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

[Jason Taylor]

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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