[mythtv-users] A new theme on the way...

[Robert McNamara]

Hi all,

Thought I would share with you all that I am working on a new theme
that I hope to have done for .23.  I know a lot of you have been happy
with Graphite so far, but I have a lot of things about it I am unhappy
with, so I started to work on something new.  A couple of caveats
before going further.  1) The theme is going to be released under a
fairly restrictive license that disallows copying or derivative works,
so I'm not anticipating this ever being distributed with Myth.  2) I'm
using proprietary fonts that I cannot/will not distribute.  I will
provide links for where you can purchase the fonts (about $15) but
will leave it up to the user to procure them.  The theme will not work
properly without them.  I am paying very careful attention to text
spacing this time, and switching fonts will break that.

That said, the new theme is called Arclight.  It takes a lot of the
lessons I learned about theming in Graphite, and applies them to
something where I didn't a) become lazy and half-ass some of the
widgets, b) emphasizes absolute consistency and usability, and c)
don't limit myself to ugly linux-standard fonts.  I have really only
gotten as far as theming the basic widgets, about 2/3rds of MythVideo,
and a little bit of Watch Recordings so far, but it's enough to get a
sense of the overall style.  So far, I am very, very happy with it and
I've already switched to using it full-time (which I have found is the
key to getting a theme done).

Arclight is a true 1920x1080 theme, and the added screen real estate
makes a huge difference in fitting lots of information on the screen
without ever feeling cramped.  It's a real pleasure to theme at this
resolution so far, and I don't see myself going back.  Arclight *will*
work on 720p displays (I'm developing it on one) but looks best at
native resolution.  Arclight will not support 4:3 or standard def
displays, it is absolutely unreadable at such low resolution.

Here are some (large!) screenshots from the actual UI (no mockups):

http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/PBB.png
http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/browse.png
http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/detail.png
http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/edit.png
http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/menu.png
http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/mv_tree.png
http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/search.png

Bear in mind that I'm only about 5-6 days in to working on it, but I'm
very satisfied so far and I'm finding myself having a lot of fun
theming it.

For you aspiring themers out there, I strongly encourage you to read
Stuart Morgan's plea for themers that went out earlier today.  MythUI
is by no means a finished product, but it's a *great* time to start
work on a theme.  If you're like me, it may be the second one before a
lot of things start to "click," but that's totally okay and it's fun
to be a part of something lots of people in the community use.

Looking forward to the reactions to this, and to getting it finished
over the coming months in time for .23.

Robert