Self-contained theme files?

[lanfear]

What's the take on implementing self-contained theme files, versus the current "unzipping stuff into all kinds of places"?

I could imagine that storage efficiency (themes share fonts etc.) would've been a good reason back in the days, but not anymore. Or maybe it's something else, I'm curious!

Best regards,

lf

[bluebrother]

Storage wasn't a reason for themes anyway -- the space in RAM that's needed to load the theme is what's limited, the only resource we have plenty of is hard disc space. But what's the issue with extracting a zip? It isn't complicated, and supporting self-containing themes would require more complex code.

I did a try for themes based upon tar files but that had a noticeable speed penalty when loading. While I'm still interested in that topic I haven't found the time to look into it again.

[AlexP]

Nico_P has recently been looking into using a single tar file for all the image files, which seems to speed up loading of themes due to saving on expensive disk seeks/reads for image heavy WPSs.

[lanfear]

Thanks for the replies!

The reason I brought self-contained themes / single file themes up is because of reasons like:

- they don't clutter your system
- they're easier to transport from your system
- they minimize the risk of installation problems

I think that's why most other media software use self-contained themes.

Of course, I don't know how difficult it is to implement, but I just think it would be a nice touch and it would make Rockbox feel like a more mature & streamlined system.

[NicolasP]

As BigBambi said, there is a patch that allows loading all bitmaps for a WPS from a single tar file: FS#6571. However I don't think whole themes as a single file is likely to ever happen, as a theme is made of various independent parts (WPS, font, menu backdrop, colours, icons...)

[MarcGuay]

..as a theme is made of various independent parts (WPS, font, menu backdrop, colours, icons...)

It seems to me like if this was to be done properly, it would also require another piece of software to save all the different pieces in a single file.  (Which is pretty much what's done right now with .zip files, self-extracting ones being even closer to the idea).  Perhaps if a Rockbox Theme designer application was ever created it could make the process of both making and installing them friendlier.