[5g/5.5g] How to make your own dock highlighter for Showtime

[theInvisible]

This is a real quick and simple tutorial on how to change the icon highlight for the dock on Showtime. Keep in mind I am not a pro and all this was figured out by trial and error on my behalf.

- Step 1.
Load the Showtime firmware and go to the fonts tab and go to the correct font number. 16 for 5.5G and 19 for 5G (I believe).



- Step 2.
Make your highlight. Use photoshop or whatever to draw out your highlights however you please. I used drop shadow for mine.



- Step 3.
Once you get your highlight done place it on the font bitmap. You can use mine as a template. Make sure the highlight does not go higher than it does on mine, otherwise it will be cut off. Anything below where mine cuts off on the bottom will not be show either.


(actual sized one attached at bottom of post)

- Step 4.
Load your font bitmap. When you do this you will notice that it does not align with the boxes shown. This will need to be changed (Yay! You get to edit the font matrics!)



Here is where the matrics are edited:


- Step 5.
When you begin to edit the matrics start with getting the sizing right. Don't worry about indenting just yet..

Each highlight has it's own index number. The first one is 2, not 1. The last two are repeated so there are two of each. Just remember whatever you change in 8 has to be the same in 10 and whatever is changed in 9 has to be the same in 11.

Do not change the width, only change the offset. In this case the offset2 needs to be changed to 36 from 38 to get it to be correct. Remember when you change offset2 on one index you also need to change offset1 on the next index to be the same.



- Step 6.
Now is the hard part, changing the Indent. This is where I cannot help you as each highlight will be different you will have to try to get it to match for yourself. To do this you constantly have to guess and write it to your iPod. (If someone else has an easier way, please tell me).

- Step 7.
This is the final step... finishing. When you are done the highlights will match up perfectly with your icons on your iPod and the screen in iPW will look like this:



Now just save out the metrics and font bitmap and zip them with your theme so others can use it as well.

/rice Now you're done! /rice2

I hope this tutorial helps those who are trying to make themes for showtime. *cough*aldog*cough*

- Here is the Font bitmap that I made:

[aldog]

Originally Posted by theInvisible

*cough*aldog*cough*[/size]

hahaha, thanks invisible. It's a great tutorial! once I get off my mbp I'll give it a try, seems like an excellent tutorial, definitely sounds tedious, but you wrote it well, I wasn't like "WTF!!!" for any of it
=)
thanks, can't wait to get my theme done now.

[theInvisible]

No problem. If you need any more help let me know. I'll be glad to help.

[ben200345]

Great job, thanks. Great tut.

[Tylertut]

Nice
Made some
Love the Tut

[Bolt]

good tut. very visual.