[Solved] Background Image Quality - Android Software Development

I wanted to give my App a nice "Web 2.0" background like the new Twitter for Android has.
When I set the image as "Background" everything looks fine in Eclipse but on my Desire the image gets blurry and distorted.
kinda like this:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Here is the solution:
Basicly I created a bitmap and used it as background.
1. create a xml file within /res/drawable ... lets name it bg_texture.xml for this example.
Fill it with this code, lets assume the image is called backgroundimage.png
Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:src="@drawable/backgroundimage"
android:tileMode="repeat"
android:filter="true"
android:dither="true" />
2. Set the "Background" property of the element to @drawable/bg_texture and it should work.
You won't see it in Eclipse, but on the phone it looks nice and crisp.

I see a minor difference i guess. You could just save a slice of their bar... like a 1 pixel wide slice, and just set that as background, and itll stretch across?

Does your image use an alpha channel? That might make it look smoother.

its not the fault of the image I guess, because it looks nice in the editor and other images on Android look nice as well... I guess its a bug in the way Android builds the UI. Kinda similar to the bug with artefacts on wallpapers. So I hoped anyone would know a workaround.

Yay I got the solution. It's from this website.
Edit: I updated the first post with the solution.

Related

(missed) screenshots from Microsoft

I found some original screenshots on Microsoft page:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
WHAT'S UP!? what's it?
Windows Mobile notification inside my device looks different?
why?
did I missed something? or someone....
That looks nice. What's the link?
V
linked directly
I linked pictures directly, see pictures properties
@JGUI: He was probably asking for the link to the HTML page which originally embeds those images.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/press/imagegallery/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/press/imagegallery/customization.mspx
Saw that when I tried finding the Windows Mobile boot splash that had the progress bar on it a while ago. Ended up not finding that one, btw... if anybody knows where that went..
Why did you actually attach the same screenshot twice?
fixed, thanks for announce
I must say it looks very appealling to me. I wonder why they're there.. Should I try to create a today theme based on it?
i think, that it is just a fake of WM5 theme.
Look at the fonts and stuff.. positions of the soft buttons text..
hmm.. i don't know.
buzz
yih.. one of those "you *could* do this with customizations... (smallprint: if you want to spend a lot of time and money fighting our API and whatnot)
Notification bubbles are just HTML, so they could be real, but it would require access to the source code, so I imagine that bit is a Microsoft only level customisation. I've not investigated but I haven't seen any way of applying a user defiend template to notifications - but as each app is responsible for the look of its own notification, I'm doubtful.
That's not to say it's not possible to hack the system to intercept notifications and re-write them.
V

Any good photoshoppers around?

Hey guys (and gals)...
i was just strolling around today, and thought to myself..
man this grey HTC background sucks...Just curious if anyone has made a good background for their wizard.
I was trying to find a good Vista Aurora style one, but My effors were not so good =\
Gimme some colors and a basic idea what you want to see as a bg. Are you looking for dials and whatnot to use as bg for rlToday, or are you just looking for a nice pic to match your color scheme, or what?
If you're just looking for some nice pics to chop and use as background, I suggest looking here: http://www.everystockphoto.com/
It's a search enabled, indexed library of royalty free or cheap pictures (if use is private, no royalties apply).
If you're looking for something custom-made, you need to post specifications.
Custom program icons and background:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Vista Aurora bg you can chop/resize yourself (download PhotoPlus, it's free and easy to use):
I'm looking for a vista theme and background.
The closest I've gotten is the HTC_Default theme.
and with this background :
I like most of it, except, the grey doesn't show up too well on the phone.
If only it was a solid black with the little blue "aurora" lines, that would be great (also, it was somewhat difficult adjusting the size to fit the phone)
Edit: I know the quality of the picture sucks monkey balls, thats because I changed it from BMP to Jpeg (easier to upload).
Hi , to avoid photoshop problems you can check out these sites
http://www.pocketpcscreens.com/
or http://pocketthemes.com/download.php?op=viewdownload&cid=1
i know photoshop a little bit and have a thread with a few today screens if you're interested.

[Q] How to Color these Icon's wihout Error!

Hejj Guy's
I want to Change the Color of some Icons i have but every time i Open it i get a Error it looks like that!
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
But normally it should looks like this
Here a oder Example!
A yes and Photoshop says an the Layer INDEX
Have try Change the Mode to RGB and Grayscale and BIT too 16BIT but nothings works!
Have you a Idea?
Greetz
Photoshop opens badly indexed files.
Use ImageMagick to convert those images to rgb and then you can use in photoshop.
Thx
Have Dl the Programm looked around but i didn't find the option to convert!
I'm glad someone has bought this up, I've had this problem forever.
Like mendozinas said, its to do with indexed files and some thing to do
with the transparency. I've googled around to try and get info but answers
are hard to find. some kind of conversion is needed. Some indexed files open
fine and some don't that's what's strange.
esk02k said:
I'm glad someone has bought this up, I've had this problem forever.
Like mendozinas said, its to do with indexed files and some thing to do
with the transparency. I've googled around to try and get info but answers
are hard to find. some kind of conversion is needed. Some indexed files open
fine and some don't that's what's strange.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there is nothing strange in it.
If image have gradient fill (into transparency) and colors are indexed - photoshop opens bad.
With ImageMagick you can convert those images command line command: convert
Just google how to use it and how to specify RGB color space.
If I can remember correctly:
convert -colorspace RGB bad-image.png good-image.png

How do I change the size of the battery and Wi-Fi icons?

Hey guys,
I'm on Jelly Bean for performance, but I'm trying to replicate the looks of Honeycomb the best I can. I just swapped out the Wi-Fi and battery icons but as you can see below, they're too small. I believe I would change the size settings for these icons in the following xml files, but I looked with PSPad and a hex editor, and I don't see any values to change.
systemui.apk - drawable.xml and layout-sw600dp.xml
and here is the pic:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Please help - I'm so close to being done with this!
Glad to see someone else likes the Honeycomb look. You might need to change the actual drawable for this, I don't think it has a value that can be edited.
Armada,
Thanks for the reply. So do you mean the entire folder?
I see in res:
/layout:
battery_low.xml
/drawable:
stat_sys_battery.xml
stat_sys_battery_charge.xml
stat_sys_battery_charge_min.xml
stat_sys_kb_battery.xml
stat_sys_kb_battery_charge.xml
but no reference to Wi-Fi. So maybe it is the whole folder...
armada786 said:
Glad to see someone else likes the Honeycomb look. You might need to change the actual drawable for this, I don't think it has a value that can be edited.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks to a suggestion by Sonny Sekhon, the problem has been fixed and I now have a fairly complete Honeycomb look on Jelly Bean! Since the images were too small, there was no need to edit any .xml but instead, I just multiplied the size of the drawables by 1.5x.
Thanks, Sonny!

Roboto font 'fi' ligature removal

Hey,
Apologies if I make you unable to unsee what I am about to show you:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
When I noticed this, it really bugged me: specifically how the dot of the 'i' is joined to the top of the 'f'. What was more annoying is that if the text was bold, ligature was removed.
I set out to root my phone and change the system font to something better. However, do not be fooled like me! Changing the system font is not an easy decision and even if you do change it, for some reason the lockscreen's time colon gets replaced by a square character. Link to lockscreen colon character issue screenshot
In the end, I edited the roboto-regular font using FontForge for mac and removed the 'fi' ligature. Then using a rooted file explorer, I just replaced the originally with the updated one.
It initially crashes the phone, but upon restart: you can now rejoice in writing all those 'fi' words.
Please see my github for a README and the modified roboto-regular.ttf.
Cheers!
edited:
I had also removed 'fl', 'ffi', 'ffl' glyph's too.
Actually, that's a ffi ligature, not a fi one.
nowster said:
Actually, that's a ffi ligature, not a fi one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah! So true! I totally forgot I removed the similar ones too. Thanks. I have edited the post above and github to reflect the other glyphs removed. ('fi', 'fl', 'ffi', 'ffl')

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