/share/mythtv/theme directory for everything else.

Well, that seemed to get mythtv and myself very confused.  The first thing I
noticed was that I now had two versions of blue-abstract-wide to choose from
in the Theme Chooser setup menu.  Not realizing what was happening, I
selected one and ended up with the complete theme loaded into the
home/mythtv/ directory instead of the /usr/local/share directory.

I cleaned that up and got things back to where they had been and when I
reloaded the frontend, I ended up with the Tera theme and could not get the
blue-abstract-wide theme back.  It wasn't until I deleted the
blue-abstract-wide directory from /home/mythtv/.mythtv/themes directory that
things went back to normal.  I assume that happened because, lacking a
working theme, the frontend defaults to the Tera theme?

Since then, I have been making changes directly to the blue-abstract-wide
theme residing in the /usr/local/share/mythtv/themes directory although that
is not optimum as my changes will get wiped out each time I update.

Obviously I have something screwed up either in my configuration or in my
interpretation of the instructions for testing.

Any suggestions?

-- Ken E.
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