Why use Rockbox, it seems so UGLY

[hotrod]

I really want to try Rockbox on my e260. I would love to have the clock on my now playing screen and the ability to bookmark my audio/book mp3 files. But the totally text driven menu structure seems horrible.

I haven't loaded rockbox onto my sansa yet, only downloaded the simulator and installed a couple of themes. And while the themes improve the look, none of them look anywhere close to something as nice as the original sansa look, let alone an ipod....with scrolling menus and icons.

Am I missing something?

[major_works]

You don't work for SanDisk by any chance, do you?

Just kidding.

You can kvetch all day long about aesthetics and menu structures; one man's pill is another's poison. But I regard my Sansa as a music player first and foremost, and music sounds better when running Rockbox than when running the retail OS. That's what you're missing. Since you're running only the simulator, you'd have trouble figuring that out, I guess.

And, remember that Rockbox is almost endlessly customizable. Don't like the themes you see out there? Make a better one for yourself.

[kratonator]

The Rockbox devs have already answered your question and they made a wiki page exactly for your question. Concerning the looks of Rockbox, you can have a look at Rockbox-Themes.org or in our subforum where you can find a lot of themes to chose from.

[chrisjs162216]

Some Developers will just tell you that if you want something better, code it yourself. there are quite a few themes around, but you also have to understand that scrolling menus etc take extra processing power, which could make it slower and/or decrease battery life slightly. While I'm sure it could be possible to use parts of pictureflow to make a scrolling menu, keep in mind that all of this work in volunteer - patchers, custom builders and the official developers, don't get paid for any of this. While my stat's script isn't loading at the moment, I get about around 100 downloads per day for my build, meaning somebody must like Rockbox.

[hotrod]

Thanks guys. I guess my major problem is the menus. Unfortunately, I bought this for my wife, so she technically owns and uses it from time to time, but I use it the most. She wants things simple.

But I guess I could mess around....She can still get to the original Sansa interface by holding down power and left button, correct?

Should I start now, or wait a couple of weeks until more of this Viewports stuff gets implemented?

Can I be running the Stopwatch pluggin and listening to music at the same time?

There are so many themes, which ones are best? Can I have more than one theme on my sansa to try out?

Thanks for helping a noob out.

[Cruleworld]

She can still get to the original Sansa interface by holding down power and left button, correct?
Yes this is correct

Should I start now, or wait a couple of weeks until more of this Viewports stuff gets implemented?
I haven't noticed a difference really, If you going to do it just go for it.

Can I be running the Stopwatch plug-in and listening to music at the same time?
I believe you can

There are so many themes, which ones are best?
Cowon is good if you want a lot of info, The Aero series is good if you like plain and simple.

Can I have more than one theme on my sansa to try out?
You can have all the themes on your sansa at once, Some may not work with some builds though.

[chadtheguru]

Originally Posted by hotrod

She can still get to the original Sansa interface by holding down power and left button, correct?

As a matter of fact, you can do it without her knowing! There is a reverse bootloader available on this thread that will boot the OF without pressing anything and rockbox with the button press. That's what I did until I decided I liked rockbox better.

[hotrod]

Cool Thanks.

[Llorean]

they are basic since Rockbox is written in C

This is absolute silliness.

Many, many nice looking programs, including some quite graphically advanced games, have been written in C or C++. The language has nothing at all to do with how nice it can look. In fact, I would be very, very, very surprised if the original firmware wasn't written in C too.