Help me debug my theme port!

[gbl08ma]

Oh god. It seems that, in four hours or so, so many replies have been posted (and for me they seem a bit offtopic) that I don't know exactly what instructions to follow. I'm going to do what audio-i suggested and post the results.

EDIT: It seems the file i-audio gave me is working without text disappearing. In the meantime, as my iPod's battery is empty, or at least it reports so, because it says it's 0%, when I try to charge it holding Menu key to avoid entering USB connection, I was getting a PANIC stkov. I tried installing the latest build and now it just hangs (doesn't say PANIC anymore). Currently, it seems the only way to charge is by entering USB connection. Furthermore, I start to think that it's not reporting the battery correctly, as it keeps playing music without problem. I'm going to report this bug and investigate why the battery seems to be at 0% (yesterday it wasn't, and the build was the same) before I get back to theming.

[DrewVosburg]

gbl08ma, Sorry to be off topic!

...I find it quicker to code by hand still.

I wouldn't use it, but I am interested in at least seeing it.  I definitely prefer coding by hand to any kind of GUI editor in instances like this.

What types of errors are you talking about exactly?

I was talking about was warning for overlapping viewports and other non-error issues that may cause unexpected behavior.

I also haven't heard of checkwps, which may be similar to what I was describing.

[audio-i]

@gbl08ma, perhaps you're better off trying things in the simulator. And regarding the file I posted, I just corrected quickly a few things a while ago, but there might be some problems left (i.e. it's better to check everything anyway)

I can't think of any reason where it would be necessary to deliberately overlap a viewport.

That doesn't mean that there aren't reasons But it's a good thing that you're not reluctant to believe things. Just a couple examples:

- The one I gave before (Thin theme). I don't thing that effect can be achieved at the moment without overlapping viewports, but please let us know if what you have in mind works, though.
- Another one is if a certain font has an "excessive" spacing, you might overlap viewports to make the text lines look closer, instead of having to modify the font.

gbl08ma is perhaps right about some things being off topic, but I think there's something important there though, which is the use of %Vf in the same line as %V or %Vl. I did some more testing, and it turns out that putting %Vf in the next line like [St.] says also fails when the text to be displayed has the scrolling tag. Even if there are no overlapping viewports. So, if by design, %Vf should work in a different line, it would be a bug (?)

[DrewVosburg]

Similar problem: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,26858.0.html

EDIT: My bad, didn't see that.

[[Saint]]

I still can't help but wonder if it's some configuration setting messing things up, or, some totally unrelated factor not present in my device/sim setup.

I've had a small play with using %vf/b both conditionally and with scrolling lines, and I just can't reproduce this.


[St.]

EDIT: DrewVosburg,

audio-i already linked to this thread several posts ago.

[gbl08ma]

Come on, please stop that discussion about overlapping viewports and what's wrong and what's not. That's a discussion for another topic. At the end, I came here asking for help to port my theme, for the noble cause of increasing the number of themes of a target that has few themes [compared to other color iPods] , and I end up provoking a huge discussion between two theme developers.

I paid attention to what you've been saying as well as the PMs me and audio-i have exchanged some months ago regarding this theme and it's problems. Yesterday I came back to work on this theme, and released the green version of the theme on the theme site. I also had the orange version just ready, but as I saw the bug of the text disappearing was still persisting, I ceased of that idea and came here asking for help.

As audio-i provided me a file with most of the corrections made (thank you a lot), I replaced my WPS file for that one and made the necessary changes on the SBS. I didn't forget about the battery icon disappearing on levels below 16% problem: I corrected that was well as the shuffle icon that was disappearing when shuffle is disabled, and it's not meant to be this way AFAIK.

So, before uploading to the theme site, below is a link to a ZIP file (I would attach but it won't let me) so you can test before I make unnecessary buggy releases of themes on the theme site. (also, I need to take new screenshots, and I'll only make that when the theme port is finished)
I tested both on the simulator and on my device. Works perfectly (the theme). Talking about my DAP, an iPod Nano 2G, it is really unstable lately, and I'm not using a modified build. It often hangs with "undefined instructions" while playing music (this happens randomly on any file with any theme), and now it's hanging even often while it's charging on the USB, but without establishing a data connection. But that's a subject for the tracker and not for this post

Still about the ZIP, you'll notice that although the OP is about photoSkins-green, the ZIP contains the orange one. I plan on updating the green theme once I'm sure the orange version is OK (it's basically the same with different images and colours).

photoSkins-orange_v1.2.1: http://nextcloud.cz.cc/rockbox/photoSkins-orange_v1.2.1_iPod-Nano.zip
(it's on my personal server, I hope it doesn't go offline anytime soon )

[audio-i]

[St.], could you please upload somewhere an example of this working to give it a look? What I did to test it was modifying a couple of my themes, not overlapping viewports, placing %V or Vl and %Vf in the next line, and using %s

[gbl08ma]

After all, it seems I've managed to fix all the bugs of photoSkins-green and photoSkins-orange, and even managed to port another two themes to Nano: photoSkins-blue2 and photoSkins-road. These four themes are now available for Nano on the themes site, and I'm already converting another one.

Please report bugs by creating a thread, or preferably by PMing me. If there're much bugs I'll create a thread just for my theme

Thanks to everyone for helping me.

PS: After porting all (or the majority, at least) of the photoSkins series, I'll look into porting more iPod Video themes to Nano. I'm just not sure where to start (preferably, it would have to be a theme that would fit on a small screen, and not too much complex...), if you designed a theme that would like to see ported to Nano, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

[spike66]

My tests indicated to me that simply fixing the viewports was enough to get the theme to display correctly

I've had a small play with using %vf/b both conditionally and with scrolling lines, and I just can't reproduce this.

[St.], contrary to your experience, I haven't been able to make the %Vf tag work in a different line, when the line to display has %s. I thought that was just not possible. Are there any specific conditions to make it work? How did you manage to make it work for the theme discussed here, since you said you fixed the overlapping viewprots, and it worked? I did the same to try and find out more about this, and even if I fix the viewports overlapping issue, the text still flickers, since it has %s  

Edit: I tried it on different themes, different devices, I even modified the default cabbie to try to make this work... no luck

[RockBoxFan]

I am having a problem with all five of the photoSkins themes.  They work just fine in the simulator.  When switching to the wps, the background goes grey.  The album art, the text, and the icons display just fine.  The only way I can get these to work is by commenting out the "%X(photoSkins-..._bg.bmp)" line in the .wps file.  Of course, the background remains from the .sbs, but it works.

I am using a Nano 1g r29093-110119.

Thanks.

[gbl08ma]

I am having a problem with all five of the photoSkins themes.  They work just fine in the simulator.  When switching to the wps, the background goes grey.  The album art, the text, and the icons display just fine.  The only way I can get these to work is by commenting out the "%X(photoSkins-..._bg.bmp)" line in the .wps file.  Of course, the background remains from the .sbs, but it works.

I am using a Nano 1g r29093-110119.

Thanks.

Thanks for reporting. I've tried my ports on the Nano 1G simulator and on my real Nano 2G. They work fine on both devices, and on my Nano 2G I'm using the same version as yours, r29093 without modifications (is yours without modifications too?). However, the version on the 1G sim is older...

Can someone with a real Nano 1G please confirm this behavior and post all the possibly related information?

I think this is more of a Rockbox bug than of a bug of my theme ports, since it should perfectly accept two different backgrounds on the WPS and the SBS. And with photoSkins, it has to be this way, because the backdrop for the SBS is not the same that the one for the WPS.

Regards,
Gabriel

PS: RockBoxFan, did you download the themes using Rockbox Utility or the theme site? If you downloaded using Rockbox Utility, try downloading directly from the theme site (and unzipping the ZIP file on the root of your player, overwriting any files) and tell us if it still persists.

[RockBoxFan]

I am using RockBox without modifications.  I downloaded the themes directly (without The Utility).

I knew it was strange when the Simulator did not reproduce the problem.  The problem can also be avoided if I comment out the "track" display (under "GLASS") in the .wps, (instead of %X...).

Strange...

[audio-i]

RockBoxFan, can you post a screenshot of the problem?

[gbl08ma]

Although it will be hard to take a screenshot becase the problem doesn't happen on the simulator... You'll have to use screendump on the real device

[RockBoxFan]

I will be happy to submit a screen shot as best I can, but it may not be until Monday.