Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Theming and Appearance Customization => Topic started by: soap on September 21, 2008, 09:49:37 AM

Title: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: soap on September 21, 2008, 09:49:37 AM
After this week I will have some free time.
I would like to get as many of the repairable themes up and running as possible.
Is there anyone out there who is willing to join me, or help organize the effort?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: karltpb on September 21, 2008, 11:46:43 AM
I've designed a couple of themes (for iPod Video) and have fixed some too. So I can definitely help with iPod Video ones. Count me in if you feel like.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: AlexP on September 21, 2008, 04:00:03 PM
Sure, I guess we can discuss it on IRC.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: audio-i on September 21, 2008, 04:08:58 PM
I'm in too  ;) I got and iPod video and a mini (but if needed I could also help fixing other target's themes using the simulators)
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 21, 2008, 05:38:28 PM
I'm in. I've already fixed a couple of themes, for almost all colour targets.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: mmadia on September 21, 2008, 06:01:54 PM
I've already started repairing Sansa e200 themes for my own personal use and am willing to repair the remaining e200 themes.   In fact, I just asked in #rockbox about getting wiki write access.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Chronon on September 22, 2008, 02:29:20 PM
Yeah, I can pitch in a bit later this week.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 22, 2008, 04:20:44 PM
i think we're a team big enough now. Shall we assign themes to everyone, to coordinate the work? Otherwise some themes might get fixed twice... i propose soap writes pms to everyone on the team. or is someone else willing to do this?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Ste- on September 22, 2008, 05:56:47 PM
I would love to help.
Having fixed the x5 and nano wps. I'd love to get dirty with more. I'm half way through the h3x0. but with no time left and a holiday at the weekend I don't think I'd have them all done in time.

Sorry folks.


[edit]
I've uploaded the files I've had time to edit. the rest I won't have time to do. hope some of them help.



Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: soap on September 22, 2008, 08:04:10 PM
Long day at work today, long day tomorrow, but I'm starting earlier and will be home earlier.
First thing we need is someone(s) to scout out the gallery pages and ID the working and non working themes.

Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: mmadia on September 22, 2008, 09:31:03 PM
A new thread is created to help track Theme status.
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=18668
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: karltpb on September 23, 2008, 12:11:58 AM
In my opinion a wiki page would be better to track theme status. It would be easier to update it to reflect the theme status. Moreover it would provide a cleaner look and it would be easier for the users to look up the theme status too.

The other day I was thinking about the themes in the graveyard. Is it okay to list necessary changes alongside each theme (when ever possible) to fix them? I guess we won't have to worry about any licensing issues either.

What do you guys think?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Llorean on September 23, 2008, 12:28:59 AM
Listing necessary changes should be okay if it's just something like "replace line 47 with (blah)."

While it should be okay to include small quotes, there's no real reason to do it, so avoiding reproducing any content from the improperly licensed theme is best.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: soap on September 23, 2008, 06:02:19 AM
In my opinion a wiki page would be better to track theme status. It would be easier to update it to reflect the theme status. Moreover it would provide a cleaner look and it would be easier for the users to look up the theme status too.
True .
I am the one who suggested starting a thread for it, so scold me.
Though, I'd rather spend the time to get this done than to make a wiki page.  Wiki is for permanent info, this (hopefully) is transitory.
Quote
The other day I was thinking about the themes in the graveyard. Is it okay to list necessary changes alongside each theme (when ever possible) to fix them? I guess we won't have to worry about any licensing issues either.
I see no problem whatsoever in telling people how to fix graveyard themes, even of posting said repair instructions in the wiki.
That being said, the wiki galleries are going bye bye soon when the official theme site goes live.  The graveyards I think can be left behind, but I would rather concentrate efforts on getting the gallery themes up and running.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 23, 2008, 08:52:19 AM
I'm fixing a theme right now and am facing some troubles:
Someone used %?Cf (!sic) and %?Ct as some crossfade indicators, but i can't find anything about these tags in the wiki. The first time crossfade tags were introduced were in revision 52 of the wiki page, but since then, the use of the mentioned tags never comes up. Any idea what these mean?
here's an excerpt of the code (i left out the imageloading):

Code: [Select]
%?Cf<%xds|%?ps<%?Ct<%xdt|%xdu>|%xds>|%?Ct<%xdt|%xdu>>
PS: another thing: has the image buffer been reduced in size on some targets? Because i got a theme to work only after disabling some images. i assume that when the theme was coded it has been working, so has there been any change regarding that? How big can the images for the wps be, what are the restrictions?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Llorean on September 23, 2008, 11:27:14 AM
Regarding %Cf and %?Ct, I'm not certain, it may be that the theme was made with a patch in mind.

Regarding the image buffer, old behaviour was that when the buffer was full it stopped loading images, but mostly worked as normal you just never saw the images. So if, for example, the last few images loaded were the "Stop" icon and the "On Hold" icon, or something similar, you might never notice they hadn't gotten loaded.

It's entirely possible the theme never worked, but nobody quite noticed.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 23, 2008, 11:33:02 AM
Ahh ok. Thanks for clearing that up. How do we go about fixing themes that have such problems (aside from leaving some images out)?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Llorean on September 23, 2008, 11:42:22 AM
I think any theme that can't be fixed within Rockbox's current limits for whatever reason should be marked as "unsupported" and just left alone. It's up to the author how they wish to comply with whatever limitations Rockbox has.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: audio-i on September 23, 2008, 12:16:21 PM
I think any theme that can't be fixed within Rockbox's current limits for whatever reason should be marked as "unsupported" and just left alone. It's up to the author how they wish to comply with whatever limitations Rockbox has.

Clear enough. I guess most of the themes made for patched builds fall there, because even something like "converting" the use of multiple fonts, might imply more than fixing the theme, e.g cBrownPlastic for ipod video... the result might be more a *branch* than a *fix*.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: karltpb on September 23, 2008, 12:53:09 PM
In my opinion a wiki page would be better to track theme status. It would be easier to update it to reflect the theme status. Moreover it would provide a cleaner look and it would be easier for the users to look up the theme status too.
True .
I am the one who suggested starting a thread for it, so scold me.
Though, I'd rather spend the time to get this done than to make a wiki page.  Wiki is for permanent info, this (hopefully) is transitory.

Well if you're going to assign a different target to every member of the team, then I guess a topic would do the job too as other team members won't have to edit anything but their posts for updating theme status. If that's the case I take that back.

Quote
Quote
The other day I was thinking about the themes in the graveyard. Is it okay to list necessary changes alongside each theme (when ever possible) to fix them? I guess we won't have to worry about any licensing issues either.
I see no problem whatsoever in telling people how to fix graveyard themes, even of posting said repair instructions in the wiki.
That being said, the wiki galleries are going bye bye soon when the official theme site goes live.  The graveyards I think can be left behind, but I would rather concentrate efforts on getting the gallery themes up and running.

Does it mean the graveyard themes are going to the trash soon or are you going to keep them around for archival purposes?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: knight4led on September 23, 2008, 02:17:02 PM
Clear enough. I guess most of the themes made for patched builds fall there, because even something like "converting" the use of multiple fonts, might imply more than fixing the theme, e.g cBrownPlastic for ipod video... the result might be more a *branch* than a *fix*.

With regards to my themes I haven't updated them on the wiki partly for the reason that they require a patched build. There are links to currently working versions of them in tdtooke's thread and nowhere else. So they shouldn't require a fix for the progress bar and scrolling margins if you search that thread.

However I have no problems with them being "converted" to the standard build without multiple fonts. The truth is that I think some of the differentiation in fonts can be redone with colors instead of font face to make the important lines stand out. The license allows anyone to change and redistribute the themes as long as I am credited, so feel free to have your way.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: mmadia on September 23, 2008, 11:51:04 PM
I uploaded the Sansa e200 themes to the wiki and modified the entries. 
So now, it should contain all working theme files.

Should the rockbox-themes.org files be uploaded anywhere?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: karltpb on September 23, 2008, 11:55:11 PM
Ah well, I guess people are doing stuff on their own. So I'm going to work on the iPod Video themes later on tonight.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: mmadia on September 24, 2008, 12:05:46 AM
Ah well, I guess people are doing stuff on their own. So I'm going to work on the iPod Video themes later on tonight.

Just as a quick disclaimer, I don't mean to step on anyone's toes here. 
I saw something broken that I wanted to fix. So, I fixed it.  :)
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: audio-i on September 24, 2008, 01:28:06 AM
Ah well, I guess people are doing stuff on their own. So I'm going to work on the iPod Video themes later on tonight.

I haven't fixed any theme yet, but I already checked all the themes in the iPod video's gallery, so this can be a starting point. Here's the summary (theme name - status - comment)

Themes that worked:

AmaroK - working - svn
arboxWidgets - working - svn
AW200 - working - svn
Black Glass (Album Art Version) - working - svn
Black Glass (Non-Album Art Version) - working - svn
Cabbie 2.0 - working - svn
Cabbie 3.0 - working - svn
Christmas - working - svn
Detailed text - working - svn
DIY Contraption - working - svn
Escape Pod - working - svn
Escape Pod Plus SVN version - working - svn
EscapeBoD 2 - working - svn
Free-State for iPodVideo - working - svn
FSM(Flying Spaghetti Monster) - working - svn
Fullscreen - working - svn
ipodWidgets - working - svn. hey, I now realize it was posted to the wiki WITHOUT giving credit to the theme it is based on, the former version of arboxWidgets... too bad
kelp - working - svn
kelpbig - working - svn
nerdSketch - working - svn
newClix Series Pack 1: greenRings & fireShine - working - svn
newClix Series Pack 2: greenRings & fireShine - working - svn
Pen&Paper - working - svn
Pen&Paper_plus (Album Art + next song + waving man) - working - svn
rayboradio_OB : rayboradio for Official Build version - working - svn
Rockflow - working - svn
Slick - Bushfire - working - svn
Slick - Let It Blue - working - svn
Sudan - working - svn

Edit: Themes that have been fixed:

Classical Dark - working - svn
Simplex - working - svn
Yo Bunny - working - svn

Themes that need to be fixed:

ExampleWPS - not working - svn
frostBox Normal - not working - svn
frostBox Special - not working - svn, found a fixed version by DavidKaufmann here: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/viewfile/Main/WpsIpod5g?rev=1;filename=XXXbox.zip, it's uploaded but I can't find the link in the wiki
Gktxt 1.0 - not working - svn
Glass N Shadows v1.1- not working - svn. it was updated recently BUT the syntax is old. it's a .rar file->convert to .zip
iPodUbuntu - not working - svn. it's a .tar.gz file->convert to .zip
iRocker - not working - svn
Pen&Paper with AA and Nextsong - not working - svn
ROCKboxed - not working - svn. a working version is included in the svn Rockbox download (?)
Rocker - not working - svn
Ultima v1.0 - not working - svn

Themes made for patched builds:

I think any theme that can't be fixed within Rockbox's current limits for whatever reason should be marked as "unsupported" and just left alone. It's up to the author how they wish to comply with whatever limitations Rockbox has.

Boxagonal - unsupported - designed for a patched build
Boxagonal V1.1 + Non Album Art Version - unsupported - designed for a patched build
cBrownPlastic - unsupported - designed for a patched build
Escape Pod Plus - unsupported - designed for a patched build
Plain & Simple - unsupported - designed for a patched build
Psychosis Version 1 - unsupported - designed for a patched build
Theme X Album Art Edition - unsupported - designed for a patched build

We could now split the themes that need fixes, to avoid that two persons work on the same theme.

Edit: some of the authors of themes that need fixes are still around...

Edit: I've added notes in the gallery to the themes that need to be fixed, please remove those notes when the themes gets updated. Even better to additionaly leave there a note including the date it was updated.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: pixelma on September 26, 2008, 08:23:30 AM
Since this operation means touching all the zip archives, this is a chance to bring them into line provided some guidelines or rules we can agree on.

One of my concerns now is the packaging of fonts. Currently there are some that don't include it if the font is in the extra fonts package but many do and I see that as problematic because: if the font changes in SVN (doesn't happen often but it does) then people will get the old copy by installing a theme which might have a bug or less characters. And it is also a matter of teaching people to install the fonts package... I know that there was some discussion about how the new theme site could handle this, things like automatic repackaging of themes when a font changes etc. but we aren't there yet. At least - could we have clear guidelines here?
Oh, in general, I hope all people taking part here use the new font names? (Didn't check, just making sure. ;))

And another topic just came to my mind, not sure but something to think or discuss about maybe: what do you think about bitmap-stripifying the themes? I'm aware that this is a bit more intrusive and quite a lot of work but it is more convenient for the user - less bitmaps (sometimes only a third or a quarter of what it was before) mean - faster unzipping (how notable that is depends on target though) and quicker boot-up times. I would hope such a community effort could give some more motivation to do this, at least for some?

Those were the 2 suggestions/questions I had; if I find the time I might help with the greyscale themes as it seems there are no monochrome ones with a proper license.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: mmadia on September 26, 2008, 08:45:25 AM
One of my concerns now is the packaging of fonts. ...
At least - could we have clear guidelines here?
Oh, in general, I hope all people taking part here use the new font names? (Didn't check, just making sure. ;))

Most of the updated e200 themes didn't have their font names and .cfg file changed.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 26, 2008, 11:34:39 AM
I think it's easier to simply use the old font, if it's included in the zip file and only update the names, if it's not present. Making the themes work has to be higher priority than complying with naming conventions, in my opinion.

PLUS i find it hard to match some old names and fonts to the current ones. is there a list somewhere containing the changes to the fonts (like "the font formerly known as chicago is now called 08-nimbus.fnt")
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Chronon on September 26, 2008, 02:48:31 PM
I agree with pixelma that we should update all of the themes to use the new font names -- I was planning to do this for any themes that I work on.  (I plan to work on some of the Gigabeat themes this weekend.)  This shouldn't take much time if you use an editor such as Textpad that allows for global search and replace in all open files.

is there a list somewhere containing the changes to the fonts (like "the font formerly known as chicago is now called 08-nimbus.fnt")

Yes, there's a list here: http://svn.rockbox.org/viewvc.cgi/trunk/fonts/README
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: soap on September 26, 2008, 08:45:31 PM
Bitmap strips would be nice IMHO, but font name changing is a must.  (again, IMHO).
Thank for reminding us of that needed action, pixelma.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 27, 2008, 08:57:18 AM
Updated:
ExampleWPS
frostBox Special - the other box themes are not clearly licensed. You guys sort this out.
Gktxt 1.0
Glass N Shadows v1.1
iPodUbuntu
Ultima v1.0

i am also fixing Theme X Album Art Edition, which you forgot to list as nonworking i guess.

i will do these irocker, rockboxed & rocker too, if you're ok with that.

then there's just frostbox normal & the pen and paper derivate left. Anyone willing to do these? if not you'll have to give me some more time.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: audio-i on September 27, 2008, 10:02:02 AM
i am also fixing Theme X Album Art Edition, which you forgot to list as nonworking i guess.

I listed this theme earlier in the "unsupported - designed for a patched build" list, because it uses the resize patch (actually it mentions it as optional), but you're right, if resizing is left out, it can be updated as working for SVN builds.

then there's just frostbox normal & the pen and paper derivate left. Anyone willing to do these? if not you'll have to give me some more time.

I'll do those buy tomorrow night I hope, you've already fixed quite a bunch  ;)
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 27, 2008, 10:41:21 AM
Why is the normal theme x not in the normal gallery? i have a fixed version of it on my machine, can i upload it somewhere?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: soap on September 27, 2008, 10:47:16 AM
Why is the normal theme x not in the normal gallery? i have a fixed version of it on my machine, can i upload it somewhere?
Is it in the graveyard?  (correctly or incorrectly?)
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 27, 2008, 10:57:04 AM
Quote
Is it in the graveyard?  (correctly or incorrectly?)
that's what i meant by "not in the NORMAL gallery". i don't know if it's correct or not. i mean the AA version is licensed cc-by-sa so can't i just upload it giving credit to its original creator(s) under the premises that it's a spin off of the aa version?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: audio-i on September 27, 2008, 11:00:06 AM
Why is the normal theme x not in the normal gallery? i have a fixed version of it on my machine, can i upload it somewhere?
Is it in the graveyard?  (correctly or incorrectly?)


It is in the normal gallery, not in the graveyard. What I meant is that in this list: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=18633.msg135139#msg135139  I classified it as "designed for a patched build, therefore unsupported" (according to Llorean's comment regarding fixes beyond current build's limits), because it mentions to use three patches: Album Art, scrolling margins and BMP resize. The first two are already in the official builds, and the third is mentioned as "optional", so I guess it's OK to fix it anyway as BdN3504 says.

Edit: I just noticed that Theme X Album Art Edition (by Gary Light), placed in the normal gallery because it has a CC-BY-SA license, is based on Theme X theme (by Anthony Russel), which is placed in the graveyards (correctly) because it doesn't have a license.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: soap on September 27, 2008, 11:49:29 AM
Edit: I just noticed that Theme X Album Art Edition (by Gary Light), placed in the normal gallery because it has a CC-BY-SA license, is based on Theme X theme (by Anthony Russel), which is placed in the graveyards (correctly) because it doesn't have a license.
I am sure that is not the only example.
It is something I did not attempt to look for.
We have no choice but to take contributers at their word regarding licensing rights unless proven otherwise.
If the preponderance of the evidence points to an invalid license we should probably mark the theme as such and move it to the graveyard.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Chronon on September 28, 2008, 03:44:36 AM
I just uploaded fixes for the following Gigabeat themes (in some cases it was just changing the font name in the theme.cfg):

AjantOrange
Christmas
Free-State
frostBox
frostBoxAA
Green5g_GB
palette
Pen&Paper
Ultima
Yellowjacket
Stele
4Car

I think I missed a couple that could use references to new fonts.  I'll get to those later.  I didn't touch the Desert Song theme since it doesn't say we can modify it.  I had a look at Ultima2.0, but couldn't get it to work immediately.  Quite a few of the others need patched builds (e.g. BMP resize or multifont) -- I didn't touch any of those either.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: ZincAlloy on September 28, 2008, 09:40:12 AM
bmp resize compatibility doesn't break current build compatibility, does it?
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Chronon on September 28, 2008, 01:29:04 PM
No, I guess only patches that introduce new tags or configuration settings will break themes.  I just didn't look at any of the themes yet that claim to need custom builds.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 28, 2008, 03:58:32 PM
I had a look at Ultima2.0, but couldn't get it to work immediately.
I think i still have a fixed version of that on my machine, so you don't need to bother working on that.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Chronon on September 28, 2008, 04:20:09 PM
Sweet.  Good to know.   ;)
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: audio-i on September 29, 2008, 12:34:54 AM
Updating... the frostBox Normal theme for iPod Video update is been uploaded
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: BdN3504 on September 29, 2008, 05:50:57 AM
Alright, the only theme that has to be fixed in the 5g gallery now is the pen & paper derivate. sorry i haven't finished earlier, but fixing irocker really was a huge effort. also updated ultima v2 for gigabeat.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: blackthunder on October 05, 2008, 09:32:20 PM
Would just like to mention that my e200 theme parilis did not need fixing, but someone took the liberty to "fix" it anyways and did a poor job.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: Llorean on October 05, 2008, 09:52:04 PM
You might want to mention what was changed about it to avoid confusion in the future.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: blackthunder on October 05, 2008, 10:00:23 PM
I had 2 versions posted, a multifont version and an svn version.  The svn version worked okay, the multifont edition did was not updated to work with new playbar syntax.

Someone took the multifont edition and made it work with svn, and replaced the okay svn version with this one.  The problem with this is the graphics were slightly different creating an overlap on of the text and graphics.
Title: Re: Theme repair team wanted.
Post by: mmadia on October 06, 2008, 09:00:55 AM
I had 2 versions posted, a multifont version and an svn version.  The svn version worked okay, the multifont edition did was not updated to work with new playbar syntax.

Someone took the multifont edition and made it work with svn, and replaced the okay svn version with this one.  The problem with this is the graphics were slightly different creating an overlap on of the text and graphics.

My apologies. 

Aside from the filenames, the archives themselves did not differentiate between svn and multifont.  See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsSansaE200?rev=141#Parilis .    I did not realize this at the time , which led to the mixup.