160x128x1 (iRiver H1x0 and iPod 4G Grey) theme: ROCKboxed--please review and tes

[stinkingpig]

Switched back and forth between Bold and ROCKboxed yesterday, and I think I've figured it out. It's doing black when the battery is full, white when the battery is anything below full and above dangerously-low, and hash on the left for dangerously low.

I looked through the wps file and it looks like that trick with reusing n.bmp is what's not working quite right. I modified n.bmp to put some stripes across it and that worked, then I put it back to blank. With all the back and forth I'd run the battery down a few pegs, and the battery display is now working properly. I'll charge it back up and see what happens.

The big issue is probably the "unknown" state, which I think is actually used for "charging" or "completely full" -- it's confusing that it goes from all black to all white. I'm modifying bt.bmp to be all white, and I may do bn.bmp too after I see how bt goes.

On a side note, they just removed Chicago 12 from the dailies, you should switch to Nimbus 12 in themes\ROCKboxed.cfg.

[JustJohnny]

Switched back and forth between Bold and ROCKboxed yesterday, and I think I've figured it out. It's doing black when the battery is full, white when the battery is anything below full and above dangerously-low, and hash on the left for dangerously low....

Thanks for taking some much time figuring this out!! Please send me your changes when you are happy everything is working correctly.

On a side note, they just removed Chicago 12 from the dailies, you should switch to Nimbus 12 in themes\ROCKboxed.cfg.

Yes, I happened to be in the #rockbox irc channel this morning and found out.  I'm starting to change over now. Unfortunately there is a slight size/spacing difference, which means the progress bar outline y coordinate needs tweaked for just about every device. I may just update the zip files to include Chicago until I have a chance to switch to Nimbus.

[Llorean]

Chicago was removed because it's actually a copyrighted font. If you add them into the .zips on the wiki, that would mean we'd have to start removing those .zips from the wiki.

[stinkingpig]

http://felix.monkeynoodle.org/tmp/ROCKboxedsp.zip

I'm not getting it to overwrite the backdrop, this is the first edit I've tried and the documentation doesn't seem to describe what the examples I'm trying to follow are doing... Anyway, let me know what you think.

[JustJohnny]

Chicago was removed because it's actually a copyrighted font. If you add them into the .zips on the wiki, that would mean we'd have to start removing those .zips from the wiki.

Hi Llorean: I was wondering about Chicago's copyright/trademark status. I am moving the theme to the Nimbus font family. I just uploaded a new version of the theme which uses NImbus to the wiki galleries for most rockbox devices.

[JustJohnny]

I'm not getting it to overwrite the backdrop, this is the first edit I've tried and the documentation doesn't seem to describe what the examples I'm trying to follow are doing... Anyway, let me know what you think.

Thanks sp!!:  I've downloaded the file.  I am out of town through Friday, so it will be this weekend till I have a chance to look at it.

[jaybeee]

Hi JustJohnny

I really like this wps. Very simple & clear. I like the volume & command shapes  

One thing: when playing a file via a cue sheet, it doesn't tell me what track I'm on. Maybe adding a piece of code to add 'track nn of track nn' between the Artist & Genre lines (i.e. the space line).

In the format: 1/20, 2/20... 10/20

Perhaps this only needs to be done if a file is being played via a cuesheet; although I have no idea if you can tell this.

The progress bar goes a bit screwy with a file being played by a cue sheet too. BUT that seems to happen with all the wps's that have a progress bar. By that I mean the progress bar does get filled in, but not completely and so there are small gaps left.

[Paul Slocum]

I like this theme a lot and have been using it some of the time.  But what about using a grayscale in it?  You could at least use grayscale to anti-alias your icons, which I bet would look really slick.

[bluebrother]

Hi JustJonny,

I recently tried the svn version Rockboxed on my h120. I think it's too dark, especially the black bar at the bottom. Comparing it with the ipod mini the reason is quite clear: the backlight of the h120 is too low to make this look good. I played around with the graphics a bit, especially by adding greyscale and mimicing the look of the color version of the progress bar. I ended up with something like this -- what do you think? Also, IMO the battery looks strange the way it changes from black to white.

[jaybeee]

^^ nice to see I kick-started this thread again  

I quite like what bluebrother has done and I actually agree about the battery thing; confused me a lot to begin with.

[JustJohnny]

Hi all,

Thanks everyone for your feedback.  I've been gathering comments from people on the various devices, and still plan to make changes to improve the theme--just as soon as the rest of my life relaxes a little.

Hi JustJonny,

I recently tried the svn version Rockboxed on my h120. I think it's too dark, especially the black bar at the bottom. Comparing it with the ipod mini the reason is quite clear: the backlight of the h120 is too low to make this look good. I played around with the graphics a bit, especially by adding greyscale and mimicing the look of the color version of the progress bar. I ended up with something like this -- what do you think? Also, IMO the battery looks strange the way it changes from black to white.

hey bluebrother, could you take a photograph of your h120 with a current svn build of the theme and post it next to your modified version in your post. It helps when I can see what the screen actually displays.  The simulators are great, but not perfect.  

For the progress bar on the mono color versions of the theme, I have to admit I got a little lazy by the time I was modifying the theme for them, and started using the default progress bar. I like your version.

The battery should be solid white for a full charge and then the white fill should shrink from right to left, leaving an outline of the battery around 0% capacity. Is this what is happening?

[bluebrother]

hey bluebrother, could you take a photograph of your h120 with a current svn build of the theme and post it next to your modified version in your post. It helps when I can see what the screen actually displays.  The simulators are great, but not perfect.

photograph: http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uhcn/rockbox/img_8462.jpg
That is with the backlight enabled which makes it look quite ... dark.

For the progress bar on the mono color versions of the theme, I have to admit I got a little lazy by the time I was modifying the theme for them, and started using the default progress bar. I like your version.

If you want to I can post my version somewhere. The first time I looked at the theme on my player I didn't like it at all, but when I had a look at the color version I knew why Which made my try mimicing the color version a bit more ...

The battery should be solid white for a full charge and then the white fill should shrink from right to left, leaving an outline of the battery around 0% capacity. Is this what is happening?

Yes, but that's confusing -- I would expect it to be the other way round. Which is why I added greys in my version -- it's much clearer in the color version.

[bascule]

I'm liking the greyscale version. It would be good to put it on the Wiki.

[JustJohnny]

Yes, but that's confusing -- I would expect it to be the other way round. Which is why I added greys in my version -- it's much clearer in the color version.

Ok, coming from designing it in color, and not having a grayscale device, it seemed natural to me, but real usage trumps my preconceptions

If you could post your version to the WPS tiwki page as Bascule suggests, either as a separate entry or place it within the rockboxed entry, I will create a patch to get it into the svn builds.

Thanks for your help and interest in the theme!

[jaybeee]

what d'ya think about adding the tracknum or playlist info?

Would be useful imo