Switching Theme Problem on 80gb iPod

[ItsMyLife]

I installed a few themes last week... one, which I really like, the Cabbie theme places a background in the backdrops folder.

Well, when I attempted to switch back to another theme it didn't remove the background from the backdrops folder and I couldn't see the text (black on black).

I fixed this manually, but I'm wondering if this is a theme problem or a problem with the build?

[GodEater]

This tends to happen when one theme uses a menu backdrop, and another doesn't.

I'd argue it's the fault of the themes which don't - they assume there's never been one, so make no attempt to clear it. This results in your being left with the previous theme's backdrop, as you found - and unreadable text. IMO, all theme authors should include a menu backdrop, even if it's a plain white one, just to stop this happening.

[Llorean]

It should be possible to have a backdrop line in a cfg, which doesn't select a file (so it sets "no backdrop") to clear it, but I'm not sure if this works right now or not. I remember it being discussed.

[ell1ps1s]

I believe the line

backdrop: -

in the .cfg file will clear the backdrop. However, many themes without background images don't include this courtesy, so you'll have to add it yourself.

[Yotto]

Actually, many of the themes that don't clear it do so because when they were created, the option didn't exist and nobody's gone back to fix them.  So it's the original artist's fault, but not for the reason you think  

[ell1ps1s]

Indeed. My apologies if that sounded like a complaint.

I can also imagine a situation where a theme would be intentionally agnostic about the choice of backdrop, and foreground/background colour (especially for 1-bit WPSs). So it's a side-effect if a previously selected theme leaves behind a backdrop which obscures the foreground text of a subsequent selection.

And if you want a theme to explicitly clear the backdrop, the above solution achieves that.