Kopete Reloading Kit

2006-12-14 -- Future Evolution

I have been contacted by member of the kopete development staff that asked me many questions. Since I can read in the comment some of those questions, I'll try to answer as fully as I can.

Kopete developer asked me whether I would like to develop this patch in the svn branch of kopete and port it to QT4. I must confess this eventuality is attracting, I should however work a little more on that patch before giving an answer. Furthermore my knowledge about differences between QT4 and QT3 is somewhere near zero.

A second question, much more interresting, is the evolution of the patch. I must admit this patch does not please me much. While it's much easier to theme kopete contact list by modifying a set of images it's not that configurable. It's still impossible to add a static text here, an image there,... There must be something further the current bitmap solution. I've thus looked for adium xtras contact list theme since it looks as a gigantic themes supply. I might be a little rude, but what I saw didn't convince me at all... There is no way you can build a theme like the one I made with adiumxtras (I may be wrong so please tell me if it's the case). I've then decided to implement an xml theming language that would give to the user complete freedom to build the theme he/she wants.

While the aim of the first development step was to touch as little existing source code as possible, the next step certainly will need a major rewrite of existing code portions.

To the adium fans' attention, I believe it'll be possible to realize a script converting adium to kopete theme. So don't despair...

As a last word, an option to colorize the grey images with the current color theme may be added.


2006-12-13 -- First Release

First release, with skin, patch and a readme explaining howto install it...


2006-12-08 -- Introduction

I everybody, there I am, back and fully alive... Almost a year since I delivered my last version of Yakuake.

My new goal is to improve Kopete GUI. Except its cool styling feature, Kopete hasn't visually changed a lot for months...

You can see in the screenshot, the current result of my attempts to refresh the contact list visual aspect.

The aim of that project is to provide to the Kopete users a pack of well made patches that will give them the ability to customize their favorite IM client without having to write a single line of C++.

Everything will be stored as bitmaps, which means everyone will be able to create its own theme, you'll only need Gimp and a few minutes of patience...

The screenshot you can see isn't a mockup but what is currently displayed on my computer, I'll try to improve it before releasing a first pack.

NOTICE : As a patch archive, you'll have to fully compile kopete source code in order to benefit from these functionalties...

EVOLUTION STEPS

1/ realize a functional theming language based on xml
2/ integrate theming ability to current version of kopete
3/ add colorizing functionality
4/ port the patch to QT4 for further developments