RBx - New theme in progress

[aim]

I'm not much good with developing code, however I'm pretty handy with Photoshop/The GIMP, so I decided to start a theme! Read the wiki and sampled code from existing theme's, including: SpartanBlack, Cabbie v2.0 and Amarok. Currently only for Toshiba Gigabeat F series.

I couldn't really think of a name, work in progress, here are some screen dumps of the current situation

   

   
240x320x16

To do:

- Move the 'rockbox' text up slightly to clear the now playing.
- Change the selector bar from that hideous blue
- Include album art support
- Fix the background and rockbox logo, I'm not quite happy with it yet; the text is too... 'average' and the fade doesn't work very well currently.
- Ask for opinions So shoot!

I also made a splash of the current logo for those that are interested.


240x74x16

[Ezraghast]

Hi, very nice theme! The blue isn't as hideous as it might be elsewhere but an x-green matching selector bar would be much nicer. I like the logo as is although i would fade it out more..

[Yotto]

Should the reflection of the "x" not also be green?

I like it but that distracts my eye.

[aim]

Hi, very nice theme! The blue isn't as hideous as it might be elsewhere but an x-green matching selector bar would be much nicer. I like the logo as is although i would fade it out more..

I don't like the idea of a solid green status bar, perhaps a green glow? illuminating the bottom of the screen? I'll try both.

Should the reflection of the "x" not also be green?

I like it but that distracts my eye.

You have a keen eye You may also notice the reflection is a slightly lighter shade - it's deliberately left a different colour, the x was meant to stand out on its own, while the reflection be more of a subtle aesthetic eye-pleaser.

Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming! I'll get to work on another revision Well, perhaps after some work I've gotta do!

EDIT: Here's my revised logo with a green glow status bar.

   

[Ezraghast]

What about a grey selector bar (as in the 'rockbo' of the original) gradating to a green tip?

[karashata]

Ezraghast: The gradient selector bar only allows a starting (top) color and an ending (bottom) color to be set. There's no way to make the selector bar gray with a green tip at the end like the logo in the theme.

[aim]

Ezraghast: The gradient selector bar only allows a starting (top) color and an ending (bottom) color to be set. There's no way to make the selector bar gray with a green tip at the end like the logo in the theme.

Haha oh! I thought I was missing something!

Well, I've been fiddling with the icons - they now blend into the green gradient behind Theming RB is fun! Except the 'coding' to shift positions, I find that boring But I have now added support for album art!

   

[Ezraghast]

Ezraghast: The gradient selector bar only allows a starting (top) color and an ending (bottom) color to be set. There's no way to make the selector bar gray with a green tip at the end like the logo in the theme.

Ahh ok. And there's no way to make the selector bar a separate background bitmap?

[karashata]

No. The selector type can either be a pointer (which is part of the icon set), an inverted bar (will be the color of the text with the text the background color or transparent when there's a backdrop set), a solid colored bar, or a gradient bar (as I already described).

[aim]

Ok, so I've submitted version 0.2 of RBx to the wiki - here are some final screen shots of what I've come up with. I've got a few ideas for v0.3 and an end plan for 1.0. But for anyone wanting it now to either play with or look at are welcome

Enjoy!

      

[[Saint]]

Personally, I think the main menu looks dwarfed by the rest of the theme.

Probably due to the presence of the large "Rockbox" logo you have there.
You have rather a lot of 'screen real-estate' to play with, why not increase the font size?

And (personally) I think the inbuilt scrollbar is hideous...I always turn it off myself, but I'm unsure whether or not turning it on/off is an accepted config item for a theme anymore (or if it ever was...)

Also, I notice in your iconset that the "Rockbox" (the topmost) icon seems to have been eaten away by something? Perhaps an overlapping viewport? Oversight?
Who knows...you do probably

I also think that the text in your "status bar" down the bottom could do with a little more definition...light grey on green is (for me) not the best colour combination where definition is required.
Again, increasing font sizes in a few areas could help, but the colour is something that I would change personally.

On the topic of fonts, using multifont and the title-bar tags is a good combo I think...something I do in my themes a fair bit.

Sorry if it seems like I'm ripping your theme to pieces, it's all just personal opinion...and can be taken, or left, as desired


[St.]

[aim]

Sorry if it seems like I'm ripping your theme to pieces, it's all just personal opinion...and can be taken, or left, as desired


[St.]

No, no, all (constructive) criticism is welcome!

I quite like the 'empty space' between the useful functions. Makes things look 'tidier', I also like smaller fonts over larger ones, as it helps with scrolling through larger libraries that come with HDD DAPs. I like the scroll bar as it tells me where I am in the library. Although I must admit, it's pretty ugly.

The top most icon has been eaten away by something, I'm very confused by that. I have no idea what's doing it It also happens when not in the WPS to the 'next' in the next song information at the top. I agree with the light-grey on green isn't the best combination, but I'm going for a green/black theme here and white text seems to work the best. I could make the glow less pronounced, more transparent.

If you look closely I need to make a new volume icon, it's not quite right.

EDIT: Woo 7 downloads

[[Saint]]

aim,

I'm having some fun beating one of my own themes into shape at the present point in time, but if your icon problem persists I'll (check with you first and) download the theme myself and have a look.

Unless it's one of those things you'd rather figure out yourself...

At a guess, I'd say that there is a viewport overlapping it in some place.
Without seeing the code first, that seems to be the most likely explanation.

The fact that it wipes out only 1/3 or so of the icon is actually a good thing believe it or not, as it can help in tracking down the x & y coordinates of the offending item.

I'll check back here some point in the next 24 hours or so and see if you've figured it out, and if not, I'll have a look.



[St.]

[karashata]

I assume you're referring to the theme site when you say "the wiki", but the theme site isn't part of the wiki anymore... The old galleries were but that was because the current theme site didn't exist yet.

In any case, though I don't own a Gigabeat, I do have a few small things to point out that might make your theme a little bit better...

First, as [St.] has already pointed out, the color of the text on your bottom status bar area does really need to be changed to something either lighter (like full white) or darker so it stands out more. I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing it on my screen just from the screenshots, so I could only imagine any potential issues reading it on the actual DAP...

Secondly, and this is my own opinion, I think it would look a little better if you lined the top of the info viewport on the base skin up with the top of the album art in the WPS, I think it would look a little smoother if they were lined up...

Third, (I'm not sure how much of an issue this might be on the actual DAP, but,) why such small fonts and images..? I've heard a lot of people complain before about how such tiny fonts can be almost impossible to read on the higher-res DAPs like the Gigabeat and the 320x240 iPods (I'm speaking here more about the font used in your status bar and along the top than the font used for the menu and the song info, though that font may be a bit small for the screen of the Gigabeat...) Smaller fonts are generally more accepted on the lower resolution DAPs like the Sansa c200 and the iriver H10 since they're still quite easy to read, but on high-res DAPs it's generally a better idea to use larger fonts so information can still be read at any respectable distance. I would probably try to limit myself to 12-pixel fonts as the smallest in the case of the higher-res DAPs if I were to make themes for them, because anything smaller than that tends to be more difficult to read, especially at any distance. Of course, images would have to be scaled accordingly as well, since tiny images are just as bad as tiny fonts...

One thing to keep in mind is that (more often than not) the DPI of the target DAP is likely to be higher than that of your monitor, so things will end up looking smaller on the actual DAP than they do on the monitor using the simulator. It might be a good idea to test themes on the DAP as well at first to get a feel for how things look (especially when using smaller fonts and images, so you can see just how readable or not they actually end up being), and to test it in a more everyday-use scenario. Once you've developed a good sense of what works well in actual use and what doesn't, then you could probably skip testing on the actual target.

Everything I've said is, of course, my own opinion, and you're welcome to take it however you will. It is your theme, after all.

[aim]

**snip**
I'll check back here some point in the next 24 hours or so and see if you've figured it out, and if not, I'll have a look.

[St.]

Go for gold, I haven't really had much time as of late, if you figure it out, that's great

I assume you're referring to the theme site when you say "the wiki", but the theme site isn't part of the wiki anymore... The old galleries were but that was because the current theme site didn't exist yet.

In any case, though I don't own a Gigabeat, I do have a few small things to point out that might make your theme a little bit better...

First, as [St.] has already pointed out, the color of the text on your bottom status bar area does really need to be changed to something either lighter (like full white) or darker so it stands out more. I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing it on my screen just from the screenshots, so I could only imagine any potential issues reading it on the actual DAP...

Secondly, and this is my own opinion, I think it would look a little better if you lined the top of the info viewport on the base skin up with the top of the album art in the WPS, I think it would look a little smoother if they were lined up...

Third, (I'm not sure how much of an issue this might be on the actual DAP, but,) why such small fonts and images..? I've heard a lot of people complain before about how such tiny fonts can be almost impossible to read on the higher-res DAPs like the Gigabeat and the 320x240 iPods (I'm speaking here more about the font used in your status bar and along the top than the font used for the menu and the song info, though that font may be a bit small for the screen of the Gigabeat...) Smaller fonts are generally more accepted on the lower resolution DAPs like the Sansa c200 and the iriver H10 since they're still quite easy to read, but on high-res DAPs it's generally a better idea to use larger fonts so information can still be read at any respectable distance. I would probably try to limit myself to 12-pixel fonts as the smallest in the case of the higher-res DAPs if I were to make themes for them, because anything smaller than that tends to be more difficult to read, especially at any distance. Of course, images would have to be scaled accordingly as well, since tiny images are just as bad as tiny fonts...

One thing to keep in mind is that (more often than not) the DPI of the target DAP is likely to be higher than that of your monitor, so things will end up looking smaller on the actual DAP than they do on the monitor using the simulator. It might be a good idea to test themes on the DAP as well at first to get a feel for how things look (especially when using smaller fonts and images, so you can see just how readable or not they actually end up being), and to test it in a more everyday-use scenario. Once you've developed a good sense of what works well in actual use and what doesn't, then you could probably skip testing on the actual target.

Everything I've said is, of course, my own opinion, and you're welcome to take it however you will. It is your theme, after all.

Hey there, thanks for the advice, I'd like to defend some of the choices I've made My Gigabeat has quite a colour rich screen, it's very impressive, actually. I'd say it's actually easier to read on the DAP than on my laptop. I've been using the theme pretty much since its conception.

As for the smaller fonts, I like the small fonts, for my (youngish?) eyes it's quite clear and it makes it easier to navigate my large library. The font in use is 15-Adobe-Hevetica. There is enough room for 16- fonts to be used. Anything larger and clipping begins to occur in the mainmenu with the 'now playing' text. Fonts are pretty easy thing to change

As for the text-on-green I totally agree, the shuffle icon currently is hard to see and the text doesn't stand out very much, I'm working on changing this in the next revision.