I have a lot of stuff to say about this, not negatively, but in general.

First off with the current configuration themeing is a joke, things like
wharf content and popup content shouldn't even be touched by a theme, let
alone controlled by it.
This isn't something that'll change right away, but i know it's being worked
towards in the .25 release, which is when i will consider litestep to be
"public safe".

Secondly there is no testing method for themes apart from users reporting
bugs, I agree wholeheartedly that we as authors should be more responsible
and write good readmes, make things simpler for end users, and comment
through the step.rc, hell i'm guilty of not doing too well there myself. I
once proposed a module testing site, for litestep "certification" <g>, i
wish that would be simple for themes too, but alas, it's not.

By the numbers;

1. It's true I have a c:, it's an assumption to think my apps are on it.
They aren't as a matter of fact, but since most ppls are, wherever i have
d:\litestep i change it to c: in the step.rc for release. I tend to not make
lots of shortcuts in my "interface" to specific apps because i've never had
everything in themes that i've seen which do that, but there are ways around
this. LsLnkMenu by Carluchi is a good example, letting the user set up a
directory of shortcuts to applications.. but it needs some work (pity Carl
doesn't have the time). !DynamicFolder: in the popups is a better way of
getting around this, and with the latest build supporting start menu
variables, makes things a lot friendlier. But litestep isn't easy, it won't
be until we have the new config (and I know the devs are going to make their
best efforts to make it so).

2. We should really include links to useful applications, but that's hard,
hence many litestep sites out there doing this for us. Some knowledge of
graphic manipulation is helpful, but it's not too hard to learn.

3. I agree wholeheartedly, apart from themes that are soley designed around
said hardware (remember the nvidia theme?)

4. I don't see how this would apply, but it's a sound principal

5. Wharf is a pain for exactly this reason, if wharf simply had drag and
drop item filling, this would be a great tool in the shell, but seeing as
noone wants to update it, it gets left behind. Including a font is always a
good plan in said situation, that used to annoy me no end.

6. This is a good point, many users aren't scripting gods, or graphic
wonders, it should be made easy for them, but often isn't. This is due to a
few things, imo namely a lack of theme guidelines. There's also no sane way
of checking that themers are adhering to guidlines so.... again wait until
.25

7. of course.

8. This is an interesting point that i hadn't thought of before, personally
I think that if people have issue with this, they should know their stuff
better, or ask for help - #ls_help on efnet irc is a great place to start,
and while the manual isn't exactly easy reading, it's a necessity that
people actually use it. To that end new documentation is on the drawing
boards. I think that including this software just isn't feasible, we don't
want to bloat zip files. But it's nice to warn users to back up their
existing configuration, with instructions on changing.

9. Don't consider this, these applications are very old now, and rather
obsolete. The latest builds (hell even less recent ones) use totally
different configs, and are far more advanced. Plus they mess up your step.rc
formatting (it's nice to be able to see where everything is). This again
will be addressed in .25 - but in the mean time, there's a learning curve to
deal with, and it's a good idea to get many themes downloaded to see how
they achieve things. The Step.rc is intimidating at first, but becomes
easier as you go.

10. This is down to the theme, but should be adhered to when reason gives
way, some themes really do use too many resources, but often it's due to
feature requests, so I'd just say take requests with a grain of salt, and do
what suits you as a themer.

11. Absolutely

12. Ditto


I'm sorry if I came off sounding a little harsh, I didn't try to be 8)
I feel silly saying "welcome" to someone that's been using ls on and off for
as long as I have, so how about thanks for bringing this to our attention,
and happy stepping? ;)

If i were you i'd pop into #litestep on efnet to talk with the devs,
contribute ideas and suggest alternatives to current or foreseen approaches,
they can always use the help. As for a theme system, i'm sure they could
definitely use your suggestions when they work on the .25 schema

and as for your irc server, perhaps i'll go there shortly <g>

- dreamer