Rockbox Technical Forums
Support and General Use => Theming and Appearance Customization => Topic started by: LambdaCalculus on December 12, 2018, 01:49:58 PM
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While I understand that not everyone can be on top of everything all at once, there's something that does concern me a bit that I wish we could have done to the Themes page.
On my iPod Video, I like to use the FrostBox theme series, especially the original blue variation:
http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=2596&target=ipodvideo
I just like the blue look and the decent amount of info that it shows. :)
I also noticed that there's a variation of this same theme for 220x176 sized screens (perfect for my H320!):
http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=390&target=iriverh300
However, this particular variation is from 2009, which is way too old for current Rockbox builds. Sure enough, the menus look okay, but the WPS doesn't display properly: no album art, off-center margins, glitched out progress bar. The kicker, though, is that this particular theme is also marked as "Works with current build" and "works with release 3.14", neither of which are true (well, the current build incompatibility was proven; I can't speak aboout 3.14 since I haven't tried it).
To avoid issues in the future, would it be possible to have themes that no longer work with current builds to be marked as incompatible with those builds? I know and do remember the general rule of thumb was someone could always come in and fix the theme up, but in some cases, themes are getting neglected again and should at least be showing a warning that says that they may be broken.
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Seems to me the 'works with' thing just means it passes some automated syntax-testing? So it will _run_ but that doesn't mean it will work correctly.
Also that particular version of frostbox doesn't mention a permissive licence. Some versions on the site do, which is why I made the fixed one for the classic/video by fixing/updating the ones that have a licence (even though they are essentially the same theme as the ones that don't!). I find that a bit daft, really! In my obsessive/completist project to fix every single theme that anyone's ever made for the ipod video/classic [and convert any theme that anyone's ever made for any other player!] I have a load I did but can't upload because the original author didn't include a licence statement. And several where I found other versions that _did_ have a licence so I could base it on those versions instead and end up with basically the same theme.
The 220x176 is a trivial fix, but the licence thing means I can't upload a fixed version. Just replace
%Cl(4,32,75,75)
%Cd
%wd
%pb(0,121,220,1,pb.bmp)
%V(86,36,133,-,1)
With
%wd
%Cl(0,0,75,75)
%V(4,32,75,75,-)
%Cd
%V(0,121,220,10,-)
%pb(0,0,220,10,pb.bmp)
in the wps file
And add
# Clear SBS settings
ui viewport: -
sbs: -
To the .cfg file
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I know and do remember the general rule of thumb was someone could always come in and fix the theme up, but in some cases, themes are getting neglected again and should at least be showing a warning that says that they may be broken.
Agreed.
I just went through every theme for the iPod 4G Greyscale.
A whopping 70% of them at the very least have minor issues running on the latest version of Rockbox. Almost half of the themes are literally unusuable (sometimes to the point of forcing you to reset your device to its default settings).
In other words, if you pick a theme by random, even some of the highest rated ones which haven't been updated in a long time, you’re way more likely to get a broken one than one that properly works. Less/fewer would definitely be more in this case.
(2019/01/09: Updated list with new themes and more info)
No obvious issues:
BoxesCover / Boxes-Revisited (can replace boxes&engineer2)
ChicagoUnified
Coverly,
Flattery,
FlatCover,
Flattery-B,
GrayCover / Gray-Fix (can replace gray)
iCatcher (some probably unwanted graphical artifacts)
MCalmer_Big
Minimally,
mipper
phenx_minima (some UI element flickering)
simple (becomes unreadable with the bundled black backdrop though)
UniCatcher (some probably unwanted graphical artifacts)
Minor issues or problems with limited contrast:
sintronex (basically fine, some elements possibly cut off)
smooth (progress bar not working, otherwise fine)
gray (replacement themes now available)
arbox widgets (progress bar not working, Ui glitches)
Rockboxed (limited contrast due to color theme, progress bar barely visible)
Rockbox D2 (limited contrast due to color theme, progress bar barely visible)
PHKTV-X5 (limited contrast due to color theme)
Color Boxes (limited contrast due to color theme, various elements not working)
iAmp (UI glitches, various elements not working)
DancePuffDuo (UI glitches, various elements not working)
azariev (UI glitches)
Unreadable, unusable or otherwise broken in more than minor ways:
Green Quilt,
Starfield
Thin Basic (Kernel Panic)
Lotheme,
zezayer
ipodVOL
engineer2
boxes (replacement themes now available)
Ultima
Sport x3
Rocker
HiPodNextV5
HiPodNextNightV5
Ironcrad
DigiCurve
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The 220x176 is a trivial fix, but the licence thing means I can't upload a fixed version. Just replace
...
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Themes like "smooth (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=277&target=ipod4g)" can be easily fixed in a similar way to make their progress bar appear. It's even published as CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. I'm just not sure how to go about it. Obviously only the original author could update their own theme but it seems like a mess for someone else to upload a new version with (only) this fix applied, especially if the existing/broken version is kept around on the theme site.
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By the way – this also shows how the rating system is (kind of) misleading the way it works currently. A lot of the obviously broken themes seem to continue to have (close to) a 5-star rating – which incidentally would be erased if one of the authors were to return and update their theme.
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By the way – this also shows how the rating system is (kind of) misleading the way it works currently. A lot of the obviously broken themes seem to continue to have (close to) a 5-star rating – which incidentally would be erased if one of the authors were to return and update their theme.
Oh the rating system is nonsense. But I don't think it's worth worrying about (you can vote as many times as you like for a theme, by the way). Really, does it matter? Sadly, I don't think there are enough Rockbox users these days for it to really mean much.
(What irks me a bit is that people seem to give one-star votes if there's a problem with a theme, rather than actually reporting the problem so it can be fixed...I have similar problems with other web forums that allow 'downvoting' of things, whether uploads or just comments...it's just a silly way of doing things....if you have a problem with a product or a comment or an argument or anything, much better to just say what the issue is in words - downvotes don't tell anyone anything....upvoting can make sense as a way of expressing agreement with a comment or just acknowledgement that something uploaded is actually getting some use...but downvoting is kind of pointless, it's purely negative and kind of hostile but doesn't tell anyone what the problem actually is so that it could possibly be fixed - or if it's an opinion rather than a bit of work, at least discussed...but as I say that's partly a problem I have with other forums entirely)
I noticed that some of the Rocker themes I uploaded quickly acquired more votes than downloads...that seemed a bit odd!
Edit - that so many of the themes listed in the post above are broken probably just reflects that there are very few users of rockbox on that target so nobody notices or cares, unfortunately.
I just wrote/fixed themes out of my own desire to have a 'complete' set, uploading them is just a way to make it feel 'finished' and on the off-chance that someone else might use them. But I just don't think there are many rockbox users still out there.
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By the way – this also shows how the rating system is (kind of) misleading the way it works currently. A lot of the obviously broken themes seem to continue to have (close to) a 5-star rating – which incidentally would be erased if one of the authors were to return and update their theme.
Oh the rating system is nonsense. But I don't think it's worth worrying about (you can vote as many times as you like for a theme, by the way). Really, does it matter? Sadly, I don't think there are enough Rockbox users these days for it to really mean much.
(What irks me a bit is that people seem to give one-star votes if there's a problem with a theme, rather than actually reporting the problem so it can be fixed...I have similar problems with other web forums that allow 'downvoting' of things, whether uploads or just comments...it's just a silly way of doing things....if you have a problem with a product or a comment or an argument or anything, much better to just say what the issue is in words - downvotes don't tell anyone anything....upvoting can make sense as a way of expressing agreement with a comment or just acknowledgement that something uploaded is actually getting some use...but downvoting is kind of pointless, it's purely negative and kind of hostile but doesn't tell anyone what the problem actually is so that it could possibly be fixed - or if it's an opinion rather than a bit of work, at least discussed...but as I say that's partly a problem I have with other forums entirely)
I noticed that some of the Rocker themes I uploaded quickly acquired more votes than downloads...that seemed a bit odd!
Edit - that so many of the themes listed in the post above are broken probably just reflects that there are very few users of rockbox on that target so nobody notices or cares, unfortunately.
I just wrote/fixed themes out of my own desire to have a 'complete' set, uploading them is just a way to make it feel 'finished' and on the off-chance that someone else might use them. But I just don't think there are many rockbox users still out there.
Well, that's depressing. :D Yeah, I get what you mean about the downvoting thing. Personally, I haven't rated any themes, but I do feel like it would be beneficial if there was a way to explicitly flag a theme as broken (although I suppose that functionality could theoretically be abused), just so users could be warned not to download a theme that will make their device kernel panic, make the UI unnavigable or make them waste their time downloading, running and later deleting something that only half works. Which wouldn't preclude someone from also discussing the issues on the forum or trying to contact the author to hopefully get the theme fixed at some point.
Also, some way for users to find out which themes are likely to give them no issues at all does seem useful. If a rating system were to provide that indication, it does seem you would have to both up- and downvote themes to make sure some themes stick out. But, I largely agree, that there's a negative/hostile element to it that I like to avoid. Maybe a better way would be to simply have yes/no votes for whether the latest version of the theme works as described/depicted and allow for further comments. Of course, due to the lack of users you mentioned, an overhaul of the theme site, I'm guessing, is not happening anytime soon and wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.
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Ability to comment if a theme simply doesn't work and to say what the problem is, might help, but I bet it would get misused. Maybe even for commercial spam (those guys sneak in everywhere). Or maybe they could give a trusted individual the ability to add such information (as you have with your list above).
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Ability to comment if a theme simply doesn't work and to say what the problem is, might help, but I bet it would get misused. Maybe even for commercial spam (those guys sneak in everywhere). Or maybe they could give a trusted individual the ability to add such information (as you have with your list above).
Yes. Although, the more I think about it, certain themes should just be removed from targets they are without a doubt unsuited for. The ones I'm talking about are where you're literally looking at a close to pitch-black screen when you load them up or go to the WPS. I'm not sure there's any way to fix that either, as they obviously weren't created with a 2-bit grayscale screen in mind. For the iPod 4G that includes:
Green Quilt (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=2147&target=ipod4g) (the only one where you can hope to possibly barely identify some content, but not enough to be usable)
Starfield (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=2138&target=ipod4g)
Thin Basic (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=1269&target=ipod4g)
Ultima (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=386&target=ipod4g)
Sport x3 (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=385&target=ipod4g)
Rocker (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=384&target=ipod4g)
HiPodNextV5 (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=380&target=ipod4g) (only the menus are readable)
HiPodNextNightV5 (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=379&target=ipod4g) (same thing)
Ironcrad (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=360&target=ipod4g)
DigiCurve (http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?themeid=359&target=ipod4g)
For all intents and purposes, everybody would be better off with these themes removed – as far as the iPod 4G target is concerned at least. This can easily be verified in the simulator as well (if anyone wonders).
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Some of those themes shouldn't even be listed under the iPod 4G section of the themes page anyway, as they may be 160x128 resolution, but are color themes meant for devices like the iAUDIO X5, which is the same resolution and in color. I reckon a bunch of these themes have been incorrectly tagged.
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Some of those themes shouldn't even be listed under the iPod 4G section of the themes page anyway, as they may be 160x128 resolution, but are color themes meant for devices like the iAUDIO X5, which is the same resolution and in color. I reckon a bunch of these themes have been incorrectly tagged.
That's what it seems like. Not sure who best to contact about it though or whether this can be fixed?