RockBox vs Original Firmare

[Noeve]

I've just installed RockBox for the first time yesterday, and so far, what I prefer about it compared to the standard iRiver firmware, is the ability to create and manage playlists, rather than just the one-song enqueue ability of the iRiver. This is a fantastic option.

What else impressed me ? Ah, yes. I'm at work right now, it's 1340, and by now, my battery would be dead because of use - "switch folder, find a new song" every song. With the playlist function, I just add a good number of songs on my list, and ignore the player until I want to change playlist, which saves a lot of batter.

What I'm not really liking is the "look and feel". It feels almost random, the menus are a little strange and all over the place... And I can't seem to get used to the buttons. I still don't know when REC is used at all. A-B gets me the main menu, I can use NAVI with a click or a click-and-hold, but what does REC do ? Oh, and while I'm on the subject, it took me a while to work out how to get back to the while playing screen without stopping the song... Is there a faster way than "go back to root directory and hit PLAY" ?
The graphics were plainly horrible when I installed it, so having looked into WPS, I now have something slightly better, but not as good as the original firmware. What annoys me though, is that I KNOW I have better ones, I just can't use them because the text is frozen on white, and when I put a light theme on, I can't read what's on the screen.

Another thing is the video mode, which obviously isn't too good with no sound. I know you're working on it, and we're all very grateful. Besides, for now, I can always boot into original to watch videos.

I haven't looked into customising it myself yet, but I'm glad I've got the option.

In short, thanks for a good alternative. The main topic of this post was to see what people thought about the differences between firmwares. Your ideas, feedback and suggestions ?

[bascule]

... I still don't know when REC is used at all. ...

It isn't... although there is an extremely long thread on what it could be used for. Most people currently use it to just put the backlight on

... It feels almost random, the menus are a little strange and all over the place... And I can't seem to get used to the buttons. ... Oh, and while I'm on the subject, it took me a while to work out how to get back to the while playing screen without stopping the song...

I find it much the same. Although I've been using it now for over a month, I still sometimes struggle to cleanly get to the WPS. Mostly it's Play, sometimes it's Stop (from playlist view) and sometimes Navi Left eventually gets there and sometimes it doesn't, which seems to be the most hit-and-miss method.

As for the menus I find, like on my Karma, that I use the context menus nearly all the time and I find them really intuitive and useful and able to perform most functions.

[Noeve]

I very much agree with your comment on getting to the WPS. As with you, it's "will this button work", and when it doesn't, it's even harder to get there

You say most people use REC to put the backlight on - how can I program / use this ?

About the context menus, which do you mean, in particular ? I find the NAVI-hold --> Playlist menu very useful.

Another question for you - In the Playlist menu, I'm assuming Insert Next puts the song on the playlist under the song currently playing, but what's the difference in using this and using Enqueue Next ( or similar ) when you're using a temporary playlist ? I assume Enqueue Next is for when you want to add a one-off song to a playlist you don't wish to change.

Anyway, thanks for the input !

[Jillorious]

You say most people use REC to put the backlight on - how can I program / use this ?

No programing necessary, just hit it.

Another question for you - In the Playlist menu, I'm assuming Insert Next puts the song on the playlist under the song currently playing, but what's the difference in using this and using Enqueue Next ( or similar ) when you're using a temporary playlist ?

Think about it this way: imagine you just composed a new temporary playlist, your device is set to repeat mode, so that the playlist just plays over and over (until the battery dies ). Now, you wanna listen to a specific song, but just once, after that you dont want it repeated. Thats where the queueing feature comes in handy!

[Noeve]

Apologies, it must be the lack of sleep ( or the GW gaming replacing it ) that's killing off my brain. Of course, Jillorious Thanks.

I'm slowly getting persuaded to fully read the section of the manual on using the controls, to get more comfortable with it, and learn about the menus, etc.. But I still have that one big problem :

I loaded ArcticDesert, after loading a dark theme. As a result, I've got white text on a white backdrop, and I can't change the text color by reloading ArcticDesert or another theme, etc.. I'm basically looking for a more "quiet" theme, much like iRiver's original, in the hopes of losing the "thiswasjustdeveloped" feel that I get when I get rid of the backdrop in order to read the menus with a white font I think I've found a theme I quite like, but in order to use it, I need to have a dark font. Any idea how I can switch the font color, or get it to start switching according to themes again ? As far as I remember, font, font size and font colour changed according to theme. Here, all but the colour.

Thanks for your help.

[ryran]

general settings > display > browse fonts
&
general settings > display > lcd settings > foreground color

Just have a look through all the menus.. it's really not that much.

[Febs]

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, it took me a while to work out how to get back to the while playing screen without stopping the song... Is there a faster way than "go back to root directory and hit PLAY" ?

You can hit play from anywhere in the File Browser to invoke the While Playing Screen.   From the menus, you need to return to the File Browser, and then hit play. 

There is a patch on the patch tracker (5294) that would implement the play button to invoke the WPS from the menu system as well as the File Browser.  I've been a strong advocate to have this adopted into CVS as I believe that it makes navigation much more consistent and intuitive.