Knightbox D3.0 & D4.0 CA (Discuss here)

[saab_rider]

(Formerly titled "Knightbox D3.0 & D4.0 CA (Discuss here)")

Here are my third and fourth designs of my Knight Rider inspired WPS. The Beta/D1.0 was buggy, and the design didn't end up looking very good. D3.0 is close to my second design,

but I liked the name "D3" and decided to incorporate that into the name of my WPS.

It goes without saying that I'm a Knight Rider fan (note my nick). Ever since I started to know MP3s, back in the mid '90s, I wanted to make a Knight Rider skin for an MP3 player

(winamp). The idea of having KITT's voicebox "talk" during music playback is just awesome, for me at least. But for some reason I never made such a skin, until about a week ago!

I've been away from the Rockbox seen for about a month. When I came back so many changes had happened! All these new 24bit WPSs got me itching to make my dream skin! Anyway, my

first design was really the first skin/theme/wps I've ever done. So I had to learn the code, and learn how to skin properly all at the same time... That's why it took me forever.

I was dissappointed when I made D1.0, because a lot of things weren't working very well, no one even commented on it and worst of all, it didn't look good. I was trying to be

creative, but I ended up with a bad design that just didn't work.

However, just as I was feeling down about my first design being such a flop, I got an idea for a new design! I knew D1.0 was cluttered with graphics, but that wasn't the reall

problem with it. The problem was that it was "messy". KITT's dash was all all about being cluttred with buttons, but it looked cool, and it was very neat. So I decided to

make my design closer to KITT's voice box. I also used elements from the dashboard and adapted everything to my WPS's needs. If anyone even remembers the show, the inspiration

comes from the 3rd and 4th season dashboard.

When I started to design D2.0 (the design which then changed into D3.0), I made a lot of thinking about what info was most important for me. D1.0 displayed the year, and album

name, but I really find that unnecessary. I chose to use unifont with this WPS, and I know many people won't like that. However, I have music in English, Arabic, and Chinese in my

collection, and Unifont makes my life a whole lot easier, as I'd never need to change my default page code. Having said that, unifont is 10 pixels high for latin letters, which

leaves me with much less space for text than with other fonts. So this explains why I had to be carefull what to display. Before I finished working on D3.0, album art became

supported as well! So now I didn't want to be out of date, and just release a WPS without album art support! So I started on making ideas for a WPS which displayed album art, and

that's how I came up with D4.0. The good news was that 75X75 pixel album art blended very nicely with my concpet. Sadly though, album art ment there was no space for KITT's

animated voice modulator However, I quickly thought of adding KITT's scanner towards the bottom instead! The scanner's annimation could of looked much cooler with a "trail" of

dimming lights, but I ran out of BMPs to load into the WPS But I liked how album art in my WPS became different than in others', because of the album art being in the center.

My design was supposed to be the first to have album art in the center, but "Subliminal Zen" came beat me to it! Oh well, were' still a handfull

Anyway, for more details on the functions and such, please visit:
The Download page

Let me know what you think!


This is the first concept I made.


This is still a concept and a complete mockup, despite having text. The text was actually cut-n-pasted from a screendump. (didn't even install an RB build with 24bit support back then).


This is the Beta of D1. The volume and battery meters were just mockups. I was trying to position the text and get a feeling of where everything would eventually be.


This is what the D1 Beta eventually looked like. Cluttered? Yes. Plus the meters didn't work very well, because they overlapped with the text. I stopped development of this design at this point.

Here are my final products!

[Herb]

Although I never really enjoyed the show, this WPS looks really cool!

[SoulEata]

Instead of having an empty CD case if there's no album art, why not have KITT's voice modulator?

[saab_rider]

Originally Posted by Herb

Although I never really enjoyed the show, this WPS looks really cool!

Thanks Herb! It even looks better in the player!

Originally Posted by SoulEata

Instead of having an empty CD case if there's no album art, why not have KITT's voice modulator?

Currently the album art syntax doesn't use conditionals, so there's no way for the player to know if album art is going to be loaded or not. Right now, it either loads the album art if it's there, or it does nothing. It's not like other tags: if|else|else, at least not yet. The empty CD case does not load in the case of no album art being present, it's actually part of the WPS background, and is covered by album art when it's loaded.

If I'm wrong, and someone actually knows a way to load the animation in the place of the album art when it's not available, let me know.

Btw, when do you paln to install RB

[SoulEata]

Btw, when do you paln to install RB

Don't know if I ever will. Being as I'm running out of room on my current DAP, I'll need to get a new one soon, which means I will probably sell this one. Sadly. DRM is a selling point.

[xd-data-ii]

Thats horrible!

Actually scrap that. It is good. Final version with album art.

Well done

[saab_rider]

@xd-data-ii Thank you for your kind words

Seriously though. Try to install it. It actually isn't as bad as you "think". I admit, the original concepts aren't very nice, but I'm proud of the final versions.

Or is it because of the font? What exactly do you find horrible?

[gmann21133]

I want to try your concept because it is very different and I am sure I will have some Knight Rider days... I just dont know where to download the .wps, or the theme file... If you could just point me in the right direction I will try it promptly...

[xd-data-ii]

Well you did say let you know what we think.

When glancing at the player, when drving say, its too messy to quickly see whats playing details. The text and font dont stand out enough.
Thats it really.

[saab_rider]

Originally Posted by gmann21133

I want to try your concept because it is very different and I am sure I will have some Knight Rider days... I just dont know where to download the .wps, or the theme file... If you could just point me in the right direction I will try it promptly...

@gmann21133 The link to the download page was there, just not visible enough You can check "the download page" in the first post, right before the pictures, should be easier to find now! Tell me how it goes.

Originally Posted by xd-data-ii

Well you did say let you know what we think.
When glancing at the player, when drving say, its too messy to quickly see whats playing details. The text and font dont stand out enough.
Thats it really.

@xd-data-ii I second your opinion, that it's not suitible for driving. But this skin was made to look cool. Also, although it's filled with info and colors (the same with KITT's dash), it still makes a lot of sense. The top yellow bars are for battery and volume, then it's repeat and cross fade etc.. You get use to the locations of stuff. Plus the most important info, current and next track, is placed in the center and isn't hard to find. The font used is also larger than what's used in almost all the other players.

Thanks for dropping by anyway

[pelinkovac]

Great .wps.I like how you redesigned original idea.
You could upload smaller image in the thread, it took forever to show them on my computer.

[saab_rider]

Sorry pelinkovac, I think you really are the only person on the planet still using dial-up But don't you like the details in the way I showcased the WPSs?

Thanks for looking into my original WPS btw

[vocrobot]

This has to be the best WPS I have seen so far!

I was using one of the Dark Aqua themes, but this just knocks spots off everything so far. I never liked Knight Rider myself, but this theme is just fantastic!!

[saab_rider]

Thanks vocrobot! You're the second person who says he didn't like knight rider, but thought this WPS is cool! Strange, but I'm happy!

[RTYUI333]

im using this and im happy!!! 5stars for this thread!!!

[saab_rider]

Awesome! Thanks for the rating RTYUI333 Nice to have a fan of my WPS from different countries

[cooleo_no1]

looks pretty good dude.

might take it for a spin when i finally update my rockbox.

[tawie]

cool work, I use this wps now. but I think if the color not too warning mean, it's will be more good.

[saab_rider]

Thanks cooleo_no1. Let me know how it goes when you actually try it.

Originally Posted by tawie

I think if the color not too warning mean, it's will be more good.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say tawie Do you mean the colors are too bright? What colors would you suggest?

[DD]

I think you could do a toned down version with more texture, like for example...



...or...