ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[fasmaie]

I agree with you on both points.

The question is, what would replace the play state? What information would fit in its place? If there is nothing important that can supplant it, then perhaps it should be kept in.

[Llorean]

Well, first I'd sacrifice the graphical volume for numerical volume, since again, functionality is kinda nice to have. Graphical volume provides no objectively useful information.

This begins to free up more space, too.

[MarcGuay]

I think we need to keep in mind here that the point is not to create a theme that everyone will love and use, but to present a more pleasing welcome wagon to new users before they find or create one that suits them better.  Again, we're not aiming for perfection here, but a unified and pleasant, "Welcome!".  

Oh, and I created the wiki page and set up the sections.  Fill 'er up!

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DefaultWPS

(Afterthought: It might be nice if people included the graphics files as well as .zip files and screenshots for future modifications).

[fasmaie]

MarcGuay -
That's a good point.

A theme to make new users feel comfortable may supersede bare functionality.

Still, in the smaller targets some allowances for screen real estate will have to be made.

[yapper]

Well said!

If we start stripping too much out, we'll end up with a non-graphical WPS

[Llorean]

I think that it is absolutely possible to maintain key functionalities (objective volume, for one) without sacrificing comfort.

The theme needs to be representative of what Rockbox *can* do, as well. Which means it should show as much useful functionality as possible where it doesn't cause harm to the overall effect.

I never said it should be non-graphical, but when Graphics take away information for the sake of eye-candy, that's a very non-Rockbox sentiment. So we very definitely shouldn't be sacrificing useful information just for the sake of shininess.

[MarcGuay]

Seems to me like this conversation should have happened about a week ago.  

So does someone want to play dictator and decide what elements *must* be included or are we going to talk and talk until the topic grows cold and nobody actually *does* anything anymore?

[Llorean]

I said, in my original post,

3) The idea is for Rockbox to have an intuitive interface that shows it off. Try to keep it mostly simple, but 'pretty' (as you see fit). That being said, if you feel some complexity helps show it off, go ahead, but the overall feel is that if it's too cluttered to be easily readable, that's frustrating.

4) It should load quickly. Try to use as FEW individual images as possible to get your point across. Each extra file adds to load time. We want this to put forth the best foot possible. Increasing the boot time doesn't do this.

Note the "shows it off" and the "as FEW individual images as possible" bits.

Keeping it to the Rockbox general intent of "Functionality comes first, and while pretty would be nice we shouldn't sacrifice things for it" seemed obvious to me, but I perhaps should've mentioned it. There's no sense having a WPS that's misleading or doesn't represent the general ideas behind the software itself.

That being said, how can one person be the dictator? It's not like one person is going to decide whether the theme is accepted or not. I've stated what I feel are conditions for acceptance among the majority of devs, based on points they all argued when debating other themes, in the original post.

Later I've said things that I feel are essential in a theme, personally, these were more specific things rather than generalizations because these are things important to me. All it means if they aren't in a theme is that it probably won't get my vote, not that it'll certainly be rejected.

[fasmaie]

MarcGuay

How about doing this democratically, and having a poll on the wiki page.

The optional things would be:
Playlist position
Album art (on supporting targets)
Graphical volume
Graphical battery
Play status
Logo

Any others?

I don't use all these myself, but the graphical targets should be configured by default to show off what RockBox can do.

just my $0.02

EDIT - Run it for a week. Then use the options chosen.

[crzyboyster]

I don't understand. What happened to the wiki page? It looks all... messed up. Can someone fix what happened?

[pixelma]

How about doing this democratically, and having a poll on the wiki page.

Maybe (also?) start said poll here in an own "Cabbie 2.0" thread in the forums?

[crzyboyster]

A c200 version has been started as well (if I remember correctly) and that should be added to the wiki page, too. Also, what about the gigabeat version?

EDIT: I should probably hold my horses, the wiki page is still being made at the moment...

[ZincAlloy]

I think the playback status is useful. It can be a good indicator wether rockbox has crashed or not
As for numerical volume: I consciously dropped the numerical indicators in favour of  more fancy looking icons, so that all indicators feature the same design (style wins over substance - bad approach, I know). The volume indicator won't tell anything about the absolute volume as long as you're not using replay gain, anyway.

[karashata]

I think the wiki page is about as cleaned up and complete as I can get it, though I would like to ask the person who uploaded the Nano theme there to please move it to the Nano's WPS gallery page and I'll make a link to the images and the place on the gallery page in the DefaultWPS wiki page, for the sake of consistency.

[Llorean]

It's not absolute volume: that's dependent on headphones, external amp, etc.

It's about specific relative volume. If I know -20db is as loud as I should be going, then even in a loud environment I'll stop at -20 even if I can't hear the audio as well. Or I'll at least be cautious going over it.

As well, setting the volume for playback in my car is best at -12db with my audio replaygained. The tape adapter may or may not distort after this, varying by song, and of course the higher I go the more likely I'll get distortion but -12 is in my experimentation an absolute maximum that distortion will occur at. So I need to, again, know the exact level I'm at.

The list of instances where having a precise, instead of approximate, volume indicator can be extrapolated from this, but of course the benefit isn't obvious unless you actually have uses for it.

So please, don't tell me "it doesn't tell you anything absolute" just because you don't use it.