I've recently been playing around with my today backgrounds, however, they are never as clear as the original picture.
I used someones .cab theme with a new background and the image was very clear, but when I just change the standard themes background to a different image, it loses it's clarity.
Whats up with this and is there a way to fix it?
Also, how do I get .exe programs to load on my unit. The only files I can get to install are cab files.
Thanks
Is the image the correct resolution?
If not, it will stretch or shrink it, and that's a quick and dirty operation on the today screen rather than being done with something like photoshop where it would calculate the pixel mapping of the resized image to give better quality.
actually..
I believe what he is talking about occurs only when selecting an individual image as the background wallpaper and it appears with what looks like a somewhat transparent "white haze". I have not figured out what causes this, and the only way to "fix" it would be to use a theme generator with the image you want as the background. If done this way, the image looks fine. This has nothing to do with aspect ratio distortion.
Related
Hi there, im thinking about the issue that you cant use a background for all tabs in TF3D, so i am trying to find a solution for that.
We need to find out where in TF3D the XML definition of background tiling is, so we could deactivate that, and replace the manila background tile with a normal wallpaper.
What do you think?
Rotkaeqpchen said:
Hi there, im thinking about the issue that you cant use a background for all tabs in TF3D, so i am trying to find a solution for that.
We need to find out where in TF3D the XML definition of background tiling is, so we could deactivate that, and replace the manila background tile with a normal wallpaper.
What do you think?
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That would be great, one of the most annoying things of TF3D is the background only works on the Today screen. I guess another option would be to find the graphic file within the manilla files that contains the default one. I have seen a couple themes where they have changed that default image, I think it was the Orange one.
added to thread subscriptions, maybe we can do this and it will be so much better!
Thanks, look at the Vodafone theme for example, there is a blank white background. Can we customize the original files like this just with a wallpaper?
I found out that there is a 2bd5bb26_manila (Background image only on O2 theme) in the o2 theme.
When we could use this manila file for other themes too, we would have solved the theme problem!
there's one thing i don't really understand here.
in the o2 default blue theme, the gradient background (for all the tabs) is saved as an image of the width of 1 pixel. i tried to substitute it with another, wider image, but it didn't work.
in the htc black theme, on the other hand, there's no direct image for the background, instead, only the tiles are coded somewhere as image files.
how does it work then, i mean how does manila know how the background is encoded, whether it's a 1px-wide image that needs to be stretched or a tile that fits onto the background "floor" or whatever else on other themes?
if we could find the place where it's encoded what (and how) manila uses for the background, then i guess we could play with it a little more
This is what i have found about the background question in TF3D...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2558844&postcount=180
I haven't had any more time on it .. but I think we have to wait until we can change the mania/GLES files...
I hope this can be done
I might have missed this in another thread but could not locate it.
Why on Earth is the Manila home screen background so terribly unsharp?? I've tried images of all sorts of resulotions, the outcome is always the same.
It does not scale the images, it seems to be the exact size, but the backgrounds are ALWAYS unsharp...
Can anyone confirm this, and does anybody know how to fix this??
Try viewing a 480x800 image in the album view, 100% sharp. Then set it as home screen, and it looks more like a stretched, compressed 240x400 image. I never noticed this on my Diamond. Is this one of the "software optimizations" HTC talks about? That's a no brainer, making a device faster by reverting to low res images...
IMage on background
FOr now I dont have any problem with images on background. Everything is sharp, even contacts are great. Not sure what the problem is there
wfhowell said:
FOr now I dont have any problem with images on background. Everything is sharp, even contacts are great. Not sure what the problem is there
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no he is correct. the wallpaper isnt sharp at all
nin2thevoid said:
I might have missed this in another thread but could not locate it.
Why on Earth is the Manila home screen background so terribly unsharp?? I've tried images of all sorts of resulotions, the outcome is always the same.
It does not scale the images, it seems to be the exact size, but the backgrounds are ALWAYS unsharp...
Can anyone confirm this, and does anybody know how to fix this??
Try viewing a 480x800 image in the album view, 100% sharp. Then set it as home screen, and it looks more like a stretched, compressed 240x400 image. I never noticed this on my Diamond. Is this one of the "software optimizations" HTC talks about? That's a no brainer, making a device faster by reverting to low res images...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem !!
Pictures in Album looks great but on wallpaper not ! I dont know why
Can anybody else confirm that the diamond did not have this problem? could there be some setting to change or to port from the diamond manila?
Its because the larger screen size decreases pixel density at 480x800 resolution. Where as the tiny 2.8" screen on the diamond and pro have a higher pixel density. You have more resolution spread over a larger space. Just look at an iphone images aren't that sharp.
I have no problem with the image quality on the homescreen background.
utvol06 said:
Its because the larger screen size decreases pixel density at 480x800 resolution. Where as the tiny 2.8" screen on the diamond and pro have a higher pixel density. You have more resolution spread over a larger space. Just look at an iphone images aren't that sharp.
I have no problem with the image quality on the homescreen background.
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No, you dont have right. Tell me why picture in album looks great (very sharp and clear) and this same file looks terrible on the homescreen background...
For the Today Screen:
Programs > Pictures & Videos > menu > Set as Today Background
Set Transparency Level to 0%
That's for the today screen... What about the TF3D home screen? Two different images. I think the OP was talking about the touchflow screen.
i can confirm and many of us also
in can confirm that images viewed with album or whatelse are very good. but when setted in tf3d homescreen background images of differents resolutions are terribles..
darthbane2k said:
no he is correct. the wallpaper isnt sharp at all
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yes same thing here
Shoot me down if I've got this wrong
I was getting the same thing when I first attempted to change the wallpaper, BUT I'd made a basic error and just "Saved As" the thumbnails instead of properley clicking and downloading the correct sized file.
Just a possibility.
jackthekayman said:
yes same thing here
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same thing here also!!!
I don't think it is an issue with resolution. It seems like the image has been converted to another format and lost some image quality. See the attached jpeg for a comparison between the two.
When you choose a wallpaper does it get saved somewhere? If it did you could check it to see whether it's been altered in anyway from the original.
elmarko99 said:
I don't think it is an issue with resolution. It seems like the image has been converted to another format and lost some image quality. See the attached jpeg for a comparison between the two.
When you choose a wallpaper does it get saved somewhere? If it did you could check it to see whether it's been altered in anyway from the original.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may be able to see more of the wallpaper in this image...
Maybe this is an optimisation performed to reduce the memory overhead for the TF3D process by reducing the quality of the image.
You can guarantee that if HTC's software didn't do this then someone somewhere would have assigned a 4MB jpeg as their background image and then be complaining about a lack of memory, sluggish performance etc.
I found out what manila does with our backgrounds, it reduces it's resolution.
When you save a background (resolution 480x800), manila saves it as the file "HomeBackground.img" in your windows folder and uses it for your background. I copied this file back to my computer and changed the extension back to HomeBackground.jpg (I can't open *.img on my pc). This picture has a resolution of 307x512 !!!
So that's the reason why our backgrounds get this low quality look
Like i mentioned in another thread, changing your original 480x800 picture to HomeBackground.img and placing it in your windows folder doesn't solve the problem
I've put 2 files as attachement: original pic and the "manila-pic"
stu420 said:
I found out what manila does with our backgrounds, it reduces it's resolution.
When you save a background (resolution 480x800), manila saves it as the file "HomeBackground.img" in your windows folder and uses it for your background. I copied this file back to my computer and changed the extension back to HomeBackground.jpg (I can't open *.img on my pc). This picture has a resolution of 307x512 !!!
So that's the reason why our backgrounds get this low quality look
Like i mentioned in another thread, changing your original 480x800 picture to HomeBackground.img and placing it in your windows folder doesn't solve the problem
I've put 2 files as attachement: original pic and the "manila-pic"
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Good find. I wonder if it'll be possible to make manila use full resolutions pics. what happens when you place an image named HomeBackground.img into the windows folder? Does it resize it or just not open at all?
This may be related to the work to get a 512x512 image on the background, or am I misunderstanding?
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=HTC_Blackstone_Custom
(near the end of the page)
elmarko99 said:
Good find. I wonder if it'll be possible to make manila use full resolutions pics. what happens when you place an image named HomeBackground.img into the windows folder? Does it resize it or just not open at all?
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it resizes it and placing HomeBackground.jpg in the windows folder doesn't work at al
After flashing my X1, I just noticed that the original background is in fact 2 different pictures, one optimized for landscape and the other for portrait mode. How can you do this manually? Neither WM nor the Picture Viewer nor Resco Photo seem to provide such a functionality... Would be nice to know, because it's hard to find a picture that fits both modes and still looks nice...
If you're talking about the SE-Panels, here you go
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=479431
skycamefalling said:
If you're talking about the SE-Panels, here you go
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=479431
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I'm not I'm talking about the Today-"Panel".
if you're talkin about standard winmobile today you have no way to specify 2 different background In fact you will always have 1 image, with some parts showed or not depennding on screen orientation
If you're searching for a good theme maker I suggest you themegenCE
Exactly, landscape is showing only part of the picture which is used for portrait.
Incorrect
It is actually two seperate images.
On the today screen using the Xperia_black theme. I have in portrait Xperia written in the middle with thin spectral line vertically down.
On horizontal, Xperia is on bottom right, with wide horizontal spectrum.
Clearly two different images. So why is there not a way to do this manually, which is what the OP is getting at I think.
This can be done manually, I can't remember the exact names of the files but under the windows folder there are 2 files stwater_480x800.bmp stwater_800x480.bmp, if you replace these you can have 2 independent pictures.
When you change the today theme these files get replaced, I think there is some software available which will let you create a tsk with 2 pictures, but I just find it easier to replace the files.
That's what I've been thinking about. alias_neo, you're totally right.
So but now, assuming I find the files and replace them, the update will not happen directly, will it? Perhaps it would take a Softreset. Is there a workaround to go without Softreset?
My Xperia is bit weird, just a couple of days ago, I found out that when I change the background in Portrait mode,
only the Portrait background will change. Then I slide the keyboard out, and change the background again,
then only the Landscape background changes. And I must say, I like it
I think its a bug or something?
I have a solution for this: Use Resco Photo Viewer. You can set the background image in this program. Set in once in portrait mode, then switch to landscape mode and set it again. This produces 2 separate backgrounds. It works without any trouble. Changes rapidly on kb-slideout, no problem. Looks great, do it!
Hey all - anyone notice that even after HDwall tool is used for wallpapers, that your wallpaper is actually still somehow in very bad quality?
there's actually no difference between using HDwall and actually just pasting your wallpaper into the phone.
The only difference is that the top and bottom bar now uses your image with a registry edit.
Since I like to see fine lines and definitions on an image instead of fuzziness I was wondering where the image is translated and cached.
you can check the differences if you save a high quality image into 480x800 and then use it as a wallpaper with sense and then also choose the same wallpaper for the lock option.
you'll notice that wm6.5's proper wallpaper will show the image sharply, while it's dulled out in the skinned sense.
I found the registry keys that display the image, but I don't know if this is a limitation with sense and it's ability to render the image onto the background or is it just a shot of the image stored elsewhere. I would like to know though so I can do some registry changes to get that going.
You must have some problem, HDWall background should look perfectly good. Works fine here. Did you apply co0kie's hqwallpaper patch?
kilrah said:
You must have some problem, HDWall background should look perfectly good. Works fine here. Did you apply co0kie's hqwallpaper patch?
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I applied the patch and the image will not come up with the image associated -- I ran the hdwall cab that was created without the patch, and I got a background.
(First, I'm trying to avoid HDwalls)
It has always bugged me that when you apply a wallpaper under Settings, that the wallpaper isn't as clear as if you were to view them in the "Picture" tab. In fact, the applied wallpaper is some what blurred at a lower quality.
Has anyone noticed this? Or is it just me because I can point out something you were not able to see.
try it yourself with some sharp jagged text as wallpaper. Then apply it to the lock screen as well.
You'll notice that the wallpaper on home screen is not as crisp and clear as the one on the lock screen.
Anyone know why?
you are right, I did notice this.
has it got something to do with the phone trying to squish the image into the right ratio instead of just cropping the image too fit?
not sure maybe some other members can offer their help?
See, you didn't even notice youself. And i think most people dont realize this as well.
Anyone got a fix?
rebump. rebump
Sense resizes the image to something smaller than 480x800 and then stretches it again (for some silly reason). It's a long-known problem - since the phone was first released. It's also one of the reasons that HDWall came about. The only alternative to HDWall I know is to install Co0kie's Home Tab. You can set wallpaper with that and it retains the original quality (as well as having a LOT of extra wallpaper options).
Try resizing or cropping the image to 480x800 then setting it as a background, that way the phone won't need to resize it for you.....
conantroutman said:
Try resizing or cropping the image to 480x800 then setting it as a background, that way the phone won't need to resize it for you.....
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It still does it. The default way of setting wallpaper in Sense is just crap.
johncmolyneux said:
It still does it. The default way of setting wallpaper in Sense is just crap.
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Click to collapse
Really? That is truly retarted.... thanks for the heads up!
johncmolyneux said:
The only alternative to HDWall I know is to install Co0kie's Home Tab. You can set wallpaper with that and it retains the original quality (as well as having a LOT of extra wallpaper options).
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cookies wall doesnt work. never did.
home tab>menu>home wallpaper> etc...
that path doesnt work.
unless there is some other way...
resizing images dont work either.
I just also want to mention that Cookies Home tab 1.8 does improve the quality of the wallpaper over normal Sense BUT they are still reduced in quality and resolution somewhat so are still not full quality.
So for me - HDwalls is what i use - though i sometimes have trouble getting it to work properly.
Use SPB Mobile Shell. You will get mega sharp wallpapers (custom of course) and far better functionality than standard sense.