Warning: Long Post
Alright, here's my first attempt! It took me ~20 hours to make. I figure learning the designing limitations and all the possibilities w root had a lot to do with it. I'd be working on something and have an idea so I would spend two hours reading up on it and trying to figure it out. A lot of the time, I'd find it didn't fit or just wasn't possible, haha. In other situations, it definitely paid off. HOPEFULLY it won't take quite as long in the future. Also, I'd love to hear your feedback so I can get better!
Apps Used:
Widget Locker
Minimalistic Text
Tasker
MultiPicture Live Wallpaper
Analog Clock
Apps Organizer
Desktop Visualizer (invisible Icons)
Beautiful Widgets ("invisible" toggles)
Note: You may not be able to tell what all my apps are since there are virtually no icons and only graphics.. but for the most part they make sense. I'll add little notes on each section too.
Also, I hope I listed all the apps I used. If you have any questions, let me know.
LockScreen:
Very basic.. using
Widget Locker and
Minimalistic Text. The text is battery life and weather. I had a hard time finding a background for the lock screen that I liked to fit with the layout. I saw a few cool ones here but wanted to find something I hadn't seen before. Still keeping my eye out.
Overview:
Here's a snapshot of what my whole layout looks like. Since the screens are one continuous room, I figured I'd post the 3 panels combined first so the separate frames make more sense. It's kind of hard to visualize how it looks on your phone when all you have is top-bottom pictures.
MultiPicture Live Wallpaper really helped here since I wanted to be able to just build everything into the picture. It turned out to be very smooth. Even though the first and third screens aren't exactly the same with their design elements it works fine on a phone. Plus it was pretty freaking cool when it all came together feeling like you're looking at a wall in one room.
First Screen:
This has most the apps I use. Each frame has an invisible icon over it. Starting L-R I have Music, movies, YouTube, Camera, Navigation, Twitter, "Other Apps", Ebooks, Games, Web, and Photo Album. The Nintendo game pad frame actually opens up a folder that has all my games in it. The other apps frame does likewise. It has stuff like Documents to go, calculator, metronome, etc. All the stuff I occasionally use. Thank you
Desktop Visualizer and
Apps Organizer, haha. All frames on the right might still be a little too bright as well.
Second (Home) Screen:
This screen was probably the easiest to design. Very basic. Getting the
Minimalistic Text to work probably with
Tasker was a pain. It was my first time ever using it but I survived. Couple cool things: Clicking on the lamp pulls up my flashlight app. The magazines open up the Market. The top text is battery life and the time, in case I'm too lazy to make sure I'm reading a handless clock properly.
Third Screen:
I feel this last panel is still a work in progress. I'm definitely open to opinions and ideas. It took the longest and I like that I can "fill in" extra space in the future with new apps, etc. Starting up top, L-R, are all my toggles starting with WiFi (I like how one of the "i"s is a wifi symbol
). While I was creating transparent toggle widgets, I ran into an error (limitation) in
BeautifulWidgets. When specifying their icon size and placement (as you have to keep their symbols in your icons), anything below 5% force-closed the app when applying the pack. It's not a problem when you can hide or incorporate them into your icons but trying to create invisible icons made it tough haha. Thus, you can see the small pixel in the center of the WiFi glow. However, it's not visible on the phone. Obviously "glow" determines the state of each toggle. No glow means it's off, and when it has the glow, it's obviously on.
After Wifi is GPS (3 images), followed by 6 which are for airplane mode. It currently isn't on and you can't see the center pixel on that one either. Far right is my screen brightness. Alas, this one looks like a tiny speck on the screen. Time to find a different image for that frame so it blends haha. The only other issue I really have here is that the glow isn't centered on the image. I might shift that whole column of the graphic down a bit in Photoshop but I can't really move it L-R any more. Minor complaint but I'll live for now. Next time I'm gotta make sure all my toggles line up better. That didn't fit with this design. Plus, if they are all identical (even built into a page) I can layer a really really sweet effect on each one for then they are active. Right now, the indistinct hazy glow had to do to make them fit better.
Onward.
Next row is tether (might change the icon from the guy holding the laptop to something else.. had a hard time finding an image that fit ), followed by the note (placeholder at this point). SetCPU is the modern art piece and the 1950s pinup girl is, of course, my calendar. I might move the calendar to the home screen or the 1st screen but I haven't decided. I like the pinup girl so if anything, I'm leaning 1st screen haha. I tried adding it to the wall on the home screen but getting the lighting / resolution etc. right is tough. The folder at the bottom is for all my other tools (rom manager, screen capture, root explorer, droid wall, terminal, etc) And the security guy holding the key is Titanium backup, haha.
Well, this turned out to be really long and probably way too ramble-y but there you have it. I want to start designing more "icon free" themes like this (should take a lot less time.. minus building/designing the backgrounds haha) but I want to first set up some layouts in Photoshop so I know exactly where the rows / columns will be. That way I know all my icons and toggles will be perfectly centered when I start making the background so I can design around them.
Alright, I'm done!
