a very nicely pimped freerunner theme

Joel Newkirk freerunner at newkirk.us
Mon Oct 27 02:36:33 CET 2008


On Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:13:39 +1300, "Robin Paulson"
<robin.paulson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/10/27 "Marco Trevisan (Treviño)" <mail at 3v1n0.net>:
>> I uploaded that screenshot theme, it was done by CarloRatm, an Italian
>> user. You can find it here [1].
>>
>> [1] http://forum.telefoninux.org/index.php/topic,649.0.html
> 
> great stuff. how do we use it? which directory does it go in, and how
> do i change the theme once it's there?
> 
> thanks

'changing the theme' isn't a simple process like editing a config file or
replacing a subdir of images, in this case.  You need to decompile and
alter the .edj file itself, which is what the download found in the link
above contains - an altered .edj file.  The .edj file is a collection or
archive of possibly several files, including images and even fonts in some
cases.  

Along with the visual definitions and elements, it includes programmatic
statements controlling interaction between GUI elements and between GUI and
application.  For instance, the dialer may have three 'program' triggers
written into the edje for each button - change GUI to 'pressed', change GUI
to 'released', and add digit to number.  Unlike traditional ideas about
theming, this interaction is defined in the 'theme' instead of the
application itself.  This allows for unprecedented flexibility insofar as
'theming' - you can change button layouts, graphics, even add some features
like 'delete last digit' all within the .edj instead of having to burrow
into sourcecode.

If you want to play around with edje themes there's two approaches AFAIK:

1 - edje-decc to decompile the theme back to config files and images and
what-not, manually edit the aforementioned parts, and recompile with
edje-cc.  These two tools should be available in your friendly package feed
for your Freerunner as 'edje-tools' IIRC, and possibly for your desktop
linux.

2 - edje-editor.  I've installed e17 from CVS on Ubuntu using easy-e17.sh,
(http://omicron.homeip.net/projects/#easy_e17.sh)  did so under my vmware
development environment.  Edje-editor comes with the works in that case, I
don't know how available (or recent) it is in prepackaged binary form,
however.  It's important to keep in mind that the editor (and indeed E17
itself) is not finished at this time.  It works, quite nicely in some
regards, but has some flaws and some distinctly missing features.  (like it
can't remove a no-longer-used background image from the .edj file, that
currently requires manual intervention)

If you're interested in using the editor, check out
http://wiki.enlightenment.org/index.php/Edje_Editor and the blog post I've
been working on the past few days at http://jthinks.com/retheming-with-edje
for an introduction to things.  (my blog post is documenting my recent
efforts retheming the dialer within SHR, though as I point out in the
article the process applies equally to anything utilizing Edje, such as the
launcher and top shelf)  Also check the 'EFL Documentation' thread running
the past few days.  (EFL=Enlightenment Foundation Libraries, and includes
Edje)

j





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