A theme in aptitude is simply a collection of settings that “go together”. Themes work by overriding the default values of options: if an option is not set in the system configuration file or in your personal configuration file, aptitude will use the setting from the current theme, if one is available, before using the standard default value.
A theme is simply a named group under
Aptitude::Themes
; each configuration
option contained in the group will override the
corresponding option in the global configuration. For
instance, if the Dselect
theme is
selected, the option
Aptitude::Themes::Dselect::Aptitude::UI::Package-Display-Format
will override the default value of the option
Aptitude::UI::Package-Display-Format
.
To select a theme, set the configuration option Aptitude::Theme
to the name of the theme; for instance,
Aptitude::Theme Vertical-Split;
The following themes are shipped with aptitude in
/usr/share/aptitude/aptitude-defaults
:
Dselect
This theme makes aptitude look and behave more like
the legacy dselect
package manager:
Vertical-Split
This theme rearranges the display: instead of the current package's description appearing underneath the package list, it is displayed to the right of the package list. This theme is useful with very wide terminals, and perhaps also when editing the built-in hierarchy of packages.