Themes Broken with 3.7: Syntax change?

[Bockrox]

I am using Rockbox on an iPod 5 video. It looks like all of my themes have broken with the upgrade to 3.7 (and a later upgrade to 3.7.1 did not fix the problem).

Some themes are very close to normal -- Pen & Paper Plus is a good example. However, most of them (even rockbox_default) are very mangled. All themes have a very raw top toolbar (like the one seen here) and most have a very small font and a very small scrolling area. Does any of this sound familiar?

I would be very happy to provide a screenshot if there is a way to do so.

What could have caused this? Did the theme format change between 3.6 and 3.7?

[bluebrother]

I am using Rockbox on an iPod 5 video. It looks like all of my themes have broken with the upgrade to 3.7 (and a later upgrade to 3.7.1 did not fix the problem).

Yes. See the Release Notes for 3.7.

All themes have a very raw top toolbar (like the one seen here) and most have a very small font and a very small scrolling area. Does any of this sound familiar?

You're missing the fonts package.

What could have caused this? Did the theme format change between 3.6 and 3.7?

yes, it was intentional and is documented.

[Bockrox]

Ah great. Thanks for all of the very useful information. (I did check the release notes previously, but didn't see anything about themes. I guess I should have searched the word "skin".)

Is there anything the Rockbox team can do to ensure more stability in the future? I appreciate that you guys are always improving this little language, but from my perspective as a user, all I know is that upgrading to 3.7 broke all of my themes. I could imagine little issues like this driving new users away from the (otherwise fantastic) software.

[AlexP]

The change was for a specific reason (mostly related to internal code).  If something needs changing to make it better then it will happen, but only if really necessary.  The theme language won't change for every release.  There is sometimes a choice between maintaining compatibility and future improvements.  If it isn't possible to have both, then we go for making things better.

The change was well documented, there is a wiki page covering exactly what changes happened, we released a tool to update old theme files etc. etc.

[Bockrox]

The change was for a specific reason (mostly related to internal code).  If something needs changing to make it better then it will happen, but only if really necessary.  The theme language won't change for every release.  There is sometimes a choice between maintaining compatibility and future improvements.  If it isn't possible to have both, then we go for making things better.

I understand and agree. I'm definitely not against making improvements to the language -- sometimes backwards-compatibility needs to be broken to move forward. I totally understand, respect, and agree with that.

The change was well documented, there is a wiki page covering exactly what changes happened, we released a tool to update old theme files etc. etc.

It was well documented for developers, but not for users. As a user, my themes broke and I had no idea why. There was no notification of the changes and no explanation for the strange behavior. From a design perspective, the software should provide good feedback -- it should make the user aware of what is happening and why.

I try not to make criticisms without offering a solution, so here's my solution: Why not provide a lightweight compatibility check like Firefox does? "This theme will not work with your version and has been disabled. Continue anyway?" Thoughts?

[[Saint]]

It was well documented for developers, but not for users. As a user, my themes broke and I had no idea why. There was no notification of the changes and no explanation for the strange behavior.

That is entirely untrue, if you followed the forums you would have known it was coming, received warning it was going to happen, and known when it did happen.

There was no lack of discussion around it.


[St.]

[Llorean]

Basically, Rockbox can't know if it's simple a bad WPS or if it's an "old" WPS unless it contains the entire old WPS definition too, which would more or less defeat the point of removing it. So there's no way for Rockbox to tell you "this is an outdated WPS." It could pop up something when it fails to load a theme, but the fact that it fails to load the theme is evident anyway, isn't it? Getting the fallback theme is a pretty clear indication it failed.

But http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/MajorChanges which is the best place to get an overview of changes between releases mentions the skin breaking change, and links to a page that details it. You even mention that you read the release notes, so it's hardly fair to say "there was no notification" when it's right there, including explanation. "I didn't see the notification" or "I didn't know the right term to recognize the notification was relevant" is hardly the same as there not being one. I don't think it's fair to expect all users to follow the forums, but if you don't actually read through the release notes before upgrading (and click links) what happens to you can hardly be considered anyone else's fault.

[Bockrox]

That is entirely untrue, if you followed the forums you would have known it was coming, received warning it was going to happen, and known when it did happen.

There was no lack of discussion around it.
[St.]

I don't mean to step on any toes here, but I still say it's bad design. Don Norman calls it "visibility" -- few users are going to notice a new post in the forums before doing an upgrade, but most users would notice a notification from the Rockbox firmware or Rockbox Utility.
Post Merge: January 06, 2011, 12:00:16 AM

Basically, Rockbox can't know if it's simple a bad WPS or if it's an "old" WPS unless it contains the entire old WPS definition too, which would more or less defeat the point of removing it. So there's no way for Rockbox to tell you "this is an outdated WPS."

Rockbox doesn't have the ability to know this now, but it could. To do this, you could require that the theme identifies what version of the theme language it is compatible with. A simple line in one of the files -- "theme_version=3" or something like that.

It could pop up something when it fails to load a theme, but the fact that it fails to load the theme is evident anyway, isn't it?

Evident yes, but certainly not attractive. (In fact, it isn't especially evident either. When I saw my broken themes, I had no idea what was going on. Did I install something incorrectly? Is my iPod defective? Is this a bug in the firmware? Rockbox provides no real feedback of what's going other than "Something is wrong.")

But http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/MajorChanges which is the best place to get an overview of changes between releases mentions the skin breaking change, and links to a page that details it. You even mention that you read the release notes, so it's hardly fair to say "there was no notification" when it's right there, including explanation. "I didn't see the notification" or "I didn't know the right term to recognize the notification was relevant" is hardly the same as there not being one.

Yes, I agree. I should have read more carefully.

I don't think it's fair to expect all users to follow the forums, but if you don't actually read through the release notes before upgrading (and click links) what happens to you can hardly be considered anyone else's fault.

I disagree with this. When is the last time you read the Firefox release notes? Probably never. Has this lack of research ever resulted in your confusion? Probably not. Even without reading release notes, Firefox users are never confused about what is going on -- they aren't surprised when an extension stops working, for example.

I think this is because Firefox has a fairly elegant update notifier -- "We notice you upgraded to Firefox 4, but Adblock is not compatible with Firefox 4. It is being disabled now."

[[Saint]]

When is the last time you read the Firefox release notes? Probably never.

Ignorance to the documentation, whether deliberate or not, is not the fault of the product.

It certainly cannot be the fault of the software if you blindly installed it without thinking that there may be consequences attached to doing so.

I flatly refuse to believe that anyone can say that there was a lack of notification, or is a lack of documentation about the theme breaking changes introduced.



[St.]

[Bockrox]

Ignorance to the documentation, whether deliberate or not, is not the fault of the product.

I still disagree. Just having something on paper doesn't allow us to wash our hands of the issue. The information needs to be presented to the user when he needs it and where he needs it. I am willfully ignorant of the Firefox documentation, but this has never caused me grief in all my years of using it.

It certainly cannot be the fault of the software if you blindly installed it without thinking that there may be consequences attached to doing so.

Again, I frequently upgrade Firefox blindly, but I have never been seen an extension break completely without warning.

I flatly refuse to believe that anyone can say that there was a lack of notification, or is a lack of documentation about the theme breaking changes introduced.

There was not a lack of documentation, but I believe there certainly was a lack of notification -- neither the Rockbox Utility nor the Rockbox firmware told me anything about these breaking changes. These are the two core pieces of software I was interacting with during the upgrade, so I believe the information should have been presented there.

I still argue that a better approach would be the one Firefox takes. The Rockbox firmware could notify me when a theme is out of date, disable it, and then instruct me to upgrade it.

It looks like we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I would, however, recommend that the Rockbox team pull in more developers interested in usability, as I think this conversation could benefit from more of those perspectives.

[gevaerts]

I am willfully ignorant of the Firefox documentation, but this has never caused me grief in all my years of using it.

How many firefox extensions or themes have you developed?

[Bockrox]

How many firefox extensions or themes have you developed?

None, but I have shared ideas that were well-received by Mozilla employees. Why is this relevant?

[Llorean]

I think one thing you may have missed is that not all themes broke. If you read http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SkinBreakingChange you'll see that only some themes became unusuable - those that made use of the changed tags.

A version string wouldn't do any good because that would end up rejecting perfectly compatible themes as well. As I said earlier, about the only improvement really reasonable is it popping up something to explain when the theme fails to load. Rather than comment on this, it seems like you've decided you're just here to argue.

Rockbox exists in an environment very different than Firefox. Comparing how themes are loaded to how Firefox extensions are handled is hardly useful as they don't exist within the same limitations, nor follow similar rules.

I would, however, recommend that the Rockbox team pull in more developers interested in usability, as I think this conversation could benefit from more of those perspectives.

also seems to suggest you aren't to familiar with open source in general.  There is no "Rockbox foundation" like there is for Mozilla. There is no guiding force. Knowledge of how the Mozilla project seems to do things isn't as useful here as you may think it is. What developers we get is strictly limited by who shows up with interest in helping to contribute.

Rather than saying we should pull in more developers interested in usability, the ideal response is that you start becoming involved with the programming side and *become* one of those developers. Submit some patches that show how you think it should work. If your response is "I don't know how to program", well now's always a good time to start learning.

[gevaerts]

How many firefox extensions or themes have you developed?

None, but I have shared ideas that were well-received by Mozilla employees. Why is this relevant?

Sorry, I misread your first post. I thought you meant these were themes that you had created, in which case it is relevant. On re-reading I see I was wrong there.

[Bockrox]

Sorry, I misread your first post. I thought you meant these were themes that you had created, in which case it is relevant. On re-reading I see I was wrong there.

Ah, no problem.

As it happens, I have created Rockbox themes, but I've been approaching this issue from a user's perspective. I agree that theme developers were given ample warning about the changes.