ONGOING DEFAULT THEME CONTEST!!!

[psycho_maniac]

i think this is a decent default theme. this wps loads somehow when i load the default and something messes up. looks pretty decent.

[saratoga]

I am willing to port it to all targets, if I get a little help. People have already ported it to several targets, and these could be used with the permission of the maintainers. Also, the license can be changed to something more permissive.

I can give you a hand.  

That said, I'd like some feedback here from the other developers.  Anyone completely opposed?  

[saratoga]

Quick and dirty port of Cabbie to the Ipod Video:

http://www.duke.edu/~mgg6/rockbox/defaulttheme/cabbie-ipodvideo.zip

[psycho_maniac]

also there is no such thing as the "chicago12.fnt" in rockbox. but it seems that nimbus11 works kinda.

[theundead]

I think it would be helpful to agree on a set of common elements for the default theme.

Here's what I'd suggest:

weekday, month, day of month time Percent battery remaining
xx of xx  track
Name of group
Name of song
time played so far, total time of track, time remaining
Name of next song

background that enhances the text, easy to read larger font
no icons for buttons that don't exist
screen blanking set to a longer interval, so folks won't assume Rockbox doesn't work

If we can agree on a set of common elements, the design contest would involve how to display these common elements in the most attractive way as opposed to many different combinations of elements and graphics.

My two cents,

Tom

Can I suggest that the new default theme should have a unicode font by default? I remember myself being confused by the little squares that showed up instead of hebrew and russian on my X5 when I first used Rockbox..

[Henrik]

Give the prize to whoever made the theme Cabbie. It's clean, simple and beautiful.

[GodEater]

Give the prize to whoever made the theme Cabbie. It's clean, simple and beautiful.

But unfortunately it's not cross target.

[ZincAlloy]

porting it to other targets shouldn't be hard...

[denny]

porting it to other targets shouldn't be hard...

Then you know what to do  .


To anyone who cares: I got pretty far with my wps (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIriverH300#Ultima_v1_0) but I ran out of time and am now too busy to do any more (last year of uni). Most of the important stuff got done; most of the code and graphics for most targets. If anyone wants to carry on with it then pm me and I can send you all the .psd's and codes etc...

[ZincAlloy]

now, that looks nice. very contemporary. is there an album art version?

[denny]

thanks . I made it long before album art was committed to cvn. Don't really know if album art would fit in, especially if it were to be used as a default theme.

[ZincAlloy]

why no album art on the default theme? I think the default theme should look nice and support the basic features people expect from an audio player.

I just made a more flashy looking, album art version of the Cabbie theme for my Iriver h340:





would that be suitable for a default theme?
if anybody wants to port it to other targets I can provide the original graphics.

[NicolasP]

Wow, that's very nice!
There is one thing that would prevent it from being suitable for a default theme, though: the unofficial logo. A default theme would need to have the official logo or no logo at all. Also we don't even know if we can use that logo, as all attempts to contact its author have been unsuccessful (to my knowledge).

[ZincAlloy]

I see. I will make one with an official logo.
A shame about the inofficial logo, though. I really like it.

Is there something like a basic, stripped down version of the official logo?

[pixelma]

why no album art on the default theme? I think the default theme should look nice and support the basic features people expect from an audio player.

Umm, I only expect an audio player to play music...

Anyways, I would only like an album art version as default if it's coded flexible enough to also look good if there is no album art present (if at all). I wouldn't expect people to have set up everything to display album art when first starting Rockbox and even if it'll be easier one day - not all people want album art even though it's something to show off with.

Another thing to keep in the back of your head: not all players Rockbox supports can show album art (all with monochrome display) and on some it doesn't look as good (all with greyscale displays and maybe on small displays). Of course not each and every information/feature needs to be present in all the different displays but porting in a way to get at least the same feel isn't easy in general and album art doesn't make it easier...

About this particular version of Cabbie: while your WPS sure looks nice at first glance and the graphics are well done, your layout makes the next track info more important than the current track in my eyes (both show the same things about artist, track and album but the current track has less "room").