Open Moko Themes

[John Seghers]

Tim Newsom wrote:
> This is where XAML or XUL are particularly suited.
> The idea is that the UI will be mostly svg commands or in some cases
> images.. But rendered completely by the engine. 
> 
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 4:29, Peter A Trotter wrote:
> > UI for these different screen resolutions and potentially form factors
> > is going to be more then a case of image resizing. It will be whole
> > different layouts.

Peter brings up a very good point. As images get smaller--because of fewer
pixels available, not smaller pixels--it becomes much less reasonable to use
scaled artwork.  Whether that is SVG rendered into the smaller pixels or
bitmaps resized, when you get down to the sizes required for today's common
screen sizes, you need hand-tuned artwork.

Working in the games industry since 1981, I've seen many kinds of artists.
Most of today's artists do not have the skills to work at the pixel level.
They may be wizards in Maya or 3DS Max, but couldn't design a 16 x 16 icon
if their life depended on it--much less an animation in that many pixels.

Having the combination of ability and patience to push the pixels around is
a rare thing--but one absolutely necessary for a polished interface on a
1/8th VGA device.

When we're dealing with a 300dpi VGA screen, the on-the-fly rendering from
XML/SVG may be great.  But it's not a panacea.

On the other hand, I think it would be great to be able to not only skin
individual apps, but be able to combine elements from multiple apps into one
presentation.

For example, suppose you had a CRM (customer relations) database wherein you
kept notes about your clients.  It would be great if the last note from that
were available on the incoming call screen along with their name.  But that
would require a customized incoming call screen that aggregated the output
of the dialer and the CRM app.

At JavaOne there was a presentation on JSR 258 about a skinning
architecture, but it only seemed to address appearance of elements, not
layout nor the ability to combine features.

- John