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!
hey, just tried clicking the darkstar link and it won’t open. maybe because of firefox but it says there’s no protocol for opening this link. but great to see we’ll be able to view themes online!
Awesome tips, as always. I have been wondering why all the screen shot in the Themes section show just about EVERYTHING from the home screen. Pretty confusing, but your explanations have hopefully solved that!
Great! Thanks for the tips Lemon. Is there a way to save my customized theme without uploading it so I can check out other themes? Sounds like the SLX file is where its stored, but I liked being able to switch between themes from my phone in version 1. Its not that I don’t want to share, but it is not ready yet.
Hit Export/Upload and change “Internet” to “SD card”
@ LBreen: That is because that link was designed to be accessed from your PHONE – not your desktop.
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You may want to watch what you include with your uploaded theme. One theme I downloaded recently still had direct links to the mans contacts list and also the phone numbers and images of those people on it.
Sharing that all over the internet is probably not a good thing.
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