Introducing Larval Editor
- on 2010-04-01
- Linux
- 13 Comments
In my last post, about GRUB2 theming, there were a few people who were unhappy at the perceived difficulty of creating GRUB2 themes, largely based on the lack of documentation. And to be honest, those people are right – if the documentation were complete & correct when I started, then I wouldn’t have ended up bumping into all the bugs I did. So, to help on that front – and to help kick-start GRUB2 theming in general, I’m announcing Larval. More GRUB2 themes means more awesome-looking systems in the wild. Hopefully the GRUB2 upstream will embrace it as a project to help raise the profile and potential of GRUB2.
It didn’t take me long to realise the most obvious way to develop such an editor: GRUB2′s canvas-based layout system has an awful lot in common with XAML, so the obvious choice was to develop using Silverlight (or, more specifically, Gtk.Moonlight). Larval’s internal theme format is XAML files, which are then exported to (and imported from) GRUB2′s simple text based files.
The biggest piece of work, to be honest, is the Managed implementation of a PF2 font reader/writer, so you can design a theme using the regular TrueType fonts of your choice, then have them automatically ported to PF2 format as required.
I look forward to plenty of community input on Larval, once it reaches a point where I’m sufficiently pleased with my (Ms-PL licensed) code to share it with the world. Until then, you’ll have to make do with the above screenshot!
[Edit: If it wasn't obvious, this was mostly an April Fool. Mostly. I DID knock together a Gtk.Moonlight UI, and I *DO* think it's a good idea. But there's no code, and no real desire to write the required amount of cruft]
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please say this is not an april fool’s?
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directhex Reply:
April 1st, 2010 at 10:11 pm
@rolandixor, would you be happier if it was, or wasn’t?
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Stifu Reply:
April 1st, 2010 at 10:56 pm
@directhex, sounds like the latter. ;)
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MSPL, really?
Could you please relicense this under a better licence, like Canonical’s GPL variant?(http://www.siltala.net/2010/04/01/ubuntu-to-be-licensed-under-friendiler-version-of-the-gpl/)
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Don’t even joke about using Ms-Pl. It’s a Mufasa License.
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Hello,
thanks for that nice app. Could you please explain the benefits of using the MS-PL instead of other OSI-approved licenses.
Just curious to know.
Thanks a lot,
Fipoli
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directhex Reply:
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:43 pm
@Fipoli, Comic effect. The mockup is actually X11
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Mono, Silverlight on Linux… you’re a bit like pandora’s box in the wild west. Man you must be bored with life…
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No classes? Is all your code in MainWindow.cs or something?
April fools? =(
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directhex Reply:
April 3rd, 2010 at 5:50 pm
@Joe, well noticed!
Reckon the idea is worth taking further, though? I thought of the concept a few weeks ago, and only had the idea to make a mockup on April 1st at the 11th hour on Thursday
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For those who don’t want to use this tool, you can find some hints and some Gimp and SVG templates to help designing grub splash screen on: http://wiki.debian.org/Grub/SplashImage
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directhex Reply:
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:41 pm
@Frank lin Piat, Splash images are not themes.
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