ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[saratoga]

Playing with the Sansa version, the font is pretty small.  Any reason we don't use helvr12 instead?  Theres plenty of dead space anyway:

[crzyboyster]

I updated my nano theme so that the icons underneath appear and i made the now playing bar bigger.



(they don't appear in the screenshots, but they're there)

Comments would be nice

[psycho_maniac]

I just want to add. I think the date and time idea on the gigabeat is a great thing. Anybody think that this could go on the other cabbie2 wps ports?

[Christine Tham]

A suggestion in terms of font - can we ensure that whatever font we choose can support non-Latin characters? Ie. something like Unifont?

I'm thinking of specifically being able to display East Asian languages, ie. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc.

Unifont seems to have the largest character set, but is a bit too small for me on the Gigabeat but possibly too large on the smaller displays.

My own WPSs are all based on Unifont. If cabbie2 becomes the new default theme, it would be good to ensure it supports non-Latin text.

[ZincAlloy]

I did a quick and dirty port of Marc Guay's rwps to the iriver remote. Unfortunately I don't have a display remote to test it on. Would anybody be so kind and check if it's working?
http://www.naturalbornyoers.com/forumpics/iriverrwps.zip


crzyboyster, I think the nano theme looked better with the smaller now playing bar. I have to admit it's easier to read, though.

psychomania, I don't think date and time would be a good idea on most targets. On the Gigabeat it works, because there's enough space on top. On the other targets it would look cluttered up.

Christine, you're right about Unifont being too large - apart from that I think it looks horrible on this theme (actually I can't remember any theme I liked it on).
What alternatives to Unifont do we have?

[crzyboyster]

OK, we have some serious issues here. I think that the porting effort needs to be stopped (or paused) for a couple of days while all of us can think up of what EVERY port has to have. We are all over the place! We need to finish this up and figure out what information should be displayed and how and what font should be used.

I think that unifont no longer remains an option as it's too small on larger displays and too big on smaller displays. We would also need to redo most of the themes to accomodate this change.

Once this theme is released, however, and made the default, people are welcome to do "remixes" and one can be made using the unifont font.

What do people think about all of this?

[zajacattack]

Seems like a good plan. I'm really excited for this new default theme to come out!

[ZincAlloy]

If we use fonts that are the same size as the helvR fonts we will have a smooth drop in replacement without the hassle of rearranging everything, right?

[karashata]

As long as the pixel heights match up, there shouldn't be any issues with changing fonts, though wider fonts may tighten things up a little under the progress bars, where the time elapsed/remaining and the playlist position on some targets, and possibly later all targets, is.

For the record, the helvR10 font is actually 12 pixels high, so it could be replaced with the nimbus-12 font or any other 12 pixel high font.

[MarcGuay]

Playing with the Sansa version, the font is pretty small.  Any reason we don't use helvr12 instead?

I considered this myself but thought maybe I was just getting old.  Not feeling super-motivated to do a full re-haul of the thing right now but I'll drop a note on the wiki for whoever has the energy... P.S. There's a lot less empty space when the album art is displayed, but it would still be possible to bump it up to 12.

---

As for the unicode discussion, I mentionned it before and I'll say it again:  I think it would be best to have a unicode font for the default theme.  Just because the website is in English doesn't mean that everybody speaks it or uses the same alphabet.

[karashata]

I can agree with the unicode font idea, but we need to find a unicode font that would fit the current layouts, ie. a font that's the same height as the current fonts, otherwise we'll have to go through massive overhauls of the current ports to fit bigger fonts.

Also, the helvR12 font is actually 15 pixels high, so should we end up replacing the current fonts at a later time, that will need to be factored in.

[ZincAlloy]

I've got a simulator running now. I'll put up the ipod video version later today.
Is anybody making ports for ipod 2G/mini, Iriver H10 5/6GB and the Archos at the moment?

[kperri]

Here's my final version with the larger font and the icons back where they belong.

[terrence1019]

The font for the Sansa version definitely needs to be changed. It seems too sparse

[soap]

Perhaps what is needed here is a scavenger hunt of a sort.
The original Cabbie theme had a font which was easy on the eyes, and I agree that unifont is (let us be frank) ugly.
That being said - in my humble opinion a default theme MUST use a font which supports as many non-latin character sets as possible, and SHOULD use the same font on all possible targets.

Back to the scavenger hunt:
one:  There are (plenty?) of open-source fonts floating around the web.
two:  We have the tools, gentlemen, (and ladies) to convert fonts for use in rockbox.
three:  ?
four:  PROFIT!