Amarok skins

[Frank616]

OK, tried the standard themes, but no realy change. Tried to download a new theme from the list made available in the software, but couldn't figure out how to install it. Though it shows as installed (Helium) I cannot find it anywhere to be able to select it.

However....

I then started playing with the Colors (System Setting | Application Appearance | Colors) and that gave me some things to choose from. I found Obsidian to work well on my living room media PC. Dark backgrounds with bright white letters. I find the contrast much higher, and therefore easier to use -- in Amarok. I don't like it elsewhere. However, I use Amarok more than any other app on the media PC, so I guess this is a good enough solution for me.

Frank.

[woodsmoke]

I'm going to use James very cogent reply as a "hook to hang the hat on".

Why are so many people obsessed with skinning amarok, why not ktorrent? or Dolphin?


I don't know why other people are so "obsessed" with it, but, for me, when I am puttering in the room, maybe re-arranging books or grading papers, or whatnot, I have Amarok running and it is there...........visually................everytime I turn around to check what is playing etc.

I personally, don't use anything but the "oxygen theme" and I set it to very transluscent.

But..............Amarok does not even have "transluscency" so, even if it is not a "colour" it does not "fit in" with say.... the panel.... or the folderviews on the desktop, or the Yet Another Weather Widget... all of them take on the transparency, and Amarok stays gray.

Why not just modify the windowing theme and have all applications be skined togeather? At least that way your desktop dosn't look a mess having every app look nothing like any other app... or have the need to maintain a seperate skin for each application...

I have tried changing the windowing theme and it stays gray, maybe i'm not changing the right thing in the windowing theme, i'm not that bright about this stuff.

But you can "skin" any qt application by passing the --stylesheet <stylesheet.qss> with a qt style sheet attached.

WAAY over MY head! lol

The reason they droped the ability to skin amarok when they moved from 3.5 to 4 is because it is just another layer of skinning ontop of all the other ways we already have to change the apperance of applications... so why maintain yet another way?

ok I can see that, but....still..... it seems like a small thing.

But to address the original question posited by James:

When people are using Amarok it is on the desktop ALL THE TIME ..... and MANY want to be able to fiddle with the appearance.

(now yes, many also use the minimal "bar" and also just minimze)

I go back to qmmp and xmms, which probably almost nobody knows anything about..... but

xmms had a HUGE fan base, not as large as Amarok I would assume, but huge.

And it had a boatload of skins that the fan base actively used

Ummmmm Firefox has a boatload of skins....

ummmmm people who do conky CERTAINLY fiddle a lot with colour of the "skins" of it. and actually, to me.....conky IS a skin....if one looks at some of the unbelieveable SHAPES that people have contorted Conky into at #! one can get a small idea of the desire of people to have truely different ...appearances..

So..........it would seem that "the folks".........like skins!

An associated app that had a huge fan base of skins was/is the venerable gKrellm.

And out of the hugeness they had quite a few people that used a provided template to make.....skins....

and there were/still are hundreds of the skins.

Ya gotta remember one thing...... not speaking directly to James, but to anybody that is a power person in Linux.

If you are gonna fish for fish you gotta think like a fish and not a marketing person for a fishing lure company.

"Power people" don't seem to approach, USING things, like .........the average folks.

The average folks like to "fiddle with stuff".....

like changing their backgrounds and, yes, themeing, and also skins............

But SKINS....... are not just "colours" for them............they are

Miley Cyrus, Dodge Charger cars, goblins and ghosts for halloween.

Ok...............so again, I'll propose what I've proposed many times.

Why not have somebody in "Blue Systems" approach the Amarok people and ask very nicely for the "template" that makes the "skin" for Amarok.

That skin is provided to "the folks" and if anybody wants to make a skin then they can, and if, when it applies it CRASHES AMAROK....well their bad!!

But..........it would do ONE BIG THING...

that "moderators always complain about........

NOBODY PARTICIPATES...........

This would give, at least some, the ability to "make something" and give others not so talented to........stick a skin on it to show Aunt Matilda.

Another piece of software that had a huge fanbase of skinners was the old "Lycos" browser. Which is still around.

Linky to xmms skins so folks can look

http://www.xmms.org/skins.php

gKrellm skins:

http://www.muhri.net/gkrellm/nav.php...dded&conf=DESC

As to the actual "skin template"....I actually tried to do a skin template for the media player that was associated with the Lycos browser.

It was a bunch of panels, withing which one placed the desired artwork, and the panels were named correctly so that they would "fit" on the "standard" player shape.

I didn't have the understanding or skill to do it back then, but now understand that what was really needed was to just "make an image" that would fit on the "part" and then "merge down" and the "piece" was done.

The pieces were zipped, windows world, and uploaded, simple as that.

So.............to me............

a) it seems that a LOT of people really do like to have "skins" on things.
b) this "could" be a "group bonding thing" for Kubuntu members to make, but mostly use, them.

just a thought,

And thanks james for the hook to hang the hat on!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

LOL an advert for the new Windblows surface lappy on the telly tonight....

And the woman, customer, was PRATTELING on about how she could "change it to suit herself", pointing at the screen with the boxes, etc.

The important thing to take away from this is that people who would come here, from being previously windblows centric....

would EXPECT to be able to EASILY "change it to suit themselves", and one of the things that windblow supplies in abundance for things like the media player is the ability to change the appearance...

not MODIFY it, as one can in Linux but that is not the point...

NOTE, NOTE, NOTE....

It may be that there are no ...."panesl/pieces/sections" that can be modified in Amarok like one can in say gKrellm.

It ....may ....be that the "gray colour" and the relly pretty "blue colour" are scripts that have "values" provided for the "panels"....

if one could FIND the script(s) .....they probably use the normal html numbers...........maybe one could just modify the html numbers...

now transparency would be a problem because ..........transparency, apparently, is not really "transparency" it is "pseudo transparency" that the script take the color of the raster scan that moves across the screen and just repeats it, with maybe fifty percent of the pixels removed when crossing the layered object, Amarok in this case...don't know.

woodsmoke