A link dump for useful design resources
July 16, 2010 by Lemon · Leave a Comment
I regularly save links to useful design tutorials and art blogs that I can get Sweeter Home design inspiration from. Now I’m sharing that with you!
I’ll be adding to this list almost daily. I’ll include anything useful regarding creating custom elements you can use in your Sweeter Home themes including UI design, icons, templates and more. Most of these will be Photoshop tutorials, but you can use the same principals with free software like The GIMP, Paint.NET or Inkscape; or more affordable graphics programs like the excellent Pixelmator for OS X.
As well as me adding to the list, I’ve included a form where you can submit links you’ve found useful too! So submit those awesome Icon Packs and wallpaper sites you use and let’s build something we can all use to build kick-ass, graphically rich themes!
Theme Previews: You’re doing it wrong
April 8, 2010 by Lemon · Leave a Comment
Well, not all of you are… but a LOT of you are doing it wrong. When you upload your Sweeter Home theme to the theme browser on the Sweeter Home server (that’s the list where others can view and download your themes) a screen shot of your theme in edit mode is automatically added as the theme preview. The problem there is that your theme is now presented to others like this:
Not so good. Using this method you’re not presenting how your theme actually looks in active mode.
Here’s what you should be doing when sharing your themes:
- When you’re ready to share your theme with the Sweeter Home world, choose an active screen that looks great
- Hit the menu button and press More
- Press Screen Capture
- Make sure Use as Preview for upload is checked
- Press Save
- THEN go into Edit Mode and upload the theme immediately
Choosing a good preview that really represents the best your theme has to offer is the difference between getting 20 or so downloads, or thousands of downloads like the themes below.
Using custom images in Sweeter Home
January 27, 2010 by Lemon · 11 Comments
In Edit Mode Sweeter Home is aligned into a 16×16 grid. Due to different screen resolutions this means the actual pixel size of each grid division is different depending on the device you’re using.
To help those of you who like to create custom images for their themes, and want to get your image alignment perfect, attached are PSD (Photoshop) files with a graphical (pixel) grid on a layer as well as actual Photoshop guides already laid out for you. At the moment I’m supplying portrait only.
(If you don’t use Photoshop and want these supplied as just a PNG or JPG please comment here and let me know).
Community
Since the launch of the Beta there are thousands of users building theme’s with Sweeter Home, and hundreds of themes have been shared to the Sweeter Home server.
A vocal and helpful community is developing too, so here’s some more places you can go to talk to others other Sweeter Home:
Here! sweeterskins.net!
- Subscribe to my RSS feed so you don’t miss out on news and fresh info
- Follow me on Twitter
- Check out the #SH2tips hashtag. Use it to add your own tips.
- Connect with other users, ask questions and share your themes in the Forum
- Read through the Documentation (work in progress). You can add docs through this topic.
There are several Android forums with great Sweeter Home topics right now. The most vibrant are:
There is one particular situation where Sweeter Home needs community feedback desperately. A small number of Droid users are reporting a boot hang after a crash where the screen appears stuck on the Red Eye. While there are a couple of quick fix workarounds, what we really need is is a logcat of the boot process. If you have experienced this (or are experiencing it right now) please READ THIS HELP PAGE. With your help we can fix this experience for all Sweeter Home Droid users.
Sharing your themes
January 14, 2010 by Lemon · 8 Comments
There are a ton of people sharing themes on Sweeter Home right now. If you’re building themes to share here’s a few tips for you:
Attach a screen shot from your live theme to your upload. This is actually very simple to do but not many people are doing it. When you’re in your active theme (ie: not in edit mode) set it up looking it’s best, then hit the menu button > More > Screen Capture. There you’ll see an option to ‘Use as Preview for upload’. Make sure that is selected, then click save. The next time you upload this theme it will use that image as the preview. It’s good way to make sure your theme look it’s best at upload, and will guarantee you downloads.
If you’re building to share with others, then think about content. Not everyone has the same widgets installed that you do, so maximise the use of the internal widgets (like SMS). If you have many widgets in your theme, those are going to be mostly avoided or replaced by your users, so consider leaving them out in the first place.
Embed and lock Custom Trays. The content in any Custom Tray will not be shared unless you set Embed to Yes. Also once your Custom Tray is set up consider locking it, so your users don’t accidentally drag the apps out of the tray. Custom Trays are also the only trays to receive icon replacements using apps like Better Cut, so if you want your users to experience your custom made icons then use a Custom Tray.
Share through a blog or forum. You can upload your SLX theme file from your SD card to the internet. Wanna get fancy? Link using the sweeterhome:// protocol (instead of http://) and the theme will launch to Sweeter Home right from your phone browser. (Test by visiting this post from your phone – click here: DarkRisingStars)
Get to it and share your themes!
Very quick intro video – SH2 beta
January 12, 2010 by Lemon · 5 Comments
Keep your Android phone running quick
January 1, 2010 by Lemon · 8 Comments
While we wait for the public beta of everyone’s soon-to-be favourite home replacement, let’s look at ways to speed up your phone. A lot of people experience lag when using Android, so here’s a few tips for keeping your phone light weight and zippy fast. (These are more for G1, Magic users etc – not so much for Droid and newer phones with those kick-ass processors.)
- Sweeter Home: Remove all icons and widgets from your stock home screen. The app Home Switcher makes changing between homes nice and simple.
- Backup then delete your SMS/MMS messages, often. Use SMS Backup or something similar to backup your SMS. Delete all threads. Do this every 1 or 2 weeks.
- Be careful with wallpaper filesize. The reason the android default wallpaper app puts horrible looking compression on your wallpaper is to keep the file size down. If you use a background app (like the excellent Wallpaper Set and Save) make sure your source files aren’t too big. Anything under 100KB should be ok.
- Those apps you don’t use? Delete ‘em. Keep your app drawer trim. That app you downloaded last month and thought it was cool but haven’t used since? Get rid of it. A particular app may be killing your battery usage or CPU also, so trial and error removing certain apps to see if your phone gets faster once it’s been removed.
- Those widgets you don’t use? Delete ‘em. Clock widgets are a particularly bad offender, often running in the background even if they’re not active. Only keep widgets installed that you actually run.
- Change update frequencies. Lengthen the time periods for RSS apps, Twitter apps, weather apps etc to update. No brainer.
- Use a task killer. you shouldn’t have to rely on this too heavily, but it’s handy once in a while. There are oodles of recommended free and paid task managers.
- Restart your phone. You should have done this with your dumb phone every few months anyway. try it every 1 or 2 weeks with Android.
More wallpapers
July 16, 2009 by Lemon · Leave a Comment
http://www.flickr.com/groups/androidandmewp/pool/
Join the group and add your wallpapers. Remember to credit the creator of the image when ever you can!
In the meantime…
While I still struggle to get some quality alone time with my laptop here’s some wallpapers for you kids.
This first lot are mine, all mine, meaning I took them and own the rights. They’re Creative Commons Attribution and Non-Commercial (which means use ‘em all you want but don’t make money off them and please link back to me!)…
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| Android CC Wallpapers |
This second bunch are the most of the rest I have on my phone. Most of these are plucked from g1wallz.com. Please head there and take a look, it’s a great site! The rest are possibly taken from Flickr or from art blog feeds into my RSS Reader. I don’t know who own the rights to a lot of these so please use them respectfully. If you’re the owner and want these removed don’t hesitate to contact me immediately.
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| Android wallpapers |