Peep themes are the preferred format for capturing a Peep configuration in a portable manner. They provide an easy means for exchanging a Peep configuration from one system to another. They also provide a formal way of creating a description of a system.
The aim of themes is to make configuration files portable across Peep installations. An example scenario arose when the nimbda virus had just come out. Collin Starkweather had tailored his configuration file to allow himself to monitor the effects of the virus on his webserver. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to share that configuration file. With the advent of theme files, Collin could now create a nimda theme file that can easily be added to the configuration of an existing Peep installation, allowing a system administrator to quickly tune his system to monitor the same things as Collin with no effort.
Themes also aim to capture more than just the necessary Peep configuration data needed to implement the same monitoring scheme. Rather, they also encode the thought process behind creating the sound ambiance, and the role each sound plays.
Finally, themes can be used to catalogue sounds and give them labels. In the future, a sound browser could take advantage of these descriptions to make sound selection much easier.