Cabbie on Sansa - Font size

[Lars]

Hello,
if I understand that right, Cabbie is now more or less the default UI for the Rockbox player. I have nothing to complain against the theme in general. But the font choice is by any means to small for as a default solutions (a compromise that should fit most needs) on the Sansa E series. Especially on a mobile device that is supposed to be read "on the move". The minimum choice should rather be 'helvR12.fnt' or even bigger.

I'm not sure who or wich group is responsible for deciding on this or applying and sanctioning the needed changes, so I just post thise here.

With best regards, Lars

[Llorean]

There is a balance between "showing enough information" and "having large enough text." Most on the move information you'll need is displayed by the rather large icons at the bottom. Reading text will require waiting for it to scroll anyway, so if you aren't somewhere where you can't spend a few seconds focusing on the screen (IE, driving or biking) the font size change won't make too significant of a difference anyway (it won't affect the icons, and all it will effectively do is remove the ability for the WPS to display next track info).

[Lars]

Yes, I know well that there is to maintain a balance. But so far every one I helped to get rockbox on his Sansa E series (ok, only 4 users so far, nothing statistically relevant) was repelled by the small font. With out me helping out they would have just droped the rockbox install right away. That should not happen I'd say.

The 10 point font is so tiny that I have serious trouble reading it. I would consider the 12 point helv font more the lower limit of a compromise.

This should be no problem at all, as the Sansa E display is not small in any way (like it is with the Sansa C for example).

Regards, Lars

[Llorean]

The e200 display is quite a bit taller than the c200, yes. But it's only 44 pixels wider, so it still faces nearly the same problem with long lines.

There are a wide variety of themes available, as it stands. Are people having a hard time reading it at a standstill?

I'll agree that a slightly larger font *probably* wouldn't hurt too much, but I can't see the existing one being a real problem unless people are trying to read it in circumstances they probably shouldn't be taking their eyes off the road anyway.

[AlexP]

If you read the massive default theme thread, you will see many arguments about the text size, with many people wanting bigger, smaller, whatever.  Personally I am in the wanting it bigger camp (especially on the gigabeat, I actually think the e200 version is OK), but it was all just a compromise.  Whilst a bigger font wouldn't go amiss for me, I fnd the e200 version a very long way from hard to read.

[zajacattack]

You are always welcome to change the font to whatever is comfortable for you.

[Alfox]

I recently installed Rockbox on my E200 and agree that the tiny default font nearly turnded me off the whole idea.
I mean I litteraly can not read what it says. same with default keyboard. I guess I'm not as young as i would like to be  
Anyhow, I like the Cabbie theme and use the nimbus 19 font or 9+18*18.
To prevent the "Next song" text from overlaping the progress bar I erased one empty line in the wps above the "next Song" instruction. thats it.
Now I can see in a glance the titles and status if I want to read the whole line in the menu, scrolling works fine.

[LinusN]

I too think most of the targets with high-resolution screens have a far too small font in the Cabbie theme, for example iPod Video and Gigabeat F.

[Llorean]

I'd agree that it's too small on my Gigabeat F, but would lean toward "slightly too small" rather than "far too small" myself. I'd like something about proportional to the total screen size as it is on the e200, personally.

[MarcGuay]

Here's a gift for everyone who likes the default theme but has trouble reading the font:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsSansaE200#Cabbie_2_0_w_HelvR12