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arc-design / arc-theme

A flat theme with transparent elements
GNU General Public License v3.0
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--with-custom=<script> option for autogen.sh in README #146

Open jnsh opened 5 years ago

jnsh commented 5 years ago

The --with-custom= option, documented in the README doesn't seem to be recognized by autogen.sh.

I'm assuming it could be removed from build options list, but I couldn't figure out why the option was added in README in the first place.

@fossfreedom Apparently, you added the option in commit https://github.com/NicoHood/arc-theme/commit/ea2f84450a8ef4b8713d0e0f5548db58401dacd4. Could you clarify what it was for, and whether it should be removed?

fossfreedom commented 5 years ago

Inclined to leave it for the moment.

The intention is that is/was an enabler to allow forks of arc-theme to be merged into the one project. This was a very early discussion Nico and myself had with others.

Real world example - manjaro's arc-theme variant basically just changes arc's colours. So the --with-custom= would (for example) point to a script that when run early in the make process would patch the source files before the rest of the asset generation and compilation process.

The big advantage of forks combining is that end-users all receive the same quality theme - but can choose the variant of arc they want.

oomox similarly gives this ability - but from a packaging point of view - distro's could customise arc to suit their user-base.

The bit to "patch" has not been added to the Makefile - work to be done.

jnsh commented 5 years ago

Thanks for the clarification. That's how I always assumed the --with-custom option was supposed to work, but was surprised to notice it wasn't recognized by the build system.

I do also think it'd be a great feature to be able to run custom modifications at the build time via scripts. In addition to changing the colors, it would be great e.g. for switching the font for gnome-shell/cinnamon themes, or allow implementing modifications that don't necessarily make sense adding to the main theme (such as #54 for example).

However, IMHO it doesn't make sense to have unimplemented features documented in the main README. If it's only purpose is to be merely a placeholder for actually implementing it in the future, this should be done by having an open issue that explains the plan, is open for discussion, and draws more attention for contributions. Mentioning the option in README only serves to confuse users and contributors.

What makes thing even more confusing, is that there's currently the change_color.sh script and the scripts/ directory, and their purpose or usage instructions aren't documented anywhere, but I guess that's a separate issue.