[ubuntu-art] Edgy usplash

[Kenneth Wimer]

Hi Dennis,

This sounds excellent :-) Having a few options is nice for a change :-)

On Jul 24, 2006, at 4:30 PM, Dennis Kaarsemaker wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> For Edgy usplash will be changing (and already has changed)
> significantly. The good news is that theming usplash will be a bit
> easier. The bad news is that theming usplash will be a bit harder.
>
> That sounds contradictory, but it really isn't. The preleminary
> specifiactions of usplash-to-be are as follows:
>
> * A theme exports a 'struct theme' with the following members
>  - A background pixmap
>  - An offset into the palette for the background color
>  - Function pointers to functions for
>   - Drawing the progress bar
>   - Drawing a throbber
>   - Drawing the text
> * The text drawing function may be a NULL pointer to disable text
>   drawing
> * Themes will be able to use all bogl drawing primitives and are free
>   to use them as needed
>

Are the primitives only going to be drawn in one color? How do these  
primitives get that color? An offset into the palette again? (The  
same applies for determining the text color?).

How is a throbber to be defined? Will it be a series of bitmaps  
included in an extra pic, or attached somehow to the bottom of the  
usplash pic itself, etc.

> The obvious downside is that themes, which currently are just artwork,
> will need to contain a significant bit of code. The advantage is that
> it's possible to create styled progressbars (eg: make them look  
> like the
> GTK progressbars).
>
> I want to remind you at this point that this is no real specification
> yet and is subject to change. Moreover, no code has been written  
> for it
> yet as it is pending on other changes in the init/bootlog/usplash
> system. However, I didn't want the artwork to be blocked on these code
> changes, so I want to propose the following for people who create
> usplash themes
>
> - Create a 640x400 png with 16 colors that scales nicely to 3:4

spelling error: it should be 4:3 :-)

> - Then create 3 versions of it
>  - One with no text and an empty progressbar
>  - One with a full progressbar
>  - One with a full text area
>
> There are only a few fonts available for use in usplash themes, I'll
> work on providing previews of them asap. New fonts in the form of  
> freely
> redistributable .bdf files are welcome and themes can also link in  
> their
> own fonts.


Again, great features...can't wait to test them out :-)

Bye,
Ken