So, ive read that Microsoft was going to add some more user customization in the big update for WP7. I think there will be 2 seperate updates...one for the copy & paste feature...and then a bigger update shortly after. So I got to thinking....what if they gave us the option of choosing "glassy" looking live tiles...say something with 50% opacity and allowed us to set our own wallpapers along with those tiles instead of just a simple black or white background. I myself think that would be a really nice feature for customization to add. How many of you would actually like to see something like that added in???
Related
Having worked with rlToday, and currently coding an app to do something similar, I have wanted a couple of times to display text with an outline (ie white text with black outline so it is visible on any background) but simply printing a black version of the text in a bigger font underneath white text in a smaller fontsize does not work because of the way fonts are scaled.
However, this got me thinking...
What if one were to design a set of custom fonts for this purpose?
The way I am thinking, you would need two fonts - an "inner" version and an "outer" version. The outer version would have to be scaled about the centre of the letter, not about the baseline, and I would imagine that the spacing on the inner font would need to be as wide as the characters on the outer font.
So, before I waste loads of time getting font editors and seeing if it can be done, I would like to ask if anyone knows if this would be feasible, or if they have successfully done it or failed.
Another idea I suppose would be to print the outer font 4 times (left one, right one, up one, down one) - I guess this would have the same effect but at the cost of speed.
In an ideal world, it would be nice to not have to make an inner font - just to have to make an outer version of existing fonts, but I am not sure this would work unless you could set the spacing of the stock inner font wider.
Comments, suggestions please.
The classic path approach isn't working on WM?
Ultimatelaunch does it...I have two colored text and it looks pretty sweet. The font is called 'juice' not sure if that has anything to do with it though
What is this "Classic path" method you speak of?
At a guess I think you mean drawing a line around the font programatically?
This is not an option for some things, unless you have access to the source code - it would be nice to have a solution that could be implimented without needing to code for it in the app. For example, rlToday would benefit nicely from just such a system.
OK, so it has been done before then, although I did search around the net before I posted, honest!
It seems that the term used for the "inner" font is a "fill" font. I am going to try and find a freeware fill + outline font combo, pls let me know if you are aware of any.
Synned said:
Ultimatelaunch does it...I have two colored text and it looks pretty sweet. The font is called 'juice' not sure if that has anything to do with it though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you say "Ultimatelaunch" does it - what do you mean? I bought UL and I do not see the font on my system or in the UL dir.
I see a "juice" font on the internet that is a fill+outline set, but it is not free.
So if it is possible, I may well have a bash at doing a free one myself. At the very least it would be worth doing just the numbers for SMS / email counts in rlToday
An update here:
My main use for something like this was to be with applications such as rlToday.
However, stefanux is now writing XIAMultiTheme (XMT) which is compatible with, and extends rlToday. One of the things XMT does is allow you to specify a directory as a font, and it will look for image files named accordingly
ie if you wanted to print "123" you would need "1.png", "2.png" and "3.png" in the directory you specify.
I have made a 16px high font of numbers in transparent PNG (Great for overlaying message counts onto icons) and added it to the XMT project for now.
If the need is still there in a while I will look at making a fill font combo and releasing it, maybe as part of the XMT project, but for now this is a good enough solution for me.
dupe post deleted
Hey guys, after gettings my hands on Wisbar Advance Desktop 2 and seeing how powerful it was in theming just the way I wanted, I thought I would make some themes.
I will put the themes I make up here in case anybody likes them so they can use them themselves (any donations would be appreciated).
Before I begin though, a note:
Most of my themes will be minimalist, I like to maximise functionality out of the minimal things on the screen, usually I prefer to see the wallpaper and my themes will focus on this.
The theme I am going to put here is a conceptual idea I had today where I thought that the signals I need can easily be displayed in a "different" way. It's not entirely new, but I have not seen it done like this for a phone theme before.
Anyway, here is my first version of this theme, a couple hours work, and is basic and simple, but i like it for that.
Each Orb or circle represents a signal, from largest to smallest:
Teal: Missed Calls
Yellow: New SMS
Maroon: New Email
Light Green: Wifi ON
Blue: Bluetooth ON
When the orbs/circles are empty, there is no missed call/sms/email and wifi/BT are off. When the colour is visible, there are.
Each can be clicked and will take you to the corresponding item:
Teal: Missed call list
Yellow: SMS list
Maroon: Email Inbox
Light Green: Toggle WIFI ON/OFF
Blue: Toggle Bluetooth ON/OFF
The top left blue circle shows the start menu
Top right blue circle has battery value, and will take you to the battery page (FIXED)
The wallpaper here is just a solid colour, but could be replaced with any colour or image you like.
The orbs/circles can be moved anywhere you like on the screen in any shape or pattern, simply and easily.
EDIT: FIXED: Battery Icon now takes you to battery power page.
EDIT2: OK, this will be the final version for now (until I receive requests). I have added transparency to the circles, I have added a clock, changed the colours for some nicer ones and have also made a landscape version. (Havn't shown screeners because it's practically the same thing). The wallpaper (that may be included) is just a generic general image from the phone, the idea of this theme is that you pick your own wallpaper, so you should change this, and not wonder why it has an aweful one included. Again, if you like, please feel free to donate.(Link in my sig)
NOTE: You may find that the mail icon doesn't link correctly on your phone. That is because on my phone it is linked to "Gmail". You should edit the script for the mail link (maroon one) and in its script you will find "\Windows\tmail.exe -service 'Gmail'". Change the bit in quotes to link your correct account (either what ever you named it, or "ActiveSync" if you're using the Hotmail/Outlook sync. If you use more than one, just remove everything after "\Windows\tmail.exe" and you will be taking to "Messaging"
Nice idea mate,
will check it out when it's done.
Very nice. It's good to see someone thinking away from the "We have to interact with some boxes inside of other boxes" mentality. Down with square buttons!
Thank you.
Thank you for the kind words, I have updated now after working on it all day, and made what will for now be a final version.
Let me know if you download and have any feedback. Bear in mind, as I said, I won't be adding _too much_ more to these because the whole idea was to be minimalist.
That looks really clever, although I think I'd keep getting distracted by the pretty lady!
Hmm very nice idea about circle but i have better idea to turn girl to front face and for first "bubi" assing sms and second "bubi" for new e-mail ) , and if message arrive all bubi start shaking. lol i need this for my today screen.
Hehe
Well, fortunately for those that might get distracted, the pretty lady doesn't come with my theme, I just saw her in the theming thread and thought I'd try it as my wallpaper. You can of course put any wallpaper you like, which is the idea of this theme. The "bubi" idea is a nice one, put it tempts me to make the kind of theme that one shouldn't see before the 9 o clock watershed, so I'll refrain.
I love the minimalist approach - clean and stylish, just the way I like it. Keep it up!
i tend to find the themes just change the top and bottom bars.is there a way to change the white background when you access the windows mobile part of the device?
I guess this is not possible then? Everyone must be content with the plain dull White windows mobile b/g?..MODS can you transfer this article over to the themes and apps please might get some hope over there
I doubt most of us delve into WinMo enough to care.
Not only that, would you be able to read the text with a darker colour or pattern?
Thanks, Possibly most users aint interested but it's really bugging me. If only i could change it because it looks so bland!
short version: try "ui tweaker" (lets you adjust windows theme related colors, look, and feel)
long version: there are some TSK files available that give the effect you desire. however most of these work well with WM6.1 and earlier. same goes for "ui tweaker", but these same approaches don't work well with WM6.5 and later. this is largely because WM6.5 has newer, different, bigger GUI control elements.
if you choose the ui tweaker approach, rp-x1 is correct because you would indeed have to play with a whole bunch of colors on a whole bunch of GUI elements before you'll be able to get the contrast right.
hey thanks man, it sounds difficult but il give it a go..have you tried it yourself?
i have used ui tweaker many times to change the selection highlight colors and what not when i was using WM6.1 ROMs on my kaiser. i even once tried exactly what you are looking for
i found the WM6.5 themes to be a much more improved bunch, so never felt the need to customize them further, though i wouldn't mind a white-on-black theme some time, like a "negative" of the GTX themes, that would be stellar!
i tried uitweaker but it doesnt give the option to change the white background!! i tried another app called settings+ that didnt also -but they are quite handy to tweak windows side of things
forgot to add..the white background remains but i managed to add some colour to tabs at the bottom and every box is highlighted i've also changed the font it makes a massive difference to me thanks
!! the white background is no more!!! haha i've managed to change it with uitweaker...thanks again
Moschino02 said:
!! the white background is no more!!! haha i've managed to change it with uitweaker...thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how did you do it?
Just wondering what people were wanting the developers to work on for the new metro interface. Personally I would love to be able to use custom photos for launcher tiles. I'm inspired by some of the great screen shots I've seen for Launcher7 for android devices. Something like this Browsing Customization on deviantART over the tiles?
I've been using the CP only for a few days but I already missed the fature to set the tile Images manually. Some non-Metro apps look terrible with their tiny Icons compared to the tiles. Another thing I don't like is that you can't drag the Metro screens. You either have to use the scrollbar or the mouseweel. Oh and I think the Color selection is too limited. It would be able to tie the Interface Color with the automatic aero color, so that the Background has the same Color as the highlights.
i worked on an os design back in 2014 so i wanted android on a pc for several years now, phoenix has impressed me quite a lot, here are some minor gripes and issues i ran into
1.i can\t change language input to my keyboard region
2.using a higher dpi makes everything appear jagged and pixelated, not enough to make it terrible but enough to notice setting wallpapers also make most extremely blurry
3.a lot of live wallpapers doesn\t work when i apply them they work then i exit out of the app and it goes back to the default wallpaper i did get one live wallpaper to work though edit i fixed this by letting the apps run in the background i would add some kind of help text on this as i don\t think everyone would figure this oue
4.all the baidu things and chinese apps preloaded i\d personally like if they werent but not a big deal
5.text marking doesn\t work properly like you\d expect all it does is drag the pointer to select text you have to hold on it and then drag the two pointer like on a phone
6.i want an option to disable the keyboard and search and storage devices button and just keep the clock I've disabled everything else i love the addition of a thin home button like on windows
7.i\d like to customize the taskbar and recent apps menu various colors and transparency etc
8.the weird light effect on selected icons could be a line to make it more flat but thats a personal thing
9.i would like to be able to change the start button to any icon from an icon pack
10.i would like to add or remove tiles as well as hiding the brightness and volume slider so an optiont to disable these would be nice
11.i would like various sizes for the startmenu i think it\s too wide i also would like to be able to disable the startmenu sidebar as i don\t need it
12.widget support would be nice
13.colors are very washed out making it appear as if i connected a very old tablet to my monitor they don\t appear crisp as they do on windows
14.resizing windows is extremely laggy
15.the trash icon for clearing notifications would be better as 3 lines stacked ontop of each other minor detail