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

[Miststlkr]

I got my start the same way and ran into similar issues, so don't sweat it.
There are two of the same theme listed in the theme chooser because the name
that is displayed comes from the themeinfo.xml file entry, so on yours
you'll need to change the theme's name in there to tell them apart.  I never
did the two different paths thing though, I would just copy
/usr/share/mythtv/themes/blue-abstract/ to
/usr/share/mythtv/themes/custom-theme/ or something similar, change the
title tag in your new themeinfo.xml  and start working from there [with
frequent backups when you are tinkering!!] on your new/modified theme.

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 23:52, Jason Taylor <killerkiwi2005 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> On 1 August 2011 16:20, Kenneth Emerson <kenneth.emerson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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?
>>
>
> Copy the theme to ~/.mythth/themes/blue-abstract-modified
>
> Change the theme name...
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythUI_Theme_Development#themeinfo.xml
>
> You can then use this to reload the theme while mythfrontend is running
>
> kill -USR1 $(pidof mythfrontend)
>
> Thanks what I did anyway
>
> 1 note if the XML in invalid the frontend will load the default theme as a
> fall back..
>
> ~/.mythtv/themecache some times seems to need to be cleared out as well
> (which im guessing is what was happening to you)
>   Jason Taylor
>
> --
> "Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely
> pointless. " - Calven
>
>
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