new theme: arboxWidgets [iPod 320x240]: help

[Chronon]

No biggie.  I just figure once it has its own name and presence on the wiki it should probably have its own topic.  

[crzyboyster]

I'm going to make a version for the iPod Nano soon (in the next week) and I would like some feedback on how to squeeze so many "widgets" on the tiny screen and which widgets I can get rid of.

[hhannah]

You chose a hard job because of the display size difference!    I managed to "squeeze" the icons for the iriver H3/ipod photo display 220x176 (and the sansa 176x220 display - this one not yet on the wiki though), elliminating the text inside most of them (actually they'd probably look better without text on all ports), so for the nano's display you'd be able to place four of those horizontaly, as an example. Probably more reducing and reorganizing would be necessary because of the vertical restrictions. The subject you put comes actually very handy to me since I'd like to port the theme for an ipod mini I got, which obviously is even smaller and greyscale

[crzyboyster]

I originally considered kind of "cutting and pasting" this theme together from the various ports out there, but found out that they were all different!

I'm now probably just going to take the iPod Video port and multiply all of the dimensions by .65 (I think that's the number) and just scale it down. Is there any version of the iPod Video port that uses viewports currently?

[hhannah]

ArboxWidgets for ipod video, gigabeat and iriver H3 / ipod photo do use viewports, so they could be easier to port. I don't understand exactly what you mean by all ports being different, they are meant to be consistent   - and I hope your nano version will be too - (i.e the iriver/photo 220x76 port is almost exactly the video's, just smaller, take a look at that one it might be the most useful for you - the sansa port will be like the gigabeat's, just smaller...)

On the video's and gigabeat's ports there are also "unframed album art" versions, which are supposed to look better if most of the music lacks of album art; they are not yet updated to viewports etc (but will be) and the progress, date and clock icons are a bit different.

Or maybe you are referring to kperri's video and gigabeat's modifications? those just use the basic idea and use some of the original icons I used, I guess.

Anyway, scaling the video's icons down might not be the best way, since they might get distorted, or with text very difficult to read; that's why I suggest you to take a look at the 220x176 port icons. If you need to make the icons smaller or anything, let me know.

Edit: The Sansa e200 and the Gigabeat's "unframed album art" version have been updated on the wiki. April 2nd

[ZincAlloy]

I don't get the "unframed" ipod version. why not just make the frame conditional (with the insides of the frame being transparent)?

[hhannah]

That would be ideal, in fact that's how this thread started, but it was not possible to place album art image OR text over a conditional image, and from what I know, viewports do not allow this either, or is there a way now that I don't know of?

Edit: At first I didn't get what you meant, which is the opposite of what was already tried... well I did an experiment using what you suggested (placing the frame AFTER the AA is placed), and it apparently works fine!; it involves solving another problem, so I'll have to see how to use this, but that has nothing to do with your idea. You see, this thread has been accessed more than 2000 times, but only now it seems like there is a solution. Great tip, thank you so much! 

[ZincAlloy]

no prob  
I've been doing this on my brushed metal theme (with a drop shadow instead of a frame).