hi, im a proud h320 owner and graphic design and web development professional who is very interested in creating a skin or theme. i dont really know what is involved but i know its possible, so i was thinking that since i have no doubt that the iriver theming and skinning will explode... we might as well start it here at mistic river. perhaps i will find the funds to create a full site for it, if the demand warrants it.
so i ask that the mistic river gods bestow upon us a new sub forum -- h3xx skining & theming (skins themes how-to's h320 h340) -- with a few stickied threads, to break ground on this movement. here are my ideas for some stickied (and also locked?) threads...
- TOOLS -- the title of the tool, what is it? what does it do? where can i download it? etc... for instance, i believe that lord julius has an excellent program called h3 mod, and perhaps he can keep his thread on that post updated as he needs. maybe his mod deserves its own stickied thread? im not sure what the logistics of this would be, since i have no knowledge of how many programs are out there.
- DEFAULT THEME -- again, im not sure of the logistics of exactly how h3xx skinning... but i assume theres a default theme, or a default set of images that one can download and overhaul to create their own theme for the player. i think it would be helpful to have this thread so that people can just download the PSD or BMP or whatever and get to work on it.
- HOW TO (advanced) -- a very brief how-to for advanced users of photoshop or editing that simply outlines the process and stepes necessary to completing or compiling a skin. quick reference without hand holding.
- HOW TO (novice) -- a more in depth how-to for novices that explains the process in greater detail for people unfamiliar with photoshop or editing tools etc. explanations and possibly screenshots for editing, creating, and saving files etc... im sure you get the idea.
- COMPLETE THEMES -- complete theme overhauls ONLY please. no disrespect to less experienced themeres, but i (and probably many) are only interested in complete well done and designed themes. in an open source skinning community, crappy themes can pile up quick (see winamp). often, skinners will just change an icon here, or a boot screen there and call it a skin. im sorry, but those arent skins, they are just mods and personalizations. if someone where to spend many hard hours making a cohesive skin down to every last detail... great job!! i want to see it (and so will many) without having to sift through a bunch of junky mods. for this thread, i envision a few representative screenshots + the download link. this way people can see what they are getting before they start flashing their bioses every 5 minutes.
- BITS AND PIECES -- this is where themers can post some icons they created, or some fonts they converted. perhaps some boot screens, and backgrounds too. this way, users can download the bits and pieces they like and use a program like h3mod to customize their player. this also helps keep the bits from the really high quality full themes.
- FAQ -- not sure if this is necessary, but im sure people will have common questions at some point, right?
- ?????? -- im sure i may have forgotten something else especially because i am total novice to h3xx skinning at the moment. perhaps someone else has an idea?
so thats what i think i would like to see. i think it would be enormously helpful to seperate this topic into its own sub-forum because i really feel it will take off (you can even see it in the main forum). the stickied and locked threads will be nice so that there isnt alot of critique posts under a skin or "wow nice skin" comments to sift through. just theme after theme after theme. tool after tool after tool. etc... really invaluable resources.
obviously those would just be the stickied threads. the rest of the forum can obviously flourish with critiques, ideas, tricks, whatever.
perhaps the h1xx series players are deserving of a similar sub forum?
question for some people who have already created skins...
Q: how do you think it would be best to provide your skins for downloading? correct me if i am wrong, but there seems to be two options...
- compile your skin into a bios and provide the hex for simple installation and flashing.
- provide a zip with the individual images, and have users change each bit themselves in a program like h3mod
- other?
#1 is convenient, but may become outdated when iriver releases firmware updates in different regions, no?
#2 is less convenient... but helps keep the theme universal to any region or firmware, right?
is there a happy medium? which way do you feel would be best?