Specifications

Chapter 13. Advanced Topics 140
and the SBS or Base Skin. The WPS is the name used to describe the information
displayed on the player’s screen whilst an audio track is being played, the FMS is the
screen shown while listening to the radio, and the SBS lets you specify a base skin that is
shown in the menus and browsers, as well as the WPS and FMS. The SBS also allows you
to control certain aspects of the appearance of the menus/browsers. There are a number
of themes included in Rockbox, and you can load one of these at any time by selecting
it in Settings → Theme Settings → Browse Theme Files. It is also possible to
set individual items of a theme from within the Settings → Theme Settings menu.
13.2.2. Themes – Create Your Own
The theme files are simple text files, and can be created (or edited) in your favourite
text editor. To make sure non-English characters display correctly in your theme you
must save the theme files with UTF-8 character encoding. This can be done in most
editors, for example Notepad in Windows 2000 or XP (but not in 9x/ME) can do this.
Files Locations: Each different “themeable” aspect requires its own file – WPS files
have the extension .wps, FM screen files have the extension .fms, and SBS files
have the extension .sbs. The main theme file has the extension .cfg. All files
should have the same name.
The theme .cfg file should be placed in the /.rockbox/themes directory, while the
.wps, .fms and .sbs files should be placed in the /.rockbox/wps directory. Any
images used by the theme should be placed in a subdirectory of /.rockbox/wps
with the same name as the theme, e.g. if the theme files are named mytheme.wps,
mytheme.sbs etc., then the images should be placed in /.rockbox/wps/mytheme.
All full list of the available tags are given in appendix section C (page 156); some of
the more powerful concepts in theme design are discussed below.
• All characters not preceded by % are displayed as typed.
• Lines beginning with # are comments and will be ignored.
Note: Keep in mind that your player’s resolution is 112×64×1 (with the last number
b
giving the colour depth in bits) when designing your own WPS, or if you use a WPS
designed for another target.
Viewports
By default, a viewport filling the whole screen contains all the elements defined in each
theme file. The text is rendered in the same font as in the main menu. To change this
behaviour a custom viewport can be defined. A viewport is a rectangular window on the
screen. This window also has variable dimensions. To define a viewport a line starting
%V(... has to be present in the theme file. The full syntax will be explained later in
The Rockbox manual (version rUnversioned directory-150515) Archos Recorder