Support and General Use > Theming and Appearance Customization

iHP140 Built-in Themes Overhaul

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bluebrother:

--- Quote from: Paul Slocum on March 15, 2007, 02:10:53 PM ---When people first boot up Rockbox they should be wowed.
--- End quote ---
Why? We're not selling a product, we're just doing a firmware for personal fun. I really don't see a reason why to try like commercial products do. I really prefer focussing on functionality. Users coming only because of the look of Rockbox ... I think they missed the point, and if they don't use it because it's not fancy I don't consider them as a loss.

jaybeee:
^^ I think that's a little short-sighted tbh.

You never know what is going to happen in the future. Bet you didn't think this would happen.

Sure, I came to Rockbox for functionality, and my god it gives me it.

I do think that "tidying up" the supplied themes/wps's (supplying better ones etc) is a very good thing. Sure, the authors need to help out here and I don't see why they wouldn't; after all they helped out to create a theme/wps in the first place. Equally the default theme needs to be improved. Whilst I'm sure there are a few people (Llorean for example) that leave the default on, I willing to bet most people change to something a little more polished (that I believe is good term to intimate what we're getting at here).

In the same way the functionality is "polished" so should the gui. Ok, a tenuous analogy, but you get my point.

Once again, I know this is a spare-time project and anything and everything that has been done and is still being done is amazing; it truly is. I've donated and I'd hope that all Rockbox users have too. However, such discussions need to take place to allow progression to be made; we're not having at go at anyone. Ok it may not be a high priority for the Devs for example, but to highlight what some/many(?) users feel is important helps those amazing Devs to keep in touch with the non-Dev community. Mind you this forum does that.

This isn't a rant (honest) and I'm not having a go at anyone. Far from it. Just helping (I think) to clarify what I think Paul was getting at.

Llorean:
You have to remember: The devs want to keep in touch with the DEV community.

Rockbox grows by getting more interested developers, who then contribute more. Most of the developer sorts are interested in functionality.

While it's true many people feel it would be nice for the devs to work on UI shinyness ando ther such things, to be honest there's not a compelling reason to do so. Most or all of the developers agree Rockbox could look prettier. But if you're a developer, and you look at Rockbox, and you see audio freeze bugs, voice interface problems that prevent blind people from being able to even use it, battery life issues, tons of not yet implemented hardware, and then you loook in the other direction and you see people saying "You guys should make it prettier" it's somewhat frustrating.

There are so many tasks on the table, and making it prettier doesn't actually _benefit_ the project, on a grander scale. Making it work better means more people can use it who just couldn't before. More audio related functions that appeal to technical users helps to bring in developer interest, which in turn helps the project grow further. More shiny helps to bring in non-technical users, who flood the tracker with feature requests for things that the software can't already do, ask questions that are answered in the manual, and otherwise increase the support load.

I know it's a very, very, very cynical standpoint, and I'm exaggerating it, because surely there are nontechnical users that certain features appeal to, as well as technical users that like shiny, but overall shiny is just going to tend to having a very low priority because there's a large list of things that need "Fixed", and those should always take priority over things which need "Polished."

You have to remember, as long this project is not being sold, all non-contributing (and by contributing I mean developing) users add to the project is a number (how many we're installed on), word of mouth to spread it (a good thing) and increased support time (not necessarily a good thing, those of us running support are also volunteers, and our tempers do have limits, I'm sure many of you have occasionally seen me chew out a forum member who's pushed it just a little too far).

So while I'm not saying "More shiny" is a bad thing, it really doesn't have a lot of advantages to speak for it.


Just as a note, I would never want to suggest that we don't _want_ more users. We certainly do, every project does. I'm just stating that from a cold, mathematical standpoing there's a cost involved with attracting more people, and that cost is significantly worse if the software itself is not in a solid position (which to me means "At least a release candidate, if not a release") because you're introducing users to work-in-progress code.

jaybeee:
^^ good point well made. Makes sense. And I thought my post was a long one!  :D

If anything, then perhaps this thread will prompt those peeps that created some themes to add them to the tracker so they can be included in the standard builds.

Cheers

bascule:
I was going to chip in with a similar stance to jaybeee (Unique Selling Point, attract users, professional image, etc.) but Llorean, as usual, has successfully demolished those arguments:


--- Quote from: Llorean on March 16, 2007, 05:06:55 AM ---...there's a cost involved with attracting more people, and that cost is significantly worse if the software itself is not in a solid position (which to me means "At least a release candidate, if not a release") because you're introducing users to work-in-progress code.

--- End quote ---

We see this so clearly with, in particular, with the iPod arrivistas...

* bascule goes off to think about porting my TextBox WPS to all targets and adding to the tracker...* bascule wishes the time fairy would come along and grant me a whole day to myself every week ;)

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