ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[kperri]

After doing some searching for open source fonts, I found DejaVu. It looks like a good font to use.
Here is the link to the wiki: http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Edit: Here is an even better unicode font Titus/Bitstream Cyberbit found here:
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp

[ZincAlloy]

DejaVu Sans is looking very promising.

[rosco_pc]

The Titus font can not be used as is. Quote from the webpage:

I declare that I will be using the font for non-commercial purposes only and that I will not give it on to any third parties. I agree that any violation of these regulations will be prosecuted as an offense against existing laws:

This basically means that you can not re-distribute the font once you have downloaded it. Of course you can try talking to the author and get permission.

[ZincAlloy]

Put the ipod video version up:



I have problems getting the backdrop to display on the iriver rwps. I double checked everything: name, file format, reference in rwps file, screen size. Everything seems fine to me. Any idea why it won't display? the progress bar is working perfectly.

[Llorean]

The iRiver remote is 1bpp, I don't see how you could have a backdrop when the only two color options are "Black" and "White".

Just use normal bitmaps.

[lazka]

imho the color of volume indicator should be more like the dark grey used for deactivated icons...
i can hardly tell what the volume is on my sansa because it mixes up with the yellow.

[ZincAlloy]

good idea, I will fix the volume icons. I will have to make new ones anyway - 8 at least according to the wiki.


Iriver rwps is working now. Thank you, Llorean!

[pixelma]

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

I too agree that the font could be a bit heavier and I'd also like a font that comes in different sizes to adapt to different screens a bit better. Personally I'm in favour of the Nimbus font family as there is a Nimbus-12 which would make replacing the currently used font on most screens quite easy, Nimbus-10 is nice on my c200 and I found Nimbus-19 on a Video suitable too. Unfortunately it does not have asian characters but at least all of them have accented characters, greek, cyrillic and hebrew (see UnicodeFonts).

two:  We have the tools, gentlemen, (and ladies) to convert fonts for use in rockbox.

It depends on the font you find but most of them need a bit of editing for a nice result as you can't taka a clean convert for granted. So if you also want different sizes of the same font this probably means quite a bit of work unless we get very lucky and find one that just works, just in my experience though.

You should use the %x (lowercase!) for loading bitmaps statically, this is less code and cleaner. And I think the progressbar should have a "frame" like the standard progress bar would have - you could also make this frame a statical bitmap and the progress bar bitmap would be made of the "innards".

Speaking of monochrome WPS...

Is anybody making ports for ipod 2G/mini, Iriver H10 5/6GB and the Archos at the moment?

Actually I didn't want to but somehow I got an idea so I'll probably look into making the Archos version - guess I'm the only one lurking around here that has the possibility to test on target (and it will definitely look different from the sim) and already did some WPS for it, too.

By the way: there is a small H10 version, which reminds me... Looking at the collection of the WPS in the wiki, I get the impression that there are tiny differences in the yellowish that's used in the different colour screen themes, especially when I look at the Gigabeat version. The latter also has the shadow of the now playing bar in the lower left direction, all the others are to the (as far as I know) more natural lower right - will leave a note in the wiki too.

Edit: I remember now...it was about the number of volume indicator bitmaps. I'm all for grainier but would make the actual number dependent on the width of the icon (e.g. if it is 16 pixels wide in on screen, you could easily make it 9 different steps, starting with "all zero" - or 8 if that's not wanted). Something between 5 and 10 would be nice.

P.S.: Sorry for lengthy post.  8-)

[ZincAlloy]

cool, now the rwps is working as intended! Thank you very much! Didn't know about statical bitmaps yet.
A new version is up now.

I didn't notice the shadow was wrong - my bad. I gave Keith the file.
Keith, you'll get an updated version with a correct shadow and a better proportioned logo later today.

I can't explain why there are differences in the yellow. I had the impression as well. It seems they come out differently at larger resolutions.

pixelma, there's no need to be sorry. quite the contrary. Thank you for this very helpful post.
Great to hear you're taking on the Archos task. This leaves only the ipod mini portless, but we cannot start to port without having decided which greyscale bar and icon design to use.

[pixelma]

I can't explain why there are differences in the yellow. I had the impression as well. It seems they come out differently at larger resolutions.

You may be right, probably it's only a "human eye and brain" effects. The same colours will seem different (1) in different quantities (like a wall compared to a small sample) and (2) with different colours in the surrounding (even the slight gradient in the background could be important).

I think that's ok then, just wanted it to be checked.

[MarcGuay]

Re: Font

I was initially very against using Nimbus but I just gave it another chance at 12pt on the Sansa e200 and it actually looks pretty good with the shiny yellows and the faded grey background.  If nothing else shows up as a worthy competitor I say we just roll with that.

One question though:  According to the UnicodeFonts wiki page, HelvR12 is actually more universal than Nimbus.  Does that mean that it would be easy to make smaller and larger versions of it or that somebody spent a ton of time perfecting that particular size?

Peace,
Marc

[lazka]

After doing some searching for open source fonts, I found DejaVu. It looks like a good font to use.
Here is the link to the wiki: http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Edit: Here is an even better unicode font Titus/Bitstream Cyberbit found here:
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp

I just made a dejavu rb font. I've tried to fix at least the first 200 characters.
not perfect, but hey, it's my first attempt

http://files.maturaball06.com/DejaVuSans.zip

(edit: i will post a cleaned up version before i go to bed
..ok done, my eyes hurt good night)

[ZincAlloy]

VERY nice!

[crzyboyster]

The DejaVu Sans font is indeed very nice. I noted that the .psd source of the theme needs the 8 setting volume meter in it so that we can all put it into out ports. And atleast do it for your port!

[ZincAlloy]

sure. I'm working on it right now. Will add the psd package to the wiki.