ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[ZincAlloy]

a blurry picture, but I can still read the wps. the text on the can is unreadable.

[crzyboyster]

talos321: what are you complaining about? from that picture, the font seems fine! and if you don't like it, install a different theme!

sorry to be mean and all, but seriously. you could make your own separate version of it with bigger font and post it...

[LinusN]

I agree with talos321 about the font size. I think it is a tad small. It's not like there isn't room for the text on that huge screen.

[AlexP]

Seriously guys, it is next to impossible to judge without looking at the unit.  Those of us that actually have one that have spoken up, some think it is too small (me, LinusN, talos321) some think it is good (GodEater), and that is just a matter of personal preference.  But you really cannot judge from a picture or the sim.

[Christine Tham]

Add me to the list of people who think the font is too small (and I own two units: a Gigabeat F40 and an X60).

Sure it's readable, but compare it side by side with an Ipod Video/Classic with the Apple UI, and the ipod is miles ahead in clarity and readability.

I was sitting next to guy with an Ipod Classic in a plane yesterday, and I can read his ipod clearly across seats, whereas on my Rockboxed gigabeat, I need to stare quite hard at the unit because the font is so small.

[ZincAlloy]

there is hardly any information on the ipod's now playing screen. that's how the get away with such a huge font.
somebody could try drop the first line of the gigabeat port and rearrange things to allow for a bigger font. not sure if this will work.

I made unifont versions of all the themes I worked on:

[talos321]

 Wow I certainly am  surprised someone else said something. Really I wasn't complaining more so mentioning that for this player I've noticed that the majority of the the themes treat this player like it has a large Pda screen when in fact is more so like a 1.8 screen that is slightly taller. Looks great on the simulator looks like ants on the actual device. So with this becoming the "official thing" I would rather it be WOW than What is that? That being said and all I'm getting into learning how to least alter the wps themes and thinking about making larger font versions of all the Gigabeat themes. Well except 4Car which is lovely.
 

[ZincAlloy]

It's odd, really. many of the themes in the gallery were designed for the gigabeat. and most of them use tiny fonts. One should think that people wo make themes for a specific target should be aware of this issue or have a player at hand to check how things look...
The original cabbie was designed for good readability on the gigabeat and it's font is about the same size as the one we're using now.

[Llorean]

Just speaking up as another Gigabeat owner, I find the readability fine.

[Christine Tham]

It's odd, really. many of the themes in the gallery were designed for the gigabeat. and most of them use tiny fonts. One should think that people wo make themes for a specific target should be aware of this issue or have a player at hand to check how things look...
The original cabbie was designed for good readability on the gigabeat and it's font is about the same size as the one we're using now.

Speaking as someone who contributed 3 themes to rockbox-themes.org, I can perhaps shed some light on the use of small fonts ...
(a) some theme authors design on the simulator, with a bigger virtual screen. this was the case for my first theme (Totoro) when I used a small font. Looked fine on the simulator, but very small on the real screen
(b) also some authors may have a tendency to try and cram as much info as possible (given that on the gigabeat there is enough room to potentially display information in ALL tags if one so wishes) - i still have this tendency.

The Gigabeat has an extremely high resolution screen, so even though it has the same resolution as a typical PDA (QVGA) the screen is about 2/3 that of a typical PDA, so the dot pitch is very narrow.

Even though the screen is very sharp, so that even tiny fonts are readable, it does make many fonts look small. My impression is a 16-point font on the Gigabeat looks similar to a 10-12 point font on the computer screen. So a 10-12 point font would look like an 8-point font.

I don't think anyone is disputing that 8-point fonts are readable - even on a computer screen. The question is whether one would sit all day in front of a computer reading 8-point text. Similarly for an MP3 player, one could question whether it may be better to have larger fonts that is easier to read at a glance rather than something to squint at.

Anyway, I'm currently designing another theme (with graphics all created from scratch on Photoshop to avoid any copyright issues) and I'm using Unifont, but I would actually like to use an even bigger font if I could (maybe 18-20?).

I tried converting efont using convbdf, but for some reason it doesn't seem to work. I get a really small 16-byte .fnt file.

[crzyboyster]

We're moving along. I just finished up the nano version, should follow all of the guidelines. Find it at http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIpodNano#Cabbie_2_0_for_nano
There is also a unifont version now available. Screenshot attached.

[ZincAlloy]

looking good. thumbs up!

[crzyboyster]

Another thing. I am in the process of fixing up the c200 version and once again, I can't decide on the font. I came upon a font called "Sazanami-Mincho-Regular-11.fnt". It's part of the fonts pack and goes quite well with the theme. It also does not impair the icons. All the screenshots are attached, so do you think that I should use this font rather than helvrwhatever?

Another thing that I noticed with this on the sim was that there were odd progressbar "flickers" every 5-7 seconds. To see one of them, look on the defaultwps wiki page. Does anyone know what they are caused by?

Here come the screendumps

[Christine Tham]

Just speaking up as another Gigabeat owner, I find the readability fine.

Just a quick note: what is readable in English may not be readable in other languages, particularly East Asian languages.

Here is an example (in Japanese, so the characters will only hopefully display correctly on your browser):

Can you easily tell the difference between 鳥 and 島? One means bird, the other means island.

Lots of other examples, some different only by one small stroke. Even in Unifont 16 point on a computer, the differences may be hard to spot.

[Llorean]

Yes, but we're discussing fonts that don't support these charactersets fully anyway, so that question is irrelevant.