This is an idea I have from my experience using themes on my Samsung Captivate. My experiences i describe apply particularly to the AOKP builds for that device and a few others. However the concepts are something which would be implemented at a system level and I think it would be applicable for any Android device, so I wanted to share it here in the general forum as well.
I like the color picker in Rom Control for ICS AOKP, but I was surprised that you pick and choose each color separately for clock, signal, etc. There is the hard-coded button to recall the ICS holo blue. I would love to see another button that stores a user selected color instead of copying and pasting the hex codes, although that works. And then the wireless signal is a graphic image that you cant change without flashing a .zip to modify system png and the like. I wondered if it could be coded to use a triangle with a fill color based on something from the color picker, and then lay over top of that grey or black bars for the part that should be 'off'. maybe layers arent possible? tho it appears that they are being used, and i have seen overlap of the data signal on top of the wireless bars. right? I know there is a LOT of stuff these amazing developers are working on which keeps them very busy already. These are just some ideas
I noticed looking through some of the code in AOKP gerrit for the theme chooser updates, that they started using variables instead of a hard coded ICS holo blue color. but it seems as if there is no user interaction for that color, its still a hard coded value set in a single location instead of being hard coded in multiple locations. So it is a huge improvement Im sure for themers who have to try to search out and modify every instance of those values. I would just like to see it progress to something where the end user can modify that variable from Rom Control.
It would be even more awesome if Android used a system wide style sheet setup. background, checkbox style, text color, font, font size, perhaps it could even include specs for headers, paragraphs, tables, titles, etc. but that would be WAY more than I am thinking. It certainly works nicely for web design tho.
This would then be something that other apps could also read and implement into their design as well. Then we wouldn't have to create hacked SMS and google play, and tapatalk, etc, etc, etc. to make them inverted or red, green, orange, blue, yellow, etc.
Of course having an option to over-ride those settings is cool too, maybe you want an all orange theme, but you want white on your keyboard keys. a keyboard app could have a selector built into its settings which allows you to follow the system setting or pick your own base color, or go with the developers default choice. There are a lot of great developers out there who make gorgeous apps that deserve to keep their defaults, ie. 1weather. So I am sure apps would ship with their own defaults turned on, so the user is guaranteed the experience they intended.
I do think these ideas seem inline with what google is trying to accomplish with their unified design standards.
I am imagining a day where I can change my wallpaper and then open settings, use a color picker (maybe even one that can pick a color from the wallpaper ... Then maybe choose black or white, or gradient or transparent background. Two steps, and just that simply and quickly my whole system is color themed to compliment. Then using Tasker this could even be automated for work, home, weekends, etc. LOL.
Ok iphone, take that!
OK so I guess 187 people looked and decided that was way toooo much to read.
LOL
Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk 2
Related
Is anyone one The Dudes .92 build and have Bartor? I just tried to use my Bartor and i can't seem to click on and of the provided results after the search.
i tried barcode scanner and it worked for me.
Device: Unlocked HTC Dream(G1)
Rom: The Dudes' Cupcake v0.92 regular
BootLoader: Hard SPL
Radio: 2.22.19.26i
Memory Card: Kingston 2GB
It looks like nothing has been selected because the check doesn't show up but it works, just a compatibility issue with cupcake i guess
BSDADON said:
It looks like nothing has been selected because the check doesn't show up but it works, just a compatibility issue with cupcake i guess
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok thanks. That was the problem. It looked to me that none of it was selected. so i didnt know if it was chosen or not.
I am working on a Cupcake compatible UI refresh. Unfortunately, Cupcake mangled the CheckedTextView that I am using for all of my lists. Rewriting and including custom color scheme support. Should only be a few days. But yes, it should still work, if you can get around the non-visibility of the selection indicator (checkmark).
nEx.Software said:
I am working on a Cupcake compatible UI refresh. Unfortunately, Cupcake mangled the CheckedTextView that I am using for all of my lists. Rewriting and including custom color scheme support. Should only be a few days. But yes, it should still work, if you can get around the non-visibility of the selection indicator (checkmark).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice! Glad to hear that, It's not a major deal, i've gotten used to it so I can hold out for a bit
Just out of curiosity, how much control over colors do y'all want.
I can give very fine-grained control if you need it, otherwise I can do a basic background/foreground selection. Do you want to be able to set active tab/inactive tab, text / other foreground, etc... or something like was done for fummod (I think) in the other thread?
i like having my colors match my themes, which is why i like chompsms and the color selector they have. if it is too much work though, just like 3 or 4 basic colors i guess. i can live with the current color scheme also, i am easily pleased
Well, I'll certainly let you pick any color you want it's just a matter of how much control over specific UI Elements you want. Want buttons one color, tabs another, text black on buttons but white on tabs. that sort of stuff. If there was some sort of "theme editor" like the XML theme definitions in apps that would be slick for a lot of purposes... I'll check out ChompSMS to see what they are doing there.
one color scheme for everything would be fine for me. just make the tabs the same color as search results and just make the background for the search results match text in the tabs, just flipping the colors.....if that makes sense, just basic would be fine by me. i just like having some form of control over it, even if it is just the text i can change thats cool also, the black background doesn't bother me so much.
No icons, no wallpaper, no images of any kind. I've seen themes that used images of text to get the aesthetic down, which is still cool, but it seems like there's room for a launcher with a super tiny footprint that also looks sweet. Of course, if I've missed it, and this already exists, I'd love to be corrected.
Icons: plain text but could be include the ascii round of characters, maybe even the full unicode set?
Folders: Like any other asciicon. You could add a smaller ascii symbol to the lower right/left hand corner to signify it was a folder not a program if you really wanted. You could create a folder with ascii art.
Wallpaper: ASCII art. Not a photo thereof, actual ASCII. Would need the ability to alter color and perhaps alpha to avoid confusion with foreground.
Widgets: text output only. Input fields would be reminiscent of a terminal input. Associated buttons would be dealt with a la asciicons, with ascii symbols.
Customizability: on par with ADW or LP.
I'd pay for that ^. Would anyone else? I realize these days with super phones, live wallpaper and 3d carosels are more sexy, but there are a lot of hacked devices running froyo that are still light on specs and plain text can have a nice sharp retro appeal. It seems like there's a potential market there for an enterprising developer.
Is there a launcher whose theme engine could produce a plain text only setup? Would the footprint be significantly reduced by such a theme?
What this lacks in popularity, it makes up for unanimity. 100% in favor. An enterprising developer could just charge me and that one other guy who likes the idea a fortune each and still turn a profit! Any takers?
One last New Year's bump.
Hi,
I'm currently learning Android programming and studying Launcher2 code. In near future I will be starting a launcher which will have a pseudo-graphic text mode (remember Turbo Pascal?) with minimalist (16x16?) icons, some simple widgets, notepad/folders (which will work like resizable and stackable windows), and a commandline mode (can be configured to mimic either DOS or Linux, but with some builtin shortcuts and functions for Android usage). It doesn't have a name yet. I will certainly announce it on xda when any usable version will be finished and tested on at least a few devices.
mhzesent said:
Hi,
I'm currently learning Android programming and studying Launcher2 code. In near future I will be starting a launcher which will have a pseudo-graphic text mode (remember Turbo Pascal?) with minimalist (16x16?) icons, some simple widgets, notepad/folders (which will work like resizable and stackable windows), and a commandline mode (can be configured to mimic either DOS or Linux, but with some builtin shortcuts and functions for Android usage). It doesn't have a name yet. I will certainly announce it on xda when any usable version will be finished and tested on at least a few devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds interesting, I look forward to it. Are you gearing the text mode to have a super small footprint, or is it more for nostalgia's sake?
fortunz said:
Sounds interesting, I look forward to it. Are you gearing the text mode to have a super small footprint, or is it more for nostalgia's sake?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mainly for nostalgia's sake and "I just want it on my phone so badly and no one did it before" sake, though I know few people who could use it. I wouldn't release the project open source but it will probably free for ever. I won't include all dos/linux commands, of course (keep it simple and not bloated), and i will simplify/shortcut some things for android usage (like, running apps from CLI just by their name, not any going-in-depths-to-system-folders stuff), though I shouldn't spoil everything already lol. Also I still have a 2.3.7 device...
I've found lightning launcher and it's the lightest weight launcher I've found. My 528mhz dinosaur actually feels snappy again after I pared down the options to it's most minimal setup. What's more there are lots of customizations available even for devices that aren't ancient.
It's not plain text, but it is light.
I've been looking for a theme like this for a long time, never found one. It would be cool to have a phone without all the aesthetics. Black screen with only text , or very small symbols.
Ok so been hard at work making a nice blue theme. 90% done and looking real nice. Dug alot of xml files and change alot of major system text colors, still got few more to find. Some screen shots are located here:
http://www.tigerznet.com/xoom
Things to notice
Icons are standard blue
The shadows and outlines are blue
Big clocks are standard blue/dark blue
Major system texts light blue
Descriptions a turquoise color
Running on hammerhead but suggested to use morays battery icons.
This is based on wifi model, still gotta dig up the 3g models.
Disabled text/buttons/icons still gray, left these as is for sakes of easily seeing they disabled.
Thing up coming:
Removal of Redundant battery level in quick panel.
Notification text still gray/white
Apps word still white (did change xml didnt work some reason)
Adjust icons for 3g models.
Any other suggestions from you.
Let me know what you think and any suggestions welcomed.
looks good so far
Are there any AOKP themes specifically for the captivate?
Search the market or xda for "cm9 themes" All compatible with aokp's theme chooser.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1643406
There's a few out there
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
ButterCream and Dark - two themes I know.
Feel free to theme on your own and save your art - we haven't many artists here.
I like the color picker in AOKP, but I was surprised that you pick and choose each color separately for time, signal, etc. There is the hard-coded button to recall the ICS holo blue. I would love to see another button that stores a user selected color instead of copying and pasting the hex codes, although that works. And then the wireless signal is a graphic image that you cant change without flashing a .zip to modify system png and the like. I wondered if it could be coded to use a triangle with a fill color based on something from the color picker, and then lay over top of that grey or black bars for the part that should be 'off'. maybe layers arent possible? tho it appears that they are being used, and i have seen overlap of the data signal on top of the wireless bars. right? I know there is a LOT of stuff these amazing developers are working on which keeps them very busy already. These are just some ideas
I noticed looking through some of the code in AOKP gerrit for the theme chooser updates, that they started using variables instead of a hard coded ICS holo blue color. but it seems as if there is no user interaction for that color, its still a hard coded value set in a single location instead of being hard coded in multiple locations. So it is a huge improvement Im sure for themers who have to try to search out and modify every instance of those values. I would just like to see it progress to something where the end user can modify that variable from Rom Control.
It would be even more awesome if Android used a system wide style sheet setup. background, checkbox style, text color, font, font size, perhaps it could even include specs for headers, paragraphs, tables, titles, etc. but that would be WAY more than I am thinking. It certainly works nicely for web design tho.
This would then be something that other apps could also read and implement into their design as well. Then we wouldn't have to create hacked SMS and google play, and tapatalk, etc, etc, etc. to make them inverted or red, green, orange, blue, yellow, etc.
Of course having an option to over-ride those settings is cool too, maybe you want an all orange theme, but you want white on your keyboard keys. a keyboard app could have a selector built into its settings which allows you to follow the system setting or pick your own base color, or go with the developers default choice. There are a lot of great developers out there who make gorgeous apps that deserve to keep their defaults, ie. 1weather. So I am sure apps would ship with their own defaults turned on, so the user is guaranteed the experience they intended.
I do think these ideas seem inline with what google is trying to accomplish with their unified design standards.
I am imagining a day where I can change my wallpaper and then open settings, use a color picker (maybe even one that can pick a color from the wallpaper ... Then maybe choose black or white, or gradient or transparent background. Two steps, and just that simply and quickly my whole system is color themed to compliment. Then using Tasker this could even be automated for work, home, weekends, etc. LOL.
Ok iphone, take that!
Some icons have color which is not changing with accent (both native (e.g. games) or 3rd party (e.g. endomondo)). And it is pretty ugly in the end with some accent color combination.
Is there any way, how to force all icons to conform accent color? (Or at least is there any way how to change color of such icons manually one by one?)
Thank you!
Icons are set by the apps. Short of modifying the app before installing it, which is only really practical on homebrew apps, there is no way to do what you ask.
Icons which have no background color specified will use the system accent color. Icons which have a specified color will use that, instead. This is not really controllable at all.
This app *might* do the job, but I haven't tried it.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2234011
If the app does not follow the standard, then sorry that there's no way to change that.
With all due respect, that is a pretty silly thing to ask. It's like suggesting that there ought to be a way in Windows to force all apps taskbar icons to be a specific color. That would require that the OS be able to detect the "background" color of every app tile (it would inevitably get some of them wrong, even leaving aside the ones where there isn't any real "background" or "skin" color and every color on the tile means something), then require it to modify the tile of every app that gets installed, either at install time (which is possible, but would require changing the tile images in every app) or at runtime (which would be a waste of CPU/GPU power, and therefore battery power).
Now if you want to argue that Microsoft should enforce, when accepting apps into the Store, that no app has a solid background color rather than using a transparent background (which will then be set to the current theme's accent color) ... that's actually a valid argument, since in that case it would be determined by human judgment and the change would be made before the app gets pushed out to everybody's phone. However, they didn't do that (which I'm, personally, totally OK with) and it's a little late to start now.