iHP140 Built-in Themes Overhaul

[Paul Slocum]

I think the HP140 (and maybe other targets) built-in themes need an overhaul.

First of all, they need to be named with more descriptive names and they should probably all use CamelCase.  Currently some are all lowercase, some have underscores, and some have camelcase.  And names like "engineer2" don't make any sense when there's no "engineer1".  This is a pretty easy fix.

Second, several of the themes on the latest version I have don't work right in that they have text overlapping with graphics.  These either need to be fixed or removed.

And finally, the built-in selection of themes just isn't that good.  It's been pretty much the same themes for a long time, and I'm sure there are much more impressive themes that people have put together.  None of them make use a grayscale.  The built-in set should include the best for that target's resolution and capabilities.  Maybe the community could decide on a few...

EDIT: I realized this may only apply to the iHP140 and related targets since some of the other targets have dramatically different WPS's.

-paul

[Llorean]

Authors have to submit their theme by way of the Flyspray tracker for them to be included.

Because authors don't include a license document with themes they post on the wiki, we can't just take those themes and choose to redistribute them.

[Mikerman]

I agree that more iHP-1xx themes/WPSs would be nice, especially with graphics of some type (as may be possible on the iRiver players).

Thanks for raising this again, Paul--and have you submitted one?

[Paul Slocum]

I have made one or two before, but the WPS code has changed dramatically since then.  I'll update at least one and submit it.  

Also, WPS now supports grayscale but I don't think any of the built-in themes make use of it.  IMO most of the included ones should since it looks a lot more impressive (and maybe also the default one.)

For good themes that haven't been submitted to flyspray, we can just ask the authors to submit them.  Maybe I'll do that...

This one looks particularly impressive:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIriverH100#beveledRBX_by_MathieuStempell

-paul

[bascule]

Because authors don't include a license document with themes they post on the wiki, we can't just take those themes and choose to redistribute them.

Is there a standard licence anywhere we could copy? I'd like to submit one of my efforts.

This one looks particularly impressive:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIriverH100#beveledRBX_by_MathieuStempell

That one also gets my vote. It was my default theme for a long while...

[Llorean]

Well, if you're submitting them for inclusion in Rockbox by way of Flyspray, you'll basically be asked if the GPL is acceptable, I believe, since that's what Rockbox is released under.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure where the guidelines are posted for submitting them via Flyspray for inclusion are. Your best bet is to try asking someone in IRC. I just did a quick search, but didn't find them, and someone there might be better suite.

[bascule]

OK

[Dwyloc]

None of them make use a grayscale.

I was under the impresion that you needed to have a patched build to use grayscale on the h120 http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/5627

On the topic of WPS's and themes for the h120 I feel that all the default themes for the h120 should also support the LCD remote as it is supplied with the player as standard.  Having themes for the h120 bundled  without remote support makes rockbox looks less professional.

I also agree that the some of the current themes could do being renamed to make their naming more consistent.

I would love to see these issues resolved as part of the work for the 3.0 release now rockbox is quite stable on the h120.

[Paul Slocum]

No patch is required to use grayscale WPS.  That patch you linked to is to make white transparent so you can overlay text and graphics, which none of the themes I've tried use (but could be cool).

I was wrong about some of the themes not working, except for Unicatcher which changes my fonts to garbage for some reason.  The problem before was that the fonts are no longer included in the builds, and I had done a clean install.

I've tried several of the WPS's on the wiki and my favorites that I've tried are beveledRBX, circleskin, gblaster, and SimpleHelv.  SimpleHelv is very clean looking, and makes nice use of grayscale.

Themes I would personally dump are:
ipodVOL (do we really need THREE slight variations on iPod looks?)
rockbox_default (really boring and makes poor use of the screen like it's designed for a smaller screen, does anybody really use this?)
unicatcher (doesn't work, and is difficult to recover from since it makes the font unreadable)

[Llorean]

You can actually overlay black and white images with text, just not grayscale ones.

[JdGordon]

Authors have to submit their theme by way of the Flyspray tracker for them to be included.

IIRC wps and themes should not go in flyspray, only on the wiki and rockbox-themes.org, _if_ a theme is deemed good enough and works on all targets then it would be included...

[Llorean]

The procedure used to include posting themes to flyspray if you wanted to submit them for actual inclusion in Rockbox.

[bluebrother]

Is there a standard licence anywhere we could copy? I'd like to submit one of my efforts.

The procedure of submitting themes to get included into Rockbox is described here: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SubmitWPS

But we have quite a couple of WPS in Rockbox, I'd rather prefer adjusting all distributed wps' so they are available on all targets. Of course stating the GPL as license for a theme in the WpsGallery would be good...

[Dwyloc]

Themes I would personally dump are:
zesayer (just kinda boring)

No please don't drop zezayer is my favourite theme of the h120 as it packs so much information on to the screen in a very clear way.

[Paul Slocum]

I removed zazayer from my list for removal and gave a little more detail...