Notices

Maybe it's from the Nokia Research lab's repository?

To be honest, I have no idea. The maintainer is "Michael Kostrzewa@nokia.com".
It's in a category called "Themes".
Details in the app manager calls the packages:

hildon-theme-chacher 0.2.0-1 (needed by the two themes below)
hildon-theme-plankton 3.1.0-1 (nice blue theme)
hildon-theme-sketchy 3.1.4-1 (bizarre "sketch" theme looks like everything was done in pencil)

I'm on the latest and greatest skype-enabled firmware (v4) running the micro-b beta and the SIP beta and both themes work just fine.
Take note that they both use the default font and icon sizes.

Here's my current sources.list file:

#maemo:name Nokia Catalogue
#maemo:essential
deb http://catalogue.tableteer.nokia.com/certified/ bora user
#maemo:name Nokia Catalogue (3rd party software)
deb http://catalogue.tableteer.nokia.com/non-certified/ bora user
#maemo:name OSSO RTCom Beta
deb http://repository.maemo.org/rtcomm bora free
#maemo:name bora-extras
#deb http://repository.maemo.org/extras bora free non-free
#maemo:name MUlliNER.ORG Maemo Software (Maemo 3.x)
deb http://www.mulliner.org/nokia770/repository/ bora free
#maemo:name Eko
#deb http://eko.one.pl/maemo/ bora user
#maemo:name Maemo Repository
#deb http://repository.maemo.org bora free non-free
#maemo:name Maemo Rep Extras
deb http://repository.maemo.org/extras/ bora free non-free
#maemo:name Wesnoth mirror
#deb http://blackax.net/Pub/wesnoth/ bora user
#maemo:name Nokia Research
deb http://repository.nrcc.noklab.com/ bora extras
#maemo:name Tortoise

The two themes that you mentioned have been around for quite a while. 'Plankton' is very nice, and 'Sketchy' is a fun theme for a crazy day. Still, I wish that there were more available...

I've added the "noklab" catalogue but these themes still do not appear in my list of available apps: any clue? TIA.

Same here...

If they've been around a while why did they suddenly show up?
As you can see, I've not listed any of the older N770 repositories.
They also work pretty flawlessly on the N800 with the new Skype-enabled firmware whereas the older themes were "broken" by the new firmware release with the buggy TAR and DPKG in BusyBox.
Do you know the repos for these themes?

iball, are you sure you've fully listed your sources.list file? At least a "deb" line seems to be missing at the end: see "Tortoise" for which you don't have any URL. And note that "maemo extras" catalogue appears twice.
Well, I've just tested all of your catalogues by adding the ones which were missing on my own application-manager: no hope, the 2 themes you're mentioning do not appear
Anyone with better results?

I could have sworn it was maemo extras...

Right...I recall finding them 'right outta the box' so they must have been in one of the 'basic' repos.

I even manged to make a theme using Thememaker before the firmware update. I love the idea of customizing my N800, so it would be nice to see this program return.

I guarantee new themes will come. You guys are gonna love what's in store.

Well, right now help us find the plankton and sketch themes!

And any theme or hack or option that will reduce the size of the left-hand "toolbar" will be a blessing.
Nokia needs to consider us "elite" users who might not like what they had in mind with the Hildon GUI.
We're the ones paying them $399 to be their bug testers after all.