Looking for general input into my theme design. (sansa c200)

[ajburges]

Target:
Target has a 132x80x16 screen.

Already decided attributes:
08-Namil is the theme's stock font. That's 7-8 lines of menu after .sbs is applied

Current working prototype (wps+sbs) is woefully incomplete (and has heavily artifacts) but demo's some aspects I want.
  >Minimum 7 lines of 8 point font for wps and menu
  >Slim (5 pixels w/o padding) play back progress and state
  >48x48 album art to grant more width for song info
  >some working icons (assume no gradients in source)

Questions:
For very small icons, which do most people prefer? A fixed background with a variety of foreground colors or just using background/foreground masks for colors?

Is there any good free/open source libraries of 8x8 or better yet ?x5 media icons? It seems the focus these days are on larger icons.

If it helps any I don't have easy access to Photoshop (but I do havee GIMP) and have done all my icon work thus far via MS paint.

Ideas for names? current working title is microPro.

Background:
I am trying to build myself a full built personal use theme for the c200 that will eventually have custom wps/manus/radio screens. The focus of my theme is generating the most usable information given such a small resolution. However I have a strong mindset of "if it's worth doing it's worth doing right" and given that I could not find a bug free theme that already achieved my requirements, I'm making my own.

[sockbox]

check out the themes for the Sansa Clip. users have come up with very functional themes with an even smaller resolution. these might give you some idea. you can find some useful code & icons in those themes. you will probably have to tweak them in photoshop to get them to suit your needs.

[ajburges]

Perhaps I need to rephrase my request:

I am mostly looking aesthetic advice for my skin. Even pointing me out to a site with UI design guidelines (focus on media players) would be nice.

I have actually looked at the library of themes. That is how I have derived the foreground for most of my micro-icons. In fact, most of my code to this point has been derived from the code for Onyx (with massive refactoring and redesign) and I will probably credit it despite the fact there is no common code between the two anymore. Now I am trying to determine if I should have multiple colors or a simple foreground/background color scheme.

If you wish to know why mine will be different: The progress bar will be part of the *.sbs and will change to a tuner bar when the player is in radio mode (also the shuffle/repeat icons will change to tunned/stereo icons). I am also planning to have the volume icon indicate the number of channels outputted. Finally, I plan to avoid graphical glitches I've found with other skins. I'm not trying to invent the wheel, just optimize it for my own use. I would like it to be appealing to the most people it can at the same time though.

BTW. Is their any way to get a random number and pick a line from a text file? I've seen none thus far, but the idea of making a hint displaying theme for a submission to the default skin contest is appealing.
Post Merge: March 21, 2011, 10:05:48 PMSpent some time rearranging icons in my prototype. Background color is unused space. Custom UI view port is %Vi(-,0,9,-,64,1). Icon sets will be posted as requested, but I think the prototype gives the basic idea for most of them.

Still looking for helpful input on color schemes (specifically your thoughts on fixed vs foreground/background mono) and a good theme name.
Post Merge: March 22, 2011, 02:54:06 AMWrote *.wps and *.sbs today. Capture from test taken (prototype kept since disk busy icon cant be seen). Still looking for ideas on how to color this and name ideas.

[[Saint]]

BTW. Is their any way to get a random number and pick a line from a text file? I've seen none thus far, but the idea of making a hint displaying theme for a submission to the default skin contest is appealing.

While occasionally someone digs up the body of it, and bumps that thread...the default theme contest is very much over by my understanding.

I am personally working on cabbiev2 to adapt it to better suit touchscreen devices, and a lot of that work will undoubtedly spill out into what you know today as cabbiev2, there's no changes that don't reflect the "traditional" cabbiev2 that has become "the face of Rockbox".

Only a few modernisations such as optimised theme syntax, and some tweaks to the layout of some elements.

One of the biggest changes I am making is removing the "hardcoded" elements from the theme backdrops, so that the .wps and .sbs can share a backdrop to save a considerable amount of space.

However...I ramble.


[St.]