ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[denny]

I am seriously considering attempting to submit a theme for all targets but will not be able to work on it for a while (stupid uni work  ). I already have a theme template done. will see how it goes...

[Llorean]

Well the contest will never end, strictly speaking. There's always the possibility to change the default theme again if something more suitable seems to come along. Only time can tell what we may see here.

[denny]

Well I'll definitely have a go then. Should be fun.

*edit* Thanks for the badge again Llorean.

[PHK Brasil]

The reason we're holding this is because the included themes were all not well liked enough by various groups. Rockboxed is one of the few that covers all targets, but some of us felt it's a bit garish, some of us felt it doesn't really "show off" Rockbox (it's still pretty much a basic text theme), and others liked it just fine. But there wasn't really a solid agreement.

♪

I know this topic is not a poll, but what about the "Cabbie" theme for Rockbox default? I think this theme fits nice in the purpose. I like it.

♪

[Llorean]

Firstly, as I said the theme has to work on all targets.

Secondly, the author of Cabbie would have to release it under a usable license, right now it's not under any license which means we can't do anything with it.

[weirdal]

try a starwars theme one with a lightsaber as the time bar

[Llorean]

Now see, that wouldn't be suitable as a Rockbox theme.

Star Wars is someone else's intellectual property, as well as the fact that while I said it doesn't have to be Rockbox related, it should at least not have nothing to do with Rockbox (for example, a generic theme that doesn't say Rockbox anywhere, like the current default but with nicer features, would be fine, but a New Orleans Saints theme would be somewhat inappropriate).

[lights0ut]

The reason we're holding this is because the included themes were all not well liked enough by various groups. Rockboxed is one of the few that covers all targets, but some of us felt it's a bit garish, some of us felt it doesn't really "show off" Rockbox (it's still pretty much a basic text theme), and others liked it just fine. But there wasn't really a solid agreement.

♪

I know this topic is not a poll, but what about the "Cabbie" theme for Rockbox default? I think this theme fits nice in the purpose. I like it.

♪

While I do like the cabbie theme, I still see it as a very basic theme, it is better than the default, but like Llorean is pointing out we need something that shows off rockbox on the newer targets (iPod's, Gigabeats, nanos, and sansa) but can still have a presence on the older less flashy targets. This is definitely something  I'm considering taking a shot at after school finishes; really excited to see how this all turns out.

[Llorean]

I will say that I'm personally *very* fond of the Cabbie theme. It doesn't "show off" (looking mainly like text) but it does a good job of showing a bit of style while staying simple. There are definitely a few of us who feel very strongly that simplicity is important.

One thing I personally don't like, I'll admit (in general) are themes that have a Play, a Fast Forward, and a Rewind button as separate buttons hogging a bunch of space. Since you can't really do more than one of those at once, at most (in my own personal opinion) you really only need a single indicator (and to me personally even that's overkill: I find it fairly unlikely someone doesn't know what button they're holding down, with the exception of pause which is a toggle).

So keep that in mind, perhaps, because "clutter" is definitely the opposite of simplicity, and I do have a vote in this (though really what we're going for is consensus and if everyone but me agrees on something, I'll have no choice but to accept it, it's not like I'm stuck using the default anyway, eh? )

[JdGordon]

pretty much in agreement with Llorean there... except I have a gripe with the cabie theme...
If you must put the rockbox logo on the screen... make sure its the correct one!

[PHK Brasil]

♪
Sorry, but I don't understood very well the meaning of "show off". Could you please explain to me?

Out of this contest, which WPS theme do you think that "show off"?
♪

[Llorean]

That's entirely subjective. Basically, it should look good, and probably be at least somewhat graphical.

[pixelma]

The reason for the small fot is because that is the default wps for the archos players.  So it seems very tiny on the archos players.

It's the different way round. On the Archos screen the font is bigger. What actually counts is the dimension of the pixel (not the screen's resolution or overall size). To give you an impression, I provided the picture that is now attached to the second post in the thread. It shows the same Rockbox default theme on my Archos-Ondio and on the M5 (160x128 pixels, greyscale).

This is also something to consider when chosing font etc. for other screens. For example there are 5 targets that have 160x128 pixels wide lcds but still different panels, so the same font looks differently. I had the possibility to look at 3 of them and compared to the M5, the H100's display looks big, while the X5 is somewhere in between. And they will all look the same in a simulator on your monitor.

Another thing coming to my mind is, that there are tags that don't work on some targets, for example no crossfade on hardwarecodec targets (Archos), virtual led tag isn't enabled on all...  But I guess that can all be discussed once there are a few suggestions.

[snip]... it does a good job of showing a bit of style while staying simple. There are definitely a few of us who feel very strongly that simplicity is important.

Well put; I completely agree on the rest of the simplicity versus clutter statement, too (also on the part about space hogging - you couldn't "click" on these "buttons" anyway, could you?). You should still be able to find the most useful info, like artist/title/album etc. on the screen easily, many of the highly graphical WPSs become almost unreadable to me (loading time impact was already mentioned). Showing off rockbox could also mean: hey, this is a clean WPS - because it's a straightforward, smart project!

P.S. I'd like to help out testing on Archos and would provide feedback. I'm looking forward!

[thenrik]

I think it would be helpful to agree on a set of common elements for the default theme.

Here's what I'd suggest:

weekday, month, day of month time Percent battery remaining
xx of xx  track
Name of group
Name of song
time played so far, total time of track, time remaining
Name of next song

background that enhances the text, easy to read larger font
no icons for buttons that don't exist
screen blanking set to a longer interval, so folks won't assume Rockbox doesn't work

If we can agree on a set of common elements, the design contest would involve how to display these common elements in the most attractive way as opposed to many different combinations of elements and graphics.

My two cents,

Tom

[Llorean]

I don't think it's at all necessary to mandate which elements can or cannot be included.

Especially considering in some cases there could be additional ones depending on how much screen space you have (the gigabeat has many more lines than the Recorder, and they shouldn't be expected to limit each other or define each other).

Not to mention many targets don't have a clock chip, or don't have a disk access LED so may want a virtual one in the WPS.