ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[ZincAlloy]

you may nudge the next song bar a tiny bit up as well.

Do you mean the Now Playing bar?  I don't see no Next Song bar on his...

Of course. My bad. Sorry for the confusion. I still had kperri's theme in a corner of my mind when writing this.

[crzyboyster]

I managed to fix up my theme in photoshop. I think I'm about 95% done. Give me some more feedback. Also, about the "Next Song" text, instead of including that, I want to put in some song info, also the next song title, album and artist  will be in an alternating subline, so it shouldn't be a problem. Leave some more feedback about this version. All 3 screendumps attached!

Again, note that they are a bit blurry.

[yapper]

not too bad, but I think it needs cleaner graphics.

I agree. I'm probably going to have a go at creating new greyscale versions of the Cabbie 2.0 graphics (the current ones are resampled version of yours, and as you spotted, they aren't too great).

[psycho_maniac]

Wow i see this theme is getting popular. Looks very good. cant wait for it to get ported to all players. that will look so cool.

[crzyboyster]

I know! So many people want the default theme changed! I myself am not that sure. If this theme can be pulled off well for all players, I will be for it.


P.S. Llorean, what do you think about changing the default theme to this theme?

[Llorean]

Well, it's hardly my decision alone, though I'm pretty sure I can get most people behind it. I think I'd like to see the grayscale version cleaned up a bit (using real grayscale artwork, more optimized for the screen) for example.

Then again, I'm notoriously picky about some things.

[crzyboyster]

Even if it doesn't become the DEFAULT theme, it could be one of the themes that come with rockbox in it's builds (the ones preinstalled), right?

[Llorean]

That possibility's really there for nearly any theme, I guess.

[psycho_maniac]

kperri if your theme is "approved" as in the original creator or whatever likes it you should post it on the wiki

[yapper]

I've played with greyscale variants of the graphics, but with the limited space they tend to look 'ragged'. Therefore I've opted to use simple mono graphics for the status stuff at the bottom of the WPS.

[pixelma]

I would also like it much better if the greyscale version could carefully make use of the greyscale capabilities - but of course this needs a bit more work. It was a bit of a pity that the greyscale version of denny's "ultima" theme didn't use the full potential (in my eyes) and look less "rich" than the colour versions.

To have full control about the result I would probably edit the graphics a bit in a graphics program so that they only use the 4 grey levels and not just scale it down. The dithering makes it look a bit "noisy" and there is no real border - I'd imagine something like the beveledRBX or the SimpleHelv WPSs in the gallery. So it would be a bit like the progress bar in yapper's last post which is a good start.

[ZincAlloy]

I've played with greyscale variants of the graphics, but with the limited space they tend to look 'ragged'. Therefore I've opted to use simple mono graphics for the status stuff at the bottom of the WPS.

much better now. the progress bar is looking good. can you make the now playing bar look like the progress bar? the text on it should be white imho.
I think the icons should sport the same look as the progress bar. have you tried using the colors the progress bar uses on them?
   

[yapper]

Aha!  I just made a big breakthrough in my attempts at using greyscale. It appears that the progress bar is more forgiving in rendering greyscales, but the other graphics require very specific shades of grey to avoid dithering kicking in (RGB all 85 decimal for the dark grey and 170 decimal for the lighter grey).

Now all I have to do is create the graphics  

[MarcGuay]

It appears that the progress bar is more forgiving in rendering greyscales

I've just been messing around with some greyscale stuff and noticed that the placed images (%xl, %xd) are translated much better than the background (%X) image.  If you place the "Now Playing" bar instead of having it ingrained in the background image it shows up very nicely.  Now I'm trying to find out how to reproduce the 2 shades of grey that it displays as solids for the progress bar backdrop, which has to been in the background image.  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get that information?  I've tried copying the examples in the WPS gallery but the greys have been tainted by the blue/green glow of the screens...

Choochoo,
Marc

[yapper]

@Marc:
Check my previous post. The two greys that look good use RGB values of 85 (1/3 of 255) and 170 (2/3 of 255) respectively.