Making it clearer whether I'm recording or paused?

[FritoDude]

I use Rockbox on a Sansa Clip V2 (ver 3.9.1) to record thoughts while riding my bicycle. I use the select button to start recording and then press the select button again to pause the recording.  How can I make it more obvious at a glance whether it is paused or recording?

It is easy to press the select button an extra time and then the unit is paused when I'm trying to record and is recording when I think it is paused. The Time & Size values are, of course, only increasing when I'm recording, but the font is very small & it only changes once a second which means I have to look carefully to check.

The cabbiev2 theme has a tiny icon of two triangles when recording is paused. This tiny icon turns into a solid circle when actually recording. Huge versions of those icons would work great for me.

Another idea is for the level meters to only move when actually recording. If they weren't moving I would know that I'm paused.

Is there a way for me to do either of these options? I've looked through a number of themes and settings and haven't discovered a way. Or is there another way I can have the UI show me the recording/paused status more clearly?

[FritoDude]

I solved my problem and thought I'd pass along my solution.

The recording screen isn't completely skinnable and when I looked through the source code to make a change I decided that was going to be way too hard. I ended up choosing a theme and modifying it so that the recording status icon would be displayed while I was recording & no icon would be displayed in that spot when I wasn't recording. I also removed three other things from the status bar. That's enough for me.

Details:
I chose the Pony Theme for my Clip V2. I renamed all four files (Pony.cfg, Pony.wps, Pony.sbs, & Pony.fms) to be called BasicRecPony.cfg, BasicRecPony.wps, BasicRecPony.sbs, and BasicRecPony.fms. I edited BasicRecPony.cfg to refer to these new file names. I also made a copy of the Pony directory called BasicRecPony. Then, I edited BasicRecPony.sbs as follows:
Changed last line from

Code: [Select]

%xd(P, %mp)

to

Code: [Select]

%?mp<|||||%xd(Pf)|>

I also commented out the stuff under volume, repeat mode, & shuffle mode since those don't matter to me while recording.
This works fine for me because I'm not using the Sansa Clip to play audio files at the moment. I only use it to record. My status bar changes affect the While Playing Screen, I think. I believe by using the

Code: [Select]

%?cs

tag I can make my changes only affect the recording screen, but I'm not bothering to try that now.

[Chronon]

Thanks for posting your solution. 

[FritoDude]

You can now fix this with the 1.8 version of the Pony theme. The author graciously added a recording animation that shows when the device is actually recording. That fixes my issue.