Carbide.ui bugs on N73 ME

[zhvihti]

I find Carbide.ui a nice tool to work with, but there are a few serious issues I encountered while making a theme for my N73 Music Edition. I explain them below in the hope of getting a solution as well as helping others who might be stuck. I couldn't find info on the net about any of the behaviors below.

The Specs
Nikia N73 Music Edition with firmware revision 3.0638.0.0.30 (latest as of this writing)
Carbide.ui version 3.1.1 (latest as of this writing)

Carbide.ui General Problems
1. The search view only searches from the beginning of the element name which is pointless - if I knew the beginning I could as well scroll.

Notice all the elements containing the word "Position":
Carbide.ui Screenshot

Notice how when searching for "pos" none of them appear:
Phone Screenshot

2. In the "Form Selection List" layout it is not possible to select the checkbox - it can neither be clicked nor is in the "Form Selection List elements" view (the one that is by default in the bottom left corner). The solution is to find and edit "Form Popup List Checkbox" from the search view. An additional omission is that these checkboxes only have one state. Unlike the others there is no destinction between a highlighted and a not highlighted state.

Checkboxes
In the "Setting Selection List" layout Carbide.ui offers two states for the checkboxes - when highlighted and when not. However, my N73 uses the not highted state for all checkboxes.

Checkbox colors as configured in Carbide.ui:
Carbide.ui Screenshot

Checkbox colors as seen on the phone:
Phone Screenshot

Notepad
The line colors set for the Notepad in Carbide.ui are disregarded by the phone. Additionally it is impossible to change the background because on the phone there are always two blue artifacts left - in the tope left and top right corners.

Notepad as configured in Carbide.ui:
Carbide.ui Screenshot

Notepad as seen on the phone (note blue artifacts and line colors):
Phone Screenshot

Highlights
1. When the normal text color for highlighted entries ("List Texts") is set to black (#000000), the phone actually displays it as white (#FFFFFF). This is a very strange behavior, but fortunately there is a simple workaround - set the color to #010101 which is still black but does not get changed.

Text color for highlighted entries as configured in Carbide.ui (the "All Tracks" text):
Carbide.ui Screenshot

Text color for highlighted entries as seen on the phone (notice how the "All Tracks" text is completely white):
Phone Screenshot

2. Carbide.ui has a background for highlighted entries called "Animated List Highlight". It shown among others in the "Contacts" and the "Settings List" layouts. However, the phone disregards this highlight and uses the normal one ("List Highlight").

In the first set of screenshots you can actually observe two bugs - this and the previous one. Together they turn a configuration of black text on yellow background to white text on white background.

Background for highlighted entries as configured in Carbide.ui (in yellow):
Carbide.ui Screenshot 1
Carbide.ui Screenshot 2

Background for highlighted entries as seen on phone (in white which is the standard "List Highlight"):
Phone Screenshot 1
Phone Screenshot 2

List Frame
In Carbide.ui, in the "Form Selection List" layout, the list of options has a background "Unfocused List Frame". I believe that this is a mistake because in order to get the list from the layout it has to be clicked (which makes it focused). The phone seems to agree with that because it shows the background for a focues list ("Focused List Frame").

The list background as configured in Carbide.ui:
Carbide.ui Screenshot

The list background as seen on the phone:
Background for highlighted entries as seen on phone (in white which is the standard "List Highlight"):
Phone Screenshot

The Theme
I can supply the Carbide.ui source files for the theme if anybody wants to test.

Please note that the background image in the theme is courtesy of Andreas Westvik - see the original image.

Any comments welcome

[hor255]

Hi zhvihti,

Thanks for great feedback, I will try to comment your comments, but not all at once because I have to leave the comp soon. I hope to comment rest of your comments latest tomorrow:-).

The search view only searches from the beginning of the element name which is pointless - if I knew the beginning I could as well scroll.

You can use wildcard "*" that means any string. So looking for word containing position, just enter "*position". Please note that the text in the input filters all columns not just the "Name" column (so you can search in other columns as well).

2. In the "Form Selection List" layout it is not possible to select the checkbox - it can neither be clicked nor is in the "Form Selection List elements" view (the one that is by default in the bottom left corner). The solution is to find and edit "Form Popup List Checkbox" from the search view. An additional omission is that these checkboxes only have one state. Unlike the others there is no destinction between a highlighted and a not highlighted state.

Some elements do not have preview yet, I suppose the preview for all elements may be added in some of the future versions of Carbide.ui.

[hor255]

Checkboxes
In the "Setting Selection List" layout Carbide.ui offers two states for the checkboxes - when highlighted and when not. However, my N73 uses the not highted state for all checkboxes.

If you have a look at the Properties view, you can see that modifying Setting List HighLight Checkbox is supported since S60 3rd Edition FP1. Currently AFAIK only phone that belongs to that category is N95.

[hor255]

Notepad
The line colors set for the Notepad in Carbide.ui are disregarded by the phone. Additionally it is impossible to change the background because on the phone there are always two blue artifacts left - in the tope left and top right corners.

I cant answer this without more details. It would be nice to see the theme...

[hor255]

Highlights
1. When the normal text color for highlighted entries ("List Texts") is set to black (#000000), the phone actually displays it as white (#FFFFFF). This is a very strange behavior, but fortunately there is a simple workaround - set the color to #010101 which is still black but does not get changed.

Strange, I will try to investigate it...

2. Carbide.ui has a background for highlighted entries called "Animated List Highlight". It shown among others in the "Contacts" and the "Settings List" layouts. However, the phone disregards this highlight and uses the normal one ("List Highlight").

This may be again connected with platform support. If you hover with mouse over "3rd" box you can see sentence: "If no effect is defined, standard non animated version is used." Have you used any effect?

[hor255]

List Frame
In Carbide.ui, in the "Form Selection List" layout, the list of options has a background "Unfocused List Frame". I believe that this is a mistake because in order to get the list from the layout it has to be clicked (which makes it focused). The phone seems to agree with that because it shows the background for a focues list ("Focused List Frame").

There seem to be something wrong I must check it.

[zhvihti]

Thanks for your feedback. Sorry for replying so late - I haven't checked the forum in the last couple of days.

You can use wildcard "*" that means any string. So looking for word containing position, just enter "*position". Please note that the text in the input filters all columns not just the "Name" column (so you can search in other columns as well).

Thanks very much for the tip - didn't think about this.

If you have a look at the Properties view, you can see that modifying Setting List HighLight Checkbox is supported since S60 3rd Edition FP1. Currently AFAIK only phone that belongs to that category is N95.

This may be again connected with platform support. If you hover with mouse over "3rd" box you can see sentence: "If no effect is defined, standard non animated version is used." Have you used any effect?

For these two it's my mistake - I did not look at the support and the comments. I'm not using any effect, so it does default to the normal non-animated version.

I cant answer this without more details. It would be nice to see the theme...

Here are the theme source files here in the version that I used for my original post (with bright colors). There you can see the notepad with red background and black lines.

Theme source files

[hor255]

Notepad

As for the lines it seems to be a bug, as it cannot be changed even in the N95 - S60 3rd Edition FP1 (I have tried it using RDA).

And for the background, the background is ok on N95 (S60 FP1), though the top corners it do not seem to work on S60 3rd edition devices so it is probably bug in S60 3rd resolved in S60 3rd FP1.

[hor255]

List Frame

As for this it seems to be a bug as well as it works differently (I have tried example Zebra theme as well) on Carbide.ui and N95 (S60 3rd FP1)...