Rockbox Technical Forums
Support and General Use => Theming and Appearance Customization => Topic started by: Slerped2005 on July 20, 2006, 04:46:02 PM
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2 questions:
1. How do I take a screencap of a theme?
2. Is it right for me to submit this theme? It's a modifycation of several other themes, with other stuff added on. It's basically to make the perfect theme.
Where would I go to submit a theme?
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1) Using the screendump feature of Rockbox. It should be in the manual, if not let me know so we can get it added.
2) How do you mean "submit?" Do you want to just add it to the wiki like other themes, in which case you just go and do that, or submit it for inclusion in Rockbox, in which case you have to read the guidelines at the CustomWPS page.
Remember that all art created by other people is copyright them, so for you to submit it for inclusion or redistribute it, you need permission.
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Then if I make a new backdrop, would it be perfect?
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What is the normal resolution of the ipod, so I can get to work on a new backdrop...?
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The Nano is 176x132 I believe, 24-bit bitmaps.
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I can enable screendump, but don't see anywhere in the manual about taking a pic...
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It should say that with screendump enabled you simply insert at USB cable to take screendumps, and then turn it off when you want to use USB like normal again.
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I figured it out.
This theme is a variation of the red and black album art theme, but everything has been changed.
Here ya go:
(http://img480.imageshack.us/img480/526/dump060720173159kh6.png)
(http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/4783/dump060720173447xl7.png)
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Why the silence?
I know it's not the most 'original' of themes, but I haven't had a chance to make a new theme yet...
I found that if made nicely, the red and black theme could look... extremelly nice...
Or is your silence due to Adema? ;)
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Here is a more up to date version of it... I think it's starting to look very nice...
(http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/6735/dump060721131025uu7.png)
Are people seeing these images??
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Yes, we can see them. Have you uploaded them to the wiki yet, so others can download and use them?
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It's unfinished. I'm giving an example. it'll be done in the next couple of days.
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Cool. Thank you!
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Don't you find that the busy backdrop makes it hard to read the text?
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This is true.
I always have busy backdrops. If I could have it, I would have translucent windows on a completely see thru monitor ie monority report if I could. it's the way I am ;)
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Can I ask a question?
There must be a way for everyone to see this, and not just someone who loves complication like me... ;).
Is there a way to make fonts... more colorful? Or to have them have shadows? if the fonts had more colors, or had shadows, you'd see the words clear as day...
EDIT: Before you guys say anything, I am aware of the color changing, I'm refering to fonts having multiple colors at once... I've noticed the problem of fonts disappearing in several themes already...
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Fonts are monochrome bitmaps. They cannot have multiple colors.
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Can fonts be made into 2 bit, 4 bit, or 8 bit color?
As themes get more and more sophisticated, a one color font is just going to blend in...
At least having the option of having a shadow underneath them like in windows would help you see them, esp. a white font... Although it would hurt battery life...
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Monochrome. That means 1-bit.
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But why is that?
I mean, does the ipod have the ABILITY for fonts to be made better?
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It's not a feature of Rockbox at this time.
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Could you possibly add it to rockbox sometime in the future?
Either 4-bit/8-bit color for fonts (I REALLY do not see why you'd need higher), or a shadow that could be placed under the font, like in windows documents (you know, the shadows that appear at the bottom and bottom right corner... I can't describe it)...
It would probably be easier to do the shadows...
As themes get more complicated, fonts are going to get harder to read. Esp. on the video and such.
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People could always just put a faded for single-color area underneath where the text goes.
Multicolored fonts would require using an entirely different font format. Drop shadows would mean that we need a third color (FG, BG, shadow). Both are physically possible, but come with some problems, and are likely to make scrolling and other things more irritating.
As well, currently all fonts are compatible with all bitmap screen players. This becomes more difficult if the font format changes.
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I could see where the shadow would be more irratating, but what about at the least, 4 bit color?
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As I said, it would require reworking the font handling code, and break the fact that fonts are currently compatible on all bitmap-LCD players.
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Can I ask this then? Could, in all likelihood, everything be updated after they are 'broken' by the incompatiblity?
And I don't understand what you mean by they are compatible on all lcd players. What does this mean?
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Right now rockbox runs on a lot of black and white only devices. The fonts can be used on them without problem, and then on color players they can be set to any color you would like them to be.
Many of the things this would break *can* be fixed, but it's a lot of time and effort, so it's unlikely this change will be made soon, unless someone goes through the work of doing it all and submitting it as a patch.
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Couldn't you set the font to only work on the nano or color versions?
The 4 bit/8 bit font versions?
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Then you would have to have multiple font formats and multiple sets of font handling code. The fonts would already take up more ram, and buffers do have to be reserved for them. Then in the future with multifont you have to have mutiple buffers for each format.
The whole point is that there are a lot of negative effects to something that doesn't really have a strong argument for it beyond "it looks pretty"
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Not just that it looks pretty, but with a more complicated background, a one color font disappears, but your the guys in control, so okay.
Can I ask one more question. Would a 2 bit. 2 color font be compatible with all ipods? They could be grayscale on some, and 2 colors on others...
In fact, having it grayscale would be perfect. You could have a white and silver font that would easily be seeable...
Edited: Merge
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A) I said all players, not just all iPods.
B) Just having it grayscale does not address any of the other problems I mentioned.
C) Please, if you want to add more to a post that nobody has yet responded to, just edit the post, don't repost.
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Well then, sorry for your time.
But part of your usage of rockbox is seeing. If you can't see it...
I'll find ways to have it seen better. But it might be a good idea to have more lively fonts for the color machines, because like I said, part of using a color machine is seeing it... It's not to make it 'more pretty'. it's to make sure you can see it when it gets too complicated :P
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Well, an easy solution to that, as I said, is to put boxes in your WPS of either faded or light colors, and put your text on top of the lighter clear parts.
You're the one who's making a theme that's hard to read, so it's your choice that does it, not the absence or presence of features.
As well, it's open source, so you're welcome to address the problems I've mentioned, and release a patch adding grayscale or color font support.
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Now can't seem to change the name of it...
Can someone help?
This was my practic theme... I'm going to create an original theme after this as well... but this is original enough to release.
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Related threads merged.