Re: custom-themes BAD?

[Rainer M Krug <Rainer@krugs.de>]

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Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:

> Rainer M Krug <Rainer@krugs.de> writes:
>
>> Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:
>>> If you use manoj-dark theme, then switch to another theme,
>>> manoj will leave behind a huge number of it's customizations,
>>> since other themes don't set as many fonts.
>>
>> Now this is an important point and raises one question: there is a
>> load-theme function - but not an unload-theme which removes the
>> customizations done by the package? An author of a theme can not be
>> expected to undo all changes another theme might have done - but one
>> could expect a package author to provide a function which unloads the
>> theme and restores the theme used before, or simply reset to the default
>> values.
>>
>> IMO, this is the problem with themes.
>
> It should be a simple matter for all themes to run a hook that removes
> the previous theme.  Then have each theme define it's own hook function.
> But removing a face won't revert to the prior face, so each theme would
> have to query the current setting, then save it in the hook function
> for removal.

Exactly - should not be to difficult to implement.

>
> I think it would be far easier to just have a set of about 20 or 30 faces
> that a theme is expected to set so the next theme can override those
> same 20 to 30 faces.  Note, I'm not claiming 20 to 30 faces would be
> sufficient, but manoj-dark is almost 800 lines long.  Certainly no one
> needs or wants 800 different faces.

Well - 2 faces would again be easier...
Don't get me wrong - 800 is a lot. But I am using manoj-dark at the moment
and I really like it. The question should not be: how many do we need?
But how can we manage these effectively.
And removal hooks would be one very important step in the right
direction. And the effort would then be with the theme author as they
have to write the removal / restore functions, and not with anybody
else.

Cheers,

Rainer

-- 
Rainer M. Krug

email: RMKrug<at>gmail<dot>com

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