"Official" Beautiful Widgets Skinning Thread

[dmartins]

Hello everyone,

The problem I'm having is that I dont understand the difference between the "Beautiful Home Weather widget" and the "Beautiful Super Clock 4x2 widget". Because from what I can tell, they both perform the same thing, except that you get tons more skins if you choose Beautiful Home Weather.

I will try and explain:

Long press on the screen and select widgets, then Beautiful widgets, and then "Beautiful Home Weather"( See Pic 1 ), next make whatever adjustments and select "Save & Apply".

Then goto "App Drawer", where all app icons are( See Pic 2 ) and select Beautiful Widget icon. Next, select "Home Skins"( See Pic 3 ). From here, select "Download Skins"( See Pic 4 ) and you will see a very BIG list of skins to choose.

Now select "Installed Skins" and find the skin you just downloaded and click it to apply. Then, hit the back menu button...two times. The skin is now displayed.

** Here is the part I dont understand **

If you go back to the Beautiful Widget icon and select "Super Clock Settings"( See Pic 3), then select "Appearance", and then select "Super Clock Skins"( See Pic 5) and finally select "Download Skins"( See Pic 6 ). You will notice a much smaller list of skins to choose. Also if you try and apply the skin it will not work.



So, can someone please explain the difference.


Thanks in advance,
BK


PS: Sorry no pic 6 cause this forum would not allow 6 uploads

Home Skins = Old clock skins
Super Clock Skins are the new skins for super clock.
Super clock has a new way of making skins so there aren't that many yet.
You can upload pics to a different site and add them using the url to the image.

 

[raelic]

If this helps,

I am using the templates of course from your site for the superclock. All other graphics I have made work on my test clock but the background. I am testing on my nexus one, I have the most recent copy of BW installed on my phone, and I am using adobe photoshop to design the graphics with the background being exported as a 24bit png.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Edit: Uploaded a psd file that I got to work.
Proof:

Thanks, I got it to work with this ...but man does it look hideous how it stretches out certain areas. I am not a fan of the new 9patch idea at all. It would be better to use a higher res / background image in my personal opinion (I know uses up more memory), but that is just my 2 cents. I will stick to the regular skins for now.

The only other thing (sorry noob to this) that I am trying to figure out is how people are getting the screenshot of their skin (from phone it appears) to add to the folder for people to see how it looks. I have a finished theme, but I don't want to upload it until I have this. Thanks by the way guys for all your help, and I hope you like my finished product when I get it uploaded.

 

[dmartins]

The only other thing (sorry noob to this) that I am trying to figure out is how people are getting the screenshot of their skin (from phone it appears) to add to the folder for people to see how it looks. I have a finished theme, but I don't want to upload it until I have this. Thanks by the way guys for all your help, and I hope you like my finished product when I get it uploaded.

I use a program called screenshots(needs rooted phone) to take a screen shot.(with invert Red and blue colors enabled.)
You can then just cut out the part you need.
No idea how others do it.

 

[raelic]

test screenshot

The only other thing (sorry noob to this) that I am trying to figure out is how people are getting the screenshot of their skin (from phone it appears) to add to the folder for people to see how it looks. I have a finished theme, but I don't want to upload it until I have this. Thanks by the way guys for all your help, and I hope you like my finished product when I get it uploaded.

I use a program called screenshots(needs rooted phone) to take a screen shot.(with invert Red and blue colors enabled.)
You can then just cut out the part you need.
No idea how others do it.

I got it working! Here's a brief preview at least for now. I am thinking of getting rid of the ' : ' being I can't get it to align properly no matter how I export the image for this. Otherwise I think it is a go as is. Thanks for your help by the way!

 

[fst2011]

I understand that it is new and that is why there are not as many skins...but what I cant make sense of...is what is the real difference?

Meaning, can the super clock doing anything different? If you visually look at them both, there is no difference...right? Cause when I look at them, the skins dont look any sharper on the super clock...what am I missing?

Does the super clock have more features? I just dont get it.


Thanks for the help on this. I'm not trying to be a ball buster, just trying to understand what the real difference between the two are.


BK

 

[dmartins]

I understand that it is new and that is why there are not as many skins...but what I cant make sense of...is what is the real difference?

Meaning, can the super clock doing anything different? If you visually look at them both, there is no difference...right? Cause when I look at them, the skins dont look any sharper on the super clock...what am I missing?

Does the super clock have more features? I just dont get it.


Thanks for the help on this. I'm not trying to be a ball buster, just trying to understand what the real difference between the two are.


BK

The only difference I know of is the way to theme it and how it renders that theme.
I guess it's suppose to be better since it only needs 1 background and it can resize it.

 

[Shivah]

I think it just makes it easier to transition a skin to multiple devices. I've run into problems with certain skin pieces because I can't test them on my Incredible. They would look fine with a simple skin (stretchable) but not with a highly modified/textured skin. I'd like it if the online market had a way to add a comment about the skin you're posting (for example: No Wide Versions).

 

[steakdaddy]

Check it out, my first set of skins:

I am going to email them off tonight, but if someone wants them, send me a PM with your email address.

 

[VinS]

For the super clock, it's a system of custom ninepatch that is used. Depending of the black lines the layout will be stretched or not.

In the SDK it asks to put lines to stretch the layout.
This is the background_number.png image. As you can see there is black lines on the top. These ones permits to stretch the image on the X axis ( <-> ). The ones in height permits to stretch on Y axis.

No = not stretched
X = Stretched on width
Y = stretched on height
X-Y = stretched in the both way

Take care putting these lines because depending of them it can mess your nice design.


There you can see that the green lines come over the rounded corner and the transition color between green to black. This stretches them and mess the proper corner as you can see on the screenshot.


There I modified the 9patch (black lines) to keep the round corners away from the stretched zone. I have also taked care of the "sun effect" in the middle of the button to not stretch the bad area. This way it don't mess your skin.

This system permits to have a more accurate view when stretched in different format (landscape/ LDPI / HDPI ) . This way, no matter how the layout is stretched, the lines will remain proper and not blurry.

Some sources of ninepatch :
http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/draw9patch.html
http://www.developer.com/ws/other/a...NinePatch-Stretchable-Graphics-in-Android.htm
http://www.androidacademy.com/3-tutorials/43-hands-on/154-device-independent-display-scaling?start=1

PS : You can submit skins to support at levelupstudio dot com

 

[anneparker]

I've been looking into getting myself a htc Desire HD skin cover , but from what I've read it's only really available in Europe for the time being. From what I understand, even though it uses some of the same bands, if I imported one to North America, it would still only pick up on the EDGE networks

htc desire skin cover

 

[leprophotography]

More skins for you guys to share.

 

[dianaraven]

Standard Battery Skin

Is anyone else having a problem with setting the battery skin in the super clock to the standard one (the one that shows a ring)? I can change to any other of the skins that can be downloaded, but when I choose the standard one, after applying, it will default to the gingerbread skin, and I didn't even download that skin. Any tips on how to fix this? I tried everything I can think of: clearing the data, uninstalling and deleting any associated files, installing a previous version. Does anyone have the files for the battery skin?

 

[whitedragon551]

I dont see the Eclair skin in the downloadable skins. Anyone else have this issue?

 

[leprophotography]

More skins for ya.... Enjoy!

 

[VinS]

Is anyone else having a problem with setting the battery skin in the super clock to the standard one (the one that shows a ring)? I can change to any other of the skins that can be downloaded, but when I choose the standard one, after applying, it will default to the gingerbread skin, and I didn't even download that skin. Any tips on how to fix this? I tried everything I can think of: clearing the data, uninstalling and deleting any associated files, installing a previous version. Does anyone have the files for the battery skin?

Hi,

We had to change the default skin Circled to Gingerbat to lower the weight of Beautiful Widgets (200ko vs 50Ko)

You can get Circled in the battery skin list.

Have a nice day