new theme (kinda): retroTape

[Chronon]

Nice work!
 

[soap]

well you guys are right but you won't loose anything if you just introduce it in iaudiophile.net

Yea, we do.

We lose forums.rockbox.org as the one-stop-shop central conversation point on Rockbox.  Nobody benefits from scattered resources.

How about you just introduce iaudiophile.net here? 

[Fat Bob]

This is a fantastic theme - it looks great.  Really professional.  That's why I'm a bit embarrassed about pointing out something so trivial, but aren't the wheels and tape moving in the wrong direction? 

[audio-i]

... aren't the wheels and tape moving in the wrong direction? 

Yes you're right! I'd say it's not so obvious though, if you don't compare it side to side to the real movement; the illusion works fine. You've just killed the magic 
There's a reason for that though. The wheels movement effect can be easily changed, but not so the tape movement. It is based on progress bars that move only left to right (I always thought it would be great to be able to define the progress bar direction), so there's no way to simulate the "right to left tape transfer", as far as I know. There's a tag I really haven't used, %?px which could display images according to the percentage of the track, but at this moment I can't find a way to use it without loading a lot of images (=buffer usage) to make the tape movement effect smooth enough.

[Fat Bob]

I see - who would have expected someone to want a progress bar moving in the wrong direction?

Well, there's only one thing for it then - I shall have to sit down with Audacity and reverse all of my music files, then the whole thing's consistent!

Apologies to all concerned for killing any magic.

[audio-i]

Well there were auto reverse decks, so it's not so weird after all. But I like your audio reversing solution 

There are a couple ways to change the tape direction movement I still have to try, if any of them works and looks good enough I'll update the theme


[Edit] In the meantime, I seem to have a Gigabeat port almost ready*, but since I don't have a Gigabeat near, and the simulators are a bit outdated + I can't build my own at this moment, it would be a great help if it could be tested some more (recent build required since it uses multifont and the %Lt %Li tags). For this port I resized the ipod video version and used the screen left for the inlay card, which is were the menu titles and menu icons tags come really handy in order to make clear you left the WPS (playlist viewer) and are browsing the menus. I'll submit the theme if everything is in place and working OK

Download beta: http://



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* many thanks to Chronon for the initial testing!

[dcr693]

Just gotta say this was a fantastic job. I saw this theme even before I got a Fuze and I was so hoping I'd get a V1 Fuze to Rockbox so I could use this theme. Now that I have one, I can say this theme is fantastic. I literally grinned from ear to ear upon seeing it work.

[audio-i]

I just uploaded to the theme site the Gigabeat version. It requires a recent build that handles multiple fonts and the %Li and %Lt tags.

I also experimented a little bit to simulate the real tape direction, and it did work using the %px tag. It uses a LOT more buffer, because instead of just loading two images for the progress bars (as it is now), it has to load 40 times that, so besides leaving the buffer usage on the edge, it wouldn't work for the 320x240 and 220x176 3.5.1 releases. But even if that wouldn't be an issue... I just didn't like it. Yes it simulates the tape real movement, but it just feels odd going exactly in the opposite direction every progress bar does, it's confusing and therefore in my opinion, not worth the change.

[Ste-]

Gonna be cheeky and maybe ask for a sansa e200 port ? it would really push the constraints of size tho!
Love the theme and glad to see it back again and on many different devices!

[audio-i]

Gonna be cheeky and maybe ask for a sansa e200 port ? it would really push the constraints of size tho!

That would be a very difficult one, I think I would have to leave that one to you

I also experimented a little bit to simulate the real tape direction, and it did work using the %px tag... ...Yes it simulates the tape real movement, but it just feels odd going exactly in the opposite direction every progress bar does, it's confusing and therefore in my opinion, not worth the change.

On a second thought, maybe it's just me, maybe it's that I'm used to the first version, so I'll put this version for the iPod video for a couple days here ( http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/2/11/1754365//retroTape_v2.0beta.zip ) if anyone wants to give it a try and help decide

Edit: A current build is needed

[Yotto]

Nicely done with the reversing. This works both in a current build (About a week old, maybe 10 days) and version 3.5.1.

In both, however, there's a flicker whenever the "progress bar" changes. I can't catch screen shots because it's too fast, but sometimes a rectangular section of brown shows up in the "tape-free" area, and sometimes a rectangle of light gray shows up where the tape is. They tend to trade off one, then the other.

This happens both on my iPod (which is on 3.5.1) and my simulator (which is on the daily build). I have no clue what's causing it but I'm poking in the code now because I had an idea on how to reverse the video but I don't know if it'll work, and I want to see how you did it.

*EDIT*

Oh, and I don't think it looks "wrong" at all, and I haven't actually watched a cassette tape in well over a decade

*EDIT 2*

I tried my idea and it flickers too. Seems to be the "displaying a conditional image" as I wasn't using a filmstrip. I can't easily update my simulator to the current daily build until tomorrow, so I don't know if something changed in the last weeks or so that will make it not flicker.

I think the current way you do it will be fine with one exception: The tape totally needs to be rounded a bit. As it's a filmstrip, you could add the rounding to each part and make it fatter as the roll fills up. I may put the work into that tonight and if I do, I'll update here.

[audio-i]

... there's a flicker whenever the "progress bar" changes. I can't catch screen shots because it's too fast, but sometimes a rectangular section of brown shows up in the "tape-free" area, and sometimes a rectangle of light gray shows up where the tape is. They tend to trade off one, then the

The link didn't have the updated background, it's corrected now, maybe that was the reason, could you please try again?

Oh, and I don't think it looks "wrong" at all, and I haven't actually watched a cassette tape in well over a decade

Yeah maybe I just got too used to the initial movement  I've been using this version for a while and now it feels natural, although the movement is opposite to most of the progressbars

[Yotto]

Note: I have an EDIT 2 above that you may have missed

I just installed the new one from the same link above, and it does the same thing, again both in the simulator and on my iPod.

But I like it enough to keep it even so

[audio-i]

I just installed the new one from the same link above, and it does the same thing, again both in the simulator and on my iPod.

I don't get any flicker neither on the current build, nor in 3.5.1, although in the latter the skin RAM usage gets exceeded and it seems it doesn's load the volume and battery bitmaps.

Thanks for your interest and help 

[peaceful1]

can you curve the tape like Cassette-fuze

It well look more real
but even now it's the best 3*3 theme for rockbox( i mean (kinda): retroTape )