ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[DancemasterGlenn]

I apologize for misrepresenting what you said, but it wasn't at all intentional. Like I said, I thought the contest was over, and that was my mistake. I make a lot of mistakes on this forum. I do believe that the change in title was important, and I appreciate you did it.

I'm also sorry that for whatever reason (and this is sincere), I always seem to be at odds with you. It's not my intent in the slightest, and I'm sorry I keep making noob comments all the time. You have enough people bugging you with silly questions already, and I probably don't help. I'll try and do better in the future.

[Llorean]

Now now, I didn't call you a noob, and don't mean to imply you are. It's just very, very frustrating to have people continually respond to what they think I've said, rather than what I've said.

Honestly, I'm sure a lot of people on this forum feel like they're at odds with me, and I'm sorry for how harsh I may have been, but I think it's very important that people read what's on the screen carefully and respond to what is actually said. And lately there's been a slight rash (here and elsewhere) of people putting words in my mouth, so it was a bit of a touchy subject.

[DancemasterGlenn]

I understand, and I apologize again. I also just changed my older post again (more than one word this time) so that it looks less... I dunno. Attack-y. I hope it's better now?

EDIT (of course): If altering the old one added to making all the posts after it look weird, I'm sorry. Didn't really think that one through either. If doing some pruning would get the thread back to normalcy, prune away. I'll refrain from making any more edits unless absolutely necessary.

[pixelma]

Speaking of the cabbiev2's weaknesses... While working on the new greyscale icons and especially the Iaudio remote port I noticed that the lock icon only represents the hold switch state of the main player not the remote. I think that especially with the new M3 port it would be important to see both (M3 has no display on the main unit but you can attach the remote which is basically the same as with the other supported remotes), both parts have hold switches. What do others think?


On an almost unrelated note:
I wanted to update the greyscale screenshots on the DefaulWPS page but noticed that those use screenshots which are on the WpsGallery subpages. Of course I like that this avoids duplication but I didn't know how to deal with the fact(s) that now the cabbiev2 is included in the builds (and is even used as default) seperate packages wouldn't be needed - and that someday in the (hopefully not so far) future the WpsGallery in the wiki is supposed to be replaced by the new official rockbox-themes.org. In short: the problem is that I wouldn't like to put new theme packages into the wiki but would like to show the new look on said wiki page...

[yapper]

In short: the problem is that I wouldn't like to put new theme packages into the wiki but would like to show the new look on said wiki page...

I recently removed the seperate download link for cabbie v2 from the wiki 160*128*2 theme page (on the basis that the theme is now included with regular builds), but left the screen shots. I've just updated the screenshots to show the new (better) graphics, which should in turn mean the DefaultWPS wiki will also show the new graphics. I've also deleted the Traditional Chinese screenshot, as it is no longer supported with the default font selection.

[zajacattack]

I noticed there was a big effort to make a unifont version of this theme, and then it wasn't included in the current build with the regular version. Any particular reason for this?

[yapper]

I believe the main factor was the large file size of fonts needed to support multiple character sets.

[Llorean]

Unifont especially is incredibly large (filesize) because it's purpose is to support as many unicode glyphs as possible. A unifont version of this theme is certainly a good thing to have, but having unifont in every download would make a significant difference in bandwidth used by downloads.

[hhannah]

Just a thought regarding album art... (I came just recently to this board, and then probably gave a look to half of the 56 (!!!) pages, searching for similar comments... so apologies if what I write now has been already discussed and I missed it)

Recently in another thread, someone was asking what the “appropriate” size for album art images he should have is. When you think about it, it’s a pretty fair question. The great thing about having so much themes available, is of course being able to switch easily between most of them.  But the “no AA resizing” limitation also places some kind of limitation for that… If you only have one album art image - that happens not to be the theme’s AA size -  you may end up either using an “undersized” AA that really doesn’t look good for the original design, or just having to see an “oversized” partial of it… of course, some people care more than other about album art.

So why would this be important for the default theme? In my opinion, because the default theme, intentionally or not,  also sets a standard for the album art size.  Because you probably would start placing the correct album art images for the default theme. So I wonder if this standard is thought to be consistent with the “usual” or “popular” size in the other themes for a particular port… Not that it HAS to be like that, but wouldn’t it be better?  Specially if you are new to Rockbox? In my case (ipod video), it’s surprising that very few themes use 120x120 album art, like cabbiev2 the default theme does (agreeing that it looks very good under the current design), while most of the other themes use 100x100 AA…

(Of course, all this will become irrelevant when resizing is incorporated to the official build… but in the meantime…)

[bzavala]

Good point. In my opinion, album art should be proportional to the screen resolution for each DAP.... something like 50% or 75% of shortest of width or height.

For example, for an iPod, something about 120x120 or 180x180 would be a good size.  100x100 AA size for a 320x240 resolution is way too small in my opinion.

I know having some screens that are vertical vs horizontal makes it hard to create one theme that can look a like across all of them.

Another idea I had, was if it could be possible to modify viewports, so that a viewport can overlap with another one. In this case, you could place text over the Album Art viewport give you more space for a bigger album art.

Just some thoughts...


Ben

[hhannah]

...album art should be proportional to the screen resolution for each DAP.... something like 50% or 75% of shortest of width or height...

That sounds perfectly logical... But more than disagreeing with a specific size or specific preferences, the point is what happens when you install Rockbox on your DAP, generate the bmp files in the correct size for the default theme, to find later that if you want to use the feature of changing themes, you have to generate a whole new set of AA images, if you want to use any of the vast majority of available themes, or bear with the fact that the AA won't be displayed properly... in either case, it can be frustrating for some people. So this is just a reflection about it, and how to minimize that. Maybe it's just a matter of making it clearer to people so that they know before dealing with AA files, maybe the default theme should try to preserve the "standard" set by the many former themes, or there should be a call for updating the other themes according to the default's AA size... or maybe this is not so important anyway  :-\  Personally, I think that if it was said that scrolling lines might be confusing for new users, this could be more confusing, and eventually require more skills and time

[ZincAlloy]

it requires more time. not more skill. if a user manages to create AA once, he or she will be able to create a second set.
It is a problem, indeed. I chose 120x120 because it felt kinda right. It still is a bit on the small side.
Why do we have tiny 100x100 album art in the first place? probably because the first album art theme for the ipod target had 100x100 album art. cabbie v2 might change this standard  (which might be a good thing) - and should look ok with 100x100 AA.
But I have to agree - it can be annoying to new users if they create their album art first and choose a different theme afterwards. So, what are we gonna do about it?

btw: scrolling lines aren't really confusing, but hard to read. alternating sublines on the other hand can be very confusing.

[hhannah]

it requires more time. not more skill...

Just as an example, you wouldn't be able to name your AA files just "cover.bmp" but give them more accurate names, find the right tool for that, avoid distortion if converting from smaller to bigger, etc, but I agree, that is not the main point.

Well, to find out what to do about it, it would depend I guess from what most of the people think (I just wanted to make the reflection.. much easier than producing THE solution )

Again, wether 100x100 is tiny or say 150x150 ideal, is a matter of preferences. For example, I'd always prefer AA as big as possible, but I'm willing to sacrifice AA size if I can display other information, or minimize scrolling, etc. But regardless of personal opinions, maybe it would be just enough to do a bit of all I mentioned before: That is, to re-check that each port has the best AA size; to make people aware of a new standard AA size in the appropiate wiki, explaining of course that there was a former "standard" and what to do in order to have theme switching flexibility (while resizing comes)... hopefully people will come up with more ideas 

btw: scrolling lines aren't really confusing, but hard to read. alternating sublines on the other hand can be very confusing.

That is what I meant to mention

[ZincAlloy]

blowing up small images to produce larger album art is pointless. one would use the same tool and original image that created the smaller album art. and one doesn't really need a tool for renaming.

THE solution for our is the .bmp resize patch - which is not ready at this point.

Of course AA size is dependant on the users personal preferences. I guess most would go for a medium or larger size.

[hhannah]

blowing up small images to produce larger album art is pointless. one would use the same tool and original image that created the smaller album art. and one doesn't really need a tool for renaming.

As you, I don't find major problems in all that, even when batch-processing for a large amount of albums, but there are people all the time asking questions way more basic than these.
The mayor concern is to keep Rockbox as "the best possible music listening experience" (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WhyRockbox) - if you consider the themes a part of it -... but maybe at this stage, regarding the default theme, beeing just practical about it, just nothing more should/could be done and drop this debate?