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Subject: Re: FS#11689 - User settings in skins, and user translation in skins

Re: FS#11689 - User settings in skins, and user translation in skins

From: Jonathan Gordon <jdgordy_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:28:41 +1100

Whether it gets used or not obviously remains to be seen. That is not the
bar for inclusion (however for removal later maybe *cough* charcell). I know
for sure themes which would use this if it were available.

The plan has changed to be one settings file per theme so themers don't have
to work together (not that that is a bad thing).

If it is not used it can't make themes more difficult.

Jonathan
On 26/10/2010 9:04 AM, "Thomas Martitz" <
thomas.martitz_at_student.htw-berlin.de> wrote:
> On 19.10.2010 15:37, Jonathan Gordon wrote:
>> This is an idea I've had for ages which I never got around to coding.
>> Each time I've brought it up in IRC its had a different response so
>> time for some actual official discussion.
>>
>> The idea behind this patch is giving themers a way to make their
>> themes more customisable to users without having to resort to actually
>> modifying the skin file. (e.g some themes have "configuration" which
>> is merely enabling viewports to suit the user).
>>
>> The way it works is there is a skinsettings.txt file (in .rockbox/wps)
>> which is read which contains the users' settings (same format as .cfg
>> files). If a theme has any of the settings in the txt file the users
>> choice will be used. If it doesnt the file is simply ignored.
>>
>> The changes to skins to make this work is no more difficult than
>> adding a bitmap strip.
>> To configure a setting a line like %Sl(foo, something, one, two, etc,
>> something, ...) is added. That says "A setting named "foo" with
>> default value "something" accepts the values "one", "two", "etc",
>> "something", .... (up to 32 values). ("something" is there twice
>> because it the first one is saying it is the default, the second is
>> where in the list it belongs.)
>> Then to actually get the users choice you would add %Sv(foo) which
>> would show the text of the value (or used in a conditional to get the
>> number).
>>
>> Thats basically the gist of it. Details can be fiddled with of course.
>>
>> Now, separate but really the same idea is a way to allow skins to be
>> completely translated without needing to add more strings to the lang
>> files. Users would create a "skintranslation.txt" file which would be
>> checked at parse time and any string found in the skin would be
>> checked against the file. If it is there then the users string would
>> be used instead. i.e a lazy themer might have put "Next track:" but
>> the user wants it in chinese, or to just say "Next:". This would
>> simply allow that to happen.
>>
>> I've put both ideas in one email because I really think they are the
>> same thing and would be very surprised to hear any opposition to one
>> but not the other.
>>
>> So, thoughts? comments?
>>
>> Jonathan
>
> I'm honestly not seeing this used in any situation, since it requires
> that themes of independent themers have something in common, a set of de
> facto standard skin settings. I highly doubt this is gonna happen.
> Without this standard skin settings every user will still need to edit
> at least one text file so nothing changed.
>
> Therefore I don't think it's useful. And I feel it makes the
> theming/skinning only more complicated.
>
> Best regards.
Received on 2010-10-26

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