170x220 - clean WPS with lots of info

[sunsneezer]

I'm using the AppleKid font from the SNES game Earthbound, it's a nicely condensed variable width font I find very comfortable. (I found it on http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/11/ultimate-earthbound-font-pack/ )

I  started by looking at the packaged WPS and decided to customize PlainSmallAA to my tastes.
So I added Graphical battery, volume,rating and repeat/shuffle indicators, moved things around a lot and adjusted everything to the pixel.

It's my first WPS but I've been working a lot on it since it's surprisingly fun. Right now it feels spot on to me, but I have zero perspective on it... so feedback would be appreciated.

[[Saint]]

Using a BitMap progress bar would look a lot nicer than just letting the WPS draw the default one...

I personally think it always looks nice to have a gradient in the BMP image used as well, to give it the appearance of it standing out a bit more,

I also like to split the progress bar up into a few easily discernable segments (either 10% or 25-50-75-100% etc) using "true magenta" for transparency (I believe it's 255, 0 ,255 but don't quote that, it's a default colour in MS Paint unless you've messed around with custom colours and overwritten it)

I'll post an example of one from a WPS I'm building for the iPod Nano at the moment.

I'd prefer it if you used it as an example though, instead of just using it directly.

Also, I think you'd probably be able to increase the album art by at least 5-10px, you've got a reasonable amount of screen to play with still.


Feel free to disregard or disagree,
[St.]

[sunsneezer]

Thanks for the input! I changed the default progress bar. Although I won't be adding notches to it, because it makes it look as if the duration info in the middle is the time at the middle of the song.

I have a few honrizontal pixels free at the left of the album art, but the vertical space is packed. I could increase it 4 pixels by ignoring the frame and 1 pixel margin around it but then it would be less elegant I guess...

[[Saint]]

No worries, always happy to help where I can.

My tastes may differ from yours, but I have another suggestion if you're willing to take it on board.

I've editted the pic you uploaded last to reflect the changes that I'd make personally, I used magenta just so it was a little easier to see what I did with the borders.

*But just use it as a guide, it's not pixel accurate, just an example*

I removed 2 segregation's in the borders that I personally thought looked a little weird, and now the borders just define the status bar, the progress and playmode info, and the whole screen itself.

The title "Now Playing/Next Track" may look a little weird at first, but the change I'd make personally would be to use alternating sublines to switch between displaying both sets of track info (now playing and next track) at say 10 of 15 second intervals (possible "Now Playing" for 15 seconds, and then "Next Track" for 10 seconds..or 10-15 seconds each) with the title "Now Playing" or "Next Track" centered on the first line.
This also lets you display the same amount of info for both categories, instead of a plethora of info for the current track ans simply the title of the next track (I do this personally as I'm often listening to a shuffles playlist comprising of multiple albums, so I want as much info about the next track queued as I can, since it's not necessarily going to be in the same album).

This frees up a few lines or so to display some more info if you wanted to, or possibly expand the Album Art slightly.

If you're not sure about how to implement alternating sublines (or anything else I've talked about), just ask..I'll be happy to give you an example if needed.

Also, (though it's not really necessary as it does tie in with the theme currently) I'd look at possibly using any space gained (if you were to implement these changes) to make up a custom set of slightly larger status icons (play, pause, ff, rew, repeat, shuffle etc).

I personally like mine a little larger, and I'm not a big fan of *ANY* of the system/default WPS items...but that's my taste.

I'd be happy to give you a hand with any of this if you'd like, after you get all the basics sorted (size, placement etc.) then We can talk some more about adding animations for things like seeking, charging and volume change and things like adding a hold screen.

As I said, don't take any of this as things you *HAVE TO DO*, as that's really not the case...it is your WPS after all.


Feel free to disregard or disagree,
[St.]

[Chronon]

I checked out the archive containing the fonts and didn't find any license info there.  If you want to submit this with an appropriate license to the theme site then you should either use a font that can safely be included, or clarify under what terms this font is allowed to be distributed.  If you can't find this information then you could supply your theme with an alternate font and include instructions for users to download the font for themselves.