[mythtv] Theme Discrepancies

Roo roo.watt at gmail.com
Mon Sep 10 09:37:15 UTC 2007


On 10/09/2007, Matt <skd5aner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>    I read every single thread on the commits list so that I can keep
> track of the changes that go into myth, mainly so I can see the cool
> new stuff and bug fixes and know when I should update to latest SVN.
> Anyway, I've noticed a trend of where people put patches in that
> affect themes, and they'll only update a select few of the themes.
>
> Typically, it's the core themes packaged directly within myth.  A
> patch will be submitted to include some new functionality, or even
> maybe a bugfix, and all the themes within myth usually get addressed.
> Most times, they'll even apply them to the "myththemes" branch.
> However, sometimes they'll not do all the themes in the myththemes
> branch, just a couple of them.  And rarely will they submit the patch
> against those in the "themes" branch - for some reason this is out
> there, and Justin is the only one (for the most part) applying patches
> there.  No wonder he wanted to give it up -
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/283785#283785
>
> Here's a few recent examples:
> http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-commits/2007-September/032457.html
> - Only did GANT, Blue, and default-wide.
>
> http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-commits/2007-September/032459.html
> - Only did minimalist-wide and Titivillus.

Both the commits you link to refer to the same ticket (#3877), the
ticket addressed the specific issue in all core themes. The ticket
patched all the core themes (mythtv and myththemes) and I can say for
certain that it left the "themes" themes out as they did not implement
the albumart enhancements.

> I know recently that with the myth-vid merge, that some changes were
> made and Justin had to come back and make those changes to the
> "themes" directory himself.  Just curious if it should be a
> requirement for any theme/GUI related changes that those changes
> should be required across all themes currently provided under the
> svn.mythtv.org umbrella?

There are competing requirements here, the developers with skills/time
to add such major enhancements as the mythtv-vid don't necessarily
have the time/desire to update the themes they don't use themselves.

Those will the graphic design skills don't necessarily have the coding
skills to add the features etc they would like to be able to add.

In short it is a matter of team work, if a developer is required to
update all themes before adding a new feature you will end up with the
devs having all the cool features in their local tree and not
committed.

> I don't think it's fair for those users to have less/broken/incomplete
> functionality and not know it simply because a dev doesn't use or
> didn't test the compatibility of his changes across themes.  Anyway,
> just my 2 cents.

Conversely it may not be fair for users not to have the chance to fix
broken themes  or use working themes with the new features because of
a requirement to patch ALL themes before adding a new feature. It is
trunk afterall, there is no guarantee that there will not be breakage
occassionally.

>  Keep up the good work devs, and I do like it when we
> get new themes and GUI improvements.  All that under the covers stuff
> is great, but the UI is what we see.

I guess the theme work is probably more within the scope of users, so
if your favourite theme is not up to date you should have a better
chance of updating it (doesn't have to be pretty), it certainly is
easier than writing C++.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that all the themes need some
reorganising to aid maintenance. It is something I have discussed on
IRC and am prepared to help with, in fact this is a topic I have been
going to raise myself. But I will save that for a separate post.

Cheers,

Roo.


More information about the mythtv-dev mailing list