[frelkins]

Hi All!

Searched the board, but didn't see an answer to this, and it doesn't seem to be covered in the Plazmic Theme Builder manual. I've now created and tested my theme successfully, but I see there appear to be some interface elements I cannot change with theme builder, such as the color of the down arrow on the right-hand side of the home screen, or the color of the text highlight within an email message.

Am I overlooking some options in theme builder? Basically, our corporate color is purple. The 7100 base blue color is similar to a competitor's color, so marketing wants all our staff machines to be as completely purple as possible.

Any tips , workarounds, or insights? Thanks.

Fortune

[balibe]

Plazmic Theme Builder is 3rd party program. There are certain aspect changes that have not been implemented in the software. Some may be added in the future and some may not be possible.

Have you tried your question in the Plazmic Discussion Forums?

[frelkins]

yes! (lol) they sent me over here because you guys were supposed to be doing "incredible things" with themes. i guess not.

fwiw, the situation of only being able to half-change the interface is pretty lame, from a corporate perspective, sorry to say. we are gradually rolling out these devices to all our managerial and sales staff; is it really too much to ask to be able to put our corporate color on our expensive new infrastructure? (wink) we customize all our desk-and laptops, after all. . .

[srl7741]

Originally Posted by frelkins

Hi All!

Searched the board, but didn't see an answer to this, and it doesn't seem to be covered in the Plazmic Theme Builder manual. I've now created and tested my theme successfully, but I see there appear to be some interface elements I cannot change with theme builder, such as the color of the down arrow on the right-hand side of the home screen, or the color of the text highlight within an email message.

Am I overlooking some options in theme builder? Basically, our corporate color is purple. The 7100 base blue color is similar to a competitor's color, so marketing wants all our staff machines to be as completely purple as possible.

Any tips , workarounds, or insights? Thanks.

Fortune

You can't change those arrows you refer to however you can change just about everything else. Pop over the custom theme sticky thread and look over what can and can't be accomplished. I have made themes for several corporations and there is always a way to get very close to each companys needs with the understanding that the software has limits pending future versions release.

thread:
http://www.blackberryforums.com/show...=30280&page=70

[jibi]

Plazmic Theme Builder is 3rd party program

Plazmic is owned by RIM, so technically its not a third-party application.

[jhayman]

Originally Posted by frelkins

fwiw, the situation of only being able to half-change the interface is pretty lame, from a corporate perspective, sorry to say. we are gradually rolling out these devices to all our managerial and sales staff; is it really too much to ask to be able to put our corporate color on our expensive new infrastructure? (wink) we customize all our desk-and laptops, after all. . .

Be careful what you wish for! Being able to theme "everything" is a tall, tall, order. For example, take the Message list application. The first column is an icon to indicate whether the item is a mail item or SMS message or browser push, whether it is read or unread, whether it has an attachment or not, whether it is signed or not, etc. etc. There are approximately 60 unique indicators. And the indicators are sized to match the font the person has chosen, so you'd need to provide those 60+ indicators at 5 or 6 different sizes. That's about 300 bitmaps.

This is the first release of Theme Builder. There was a deliberate trade off between delivering a release that has enough useful options now or delivering something with every bell and whistle later (or never??). I am sure that the next release will contain more features - but probably not every feature that everyone has requested. This is a free product after all.

That being said, scroll arrows are an obvious omission.

[balibe]

Originally Posted by jibi

Plazmic is owned by RIM, so technically its not a third-party application.

Thanks Jibi, didnt know that

[lmlloyd]

Originally Posted by srl7741

Pop over the custom theme sticky thread and look over what can and can't be accomplished.

thread:
http://www.blackberryforums.com/show...=30280&page=70

Ok, this touches on a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. I'm an artist, and one of the things I have done quite a bit of is interface design. So, naturally, I want to make an interface for my BlackBerry.

Here's the thing, is there really no option for finding information on this site about building themes other than wading through a 79-page sticky thread? I mean, it is great and all to say "use the search" but when a search turns up nothing but page after page of people saying "there is already a thread about this, use the search," which invariably ends up pointing back to the 79-pages of sticky thread, you might as well be saying "figure it out yourself, we don't want to help." I'm pretty sure that I could figure it out myself faster than I could read 79 pages of posts. Isn't it a little crazy to say that all discussion must go to that single thread?

I know that it gets annoying hearing the same questions over and over again, but you have to appreciate that it is also annoying to wade through tens of pages of people who have just recolored the stock themes, to find one little hint of what you might possibly be able to do, if you could just find someone willing to explain more than how to use the search feature of the site.

I'm looking to do a bit more ambitious theme, more along the lines of the Overlord theme in terms of total interface redesign, and neither here, nor on the Plazmic site do I find anything about how to change substantial parts of the OS, aside from people here saying "do a search."

If anyone knows what tools need to be used to do this sort of UI design, could I please get a straightforward answer?

[jhayman]

Originally Posted by lmlloyd

OI'm looking to do a bit more ambitious theme, more along the lines of the Overlord theme in terms of total interface redesign, and neither here, nor on the Plazmic site do I find anything about how to change substantial parts of the OS, aside from people here saying "do a search."

If anyone knows what tools need to be used to do this sort of UI design, could I please get a straightforward answer?

Unless you work for Research in Motion, you cannot create a theme as ambitious as the Overlord theme.

[mister.zero]

Originally Posted by lmlloyd

If anyone knows what tools need to be used to do this sort of UI design, could I please get a straightforward answer?

Hey, he's right! This sort of behavior won't be tolerated! Just what the heck kind of service is he paying for here?

I'm with you brother; these people need to stop acting like our time isn't valuable.



Did anyone else think that their boss had posted to the forum? I sure did.

[lmlloyd]

Originally Posted by jhayman

Unless you work for Research in Motion, you cannot create a theme as ambitious as the Overlord theme.

Really? That's a shame. I was hoping I could use some sort of resource editor to replace the elements in theme builder, kind of like hacking sprites in a game.

Oh well, maybe with time.

[lmlloyd]

Originally Posted by mister.zero

Hey, he's right! This sort of behavior won't be tolerated! Just what the heck kind of service is he paying for here?

I'm with you brother; these people need to stop acting like our time isn't valuable.



Did anyone else think that their boss had posted to the forum? I sure did.

Well, it is a shame you have issues with your boss, but I hardly see how posting "no one knows of a way to do that" takes any more time than saying "there is already a thread, try using the search button."

The only real difference is that one requires admitting you don't know something, and the other just let's you treat someone else like an idiot for not knowing something you don't know either.

I'm sorry, I thought this was a site where people traded BlackBerry information, and talked about BlackBerries. I didn't mean to waste someone's time by <gasp> asking a question about a BlackBerry!

[mister.zero]

I love my boss. I think that you're great, too.

Here's to your happiness.