Pandora Themeing

[cb88]

Well, as far as I know it hasn't been decided what gui Pandora will use be it GTK QT or even FLTK but a discussion about theming might be a good thing to start...

dark themes = slightly lower power usage
LCARS = uber cool assuming geeks are cool

http://www.lcarsdeveloper.com/

is sound themeing also planed? http://www.lcarscom.net/sounds.htm
Obviously i think an LCARS theme would be cool to have perhaps not all the time though the nokia n800 theme might give some ideas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaBJb8nkXac
The WiBlack Gtk theme is my favorite but it does need a little tweaking to get text viewable in all situations

one more thing how is the boot themed? I assume it wil have a graphical boot theme.

So here is a shot of my desktop so you know how my tastes run ...btw i have't gotten around to changing my icon theme X.x

 

[impreziv]

why not wait till it comes out before worrying about themes

 

[cb88]

cause it is gonna come with a default theme that is why.... a theme most people will like would be nice

how does making a post on a forum constitute worrying?

 

[Shiny]

why not wait till it comes out before worrying about themes

Why not post a useful comment? >:/


Out of pure speculation, I think that the default theme will have large shiny icons and an unhealthy amount of sky blue and white. I say this because, from what has been said by CraigIX, they're going for a very user friendly interface. In this day and age, user friendly == big-ass shiny icons and blindingly bright colors.

 

[JakeK]

Once it comes out no doubt someone will make such a thing, I love changing the GUI on anything I can do it on.

 

[Tinnus]

It should come with pretty colorful icons to show off the screen

 

[Vorporeal]

I say when you first start up the Pandora, you should be greeted by some kind of first-run wizard which includes a screen where you can choose a base color for your Pandora (so it's not necessarily blue or whatever).

Similar to how Vista has the graphical theme, but you can alter the base color to any hue/saturation combination. That could be simplified to just a couple colors. (Red, blue, green, black/grey, white, orange?)

 

[gruso]

^ That would infuriate me. Turning on Pandora for the first time will be a big moment, one which I will not want interrupted by having to choose a theme. Show me the money first, sell me a coin purse later.

 

[Tinnus]

Although it might be too much userfriendly-ish to us uber geeks, I kinda like to turn a device on for the first time and configure the stuff I'd probably not know needs configuring later, nor where to find it at first

Moreover, I'm (and more people, I bet) sometimes too lazy to poke around in theme configurations and usually just leave them as they are. I usually see people with cool GNOME themes and think "wow, I never tried to do that with mine".

Most far I go is changing button styles and title bar colors

 

[Vorporeal]

^ That would infuriate me. Turning on Pandora for the first time will be a big moment, one which I will not want interrupted by having to choose a theme. Show me the money first, sell me a coin purse later.

It would be more geared to the important things like setting up wifi. Things of that nature.

I love to just jump into things and figure it all out myself as well, but some people would rather have everything they need to configure right there for them when they turn it on so they don't have to worry about searching through menus to find what they're looking for.

Maybe there could be an icon on the "desktop" (?) that would bring up the wizard for you, instead of it auto-launching when the Pandora is first booted up.

 

[gruso]

Ah, I see what you mean. I guess that's something that should be considered. It would probably still ruffle my impatient feathers, but I can only speak for my own feathers.

A first-run procedure that gets you configured & online within minutes of opening the package would be mighty slick (especially from a reviewer's point of view).

 

[Vorporeal]

Ah, I see what you mean. I guess that's something that should be considered. It would probably still ruffle my impatient feathers, but I can only speak for my own feathers.

A first-run procedure that gets you configured & online within minutes of opening the package would be mighty slick (especially from a reviewer's point of view).

Exactly. It would be like what Microsoft tries to do with Vista and XP. Except we'd do it correctly.

Wifi, setting up users (if we're doing users?), formatting/directory structure on the SD cards, themes, possibly a basic rundown of the interface, and at the end possibly a few links that could be clicked to open a package manager/link to the Pandora forums or wiki/link to a page with Pandora applications.

It sets up the basics, but does it quickly. That's the part where Microsoft really screwed up.

 

[Soulkiller]

I would say feature the best of both worlds. If I wanted to take the time on my first boot up to take care of everything right away I would want that as an option. So the intial startup wizard could be quick,simple, and painless. But if you wanted to go all out you could get everything done right there. Maybe an optional screen with recommended non-default downloads (programs, codecs, etc) with the ability to launch the package manager and downlaod anything not on the list right away. Choices to either stick with the default theme, or a custom one, or download one (and if a custom one is chosen, maybe an advanced and simple mode for creating the theme).

Basically think of the features of a standard linux distro install (I'll compare it to ubuntu for this case) But instead of having setup split into pre and post kernal install (everyone knows that after getting ubuntu installed is only half the fun, it still needs to be configured) we merge the process's OPTIONALY (if you wanted you could jsut stick with defaults and skip everything). Basically imagine what Automatix did for ubuntu..except this is a more complete setup wizard that handles everything if you want to We're not jsut talking about programs and codecs anymore.

 

[rokdcasbah]

black backgrounds don't use less power on lcd's. the backlight (which is always on) uses orders of magnitude more electricity than what's required to manipulate the liquid crystal molecules, and in any case, a black pixel requires voltage while a white one does not. there have even been studies that show this to be the case.

i have seen people say on the internet that using a black background gets them an extra half hour on their laptop but...people are crazy. don't listen to they say

 

[Fishbong]

dark themes = slightly lower power usage

No, this is only true for CRT monitors.

On LCDs, the power consumption would be higher with lots of dark colors on the screen, because more voltage is needed to get the liquid crystals to assume a dark color than a bright one. The bachklight LEDs are always on anyway.

 

[Samalthos]

I think an "Initial start-up configuration wizard" would be much welcomed by noobs such as myself. I mean ok by the end of next year I'll be very experienced because I'm taking computer engineering and a C++ course. But I plan to have a Pandora by the end of summer at the latest. And I don't want a year of topics saying: HELP ME CAUSE I HAVE NO F***ING CLUE HOW TO USE THIS THING. I can navigate and use linux Okay but the Start -up and installation is what gets me.

 

[Chip]

And I don't want a year of topics saying: HELP ME CAUSE I HAVE NO F***ING CLUE HOW TO USE THIS THING. I can navigate and use linux Okay but the Start -up and installation is what gets me.

We'll get those no matter what. That's just the name of the game. You can't get too worked up about it. What we can (and will) do is provide simple step-by-step instructions somewhere online - probably on the wiki - and link to them every time a question comes up.

The Pandora project is supposed to be a community effort, and part of that means that the community has to be responsible for something. In this case, let the hardware devs worry about hardware, let the software devs worry about software, and the rest of us can worry about documentation. The hardware and software guys already have their hands full. No point in making them take the time to make some fancy windows-esque welcome animation as well. Sure, some configuration of the Pandora might not be a simple as it is with more polished desktop OSes, but would it really kill new users to read some instructions and perhaps learn something?

 

[Samalthos]

And I don't want a year of topics saying: HELP ME CAUSE I HAVE NO F***ING CLUE HOW TO USE THIS THING. I can navigate and use linux Okay but the Start -up and installation is what gets me.

We'll get those no matter what. That's just the name of the game. You can't get too worked up about it. What we can (and will) do is provide simple step-by-step instructions somewhere online - probably on the wiki - and link to them every time a question comes up.

The Pandora project is supposed to be a community effort, and part of that means that the community has to be responsible for something. In this case, let the hardware devs worry about hardware, let the software devs worry about software, and the rest of us can worry about documentation. The hardware and software guys already have their hands full. No point in making them take the time to make some fancy windows-esque welcome animation as well. Sure, some configuration of the Pandora might not be a simple as it is with more polished desktop OSes, but would it really kill new users to read some instructions and perhaps learn something?

Yea I understand that the Hardware and Software devs have a lot on their plates and I don't need flashy animations just the simple instructions (i've Been burned by Kubuntu a couple of times trying to install and maintain it)(and it still won't log me in no matter how much fancy terminal work My Dad, Friends and I do on it). I over reacted sorry bout that i tend to do that a lot lately.

 

[sindbad]

Regardless of who does what for the interface, this article is a good read.

 

[Pleng]

^ That would infuriate me. Turning on Pandora for the first time will be a big moment, one which I will not want interrupted by having to choose a theme. Show me the money first, sell me a coin purse later.

All you need to do then is have a screen pop up saying

"Your Pandora has not yet been configured/personalised. Would you like to do this now"

With a yes no button and a checkbox saying "Never ask me this again, I can access this wizard from the setup menu"

As for deafault looks. I vote bubble icons!