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PocketPC Today Themes FAQUsing Themes
Any PocketPC 2002 (or better) device may use the themes. This includes IPaq PocketPCs which have been upgraded to PocketPC 2002. Older PocketPC devices, such as the HP Jornada 540 series, cannot make use of themes. What do I do with the themes I download? After you download a theme you must transfer it to your device before you can use it. Theme files will have a ".TSK" extension. You must place theme files into either your devices "My Documents" (either on a storage card or in system RAM) or "Windows" folder. Once the file is on the device it is ready to use. How do I use a theme on my device? You may have as many themes on your device as you wish (well, as many as you can fit), however you may only use one at a time. To select which theme to use follow these instructions:
Building ThemesHow do I build my own themes? Simple: download the Microsoft Theme Generator. Making themes is insanely easy with this tool. Choose a couple images, set some colors and see all your choices immediately in a full-sized preview. What kind of images do I need for themes? Ones you like work best, of course. The generator lets you choose two images: one "background" image and another, smaller "Start Menu" image. These must be of type "JPG", "GIF" (static or animated both work fine), or "BMP". You'll find that monotonal images (pretty much "all light", "all dark", "all warm", "all cold", etc) work best. Images containing extremes of contrast or color make it impossible to find a text color that can be read over the image. Each image can have a different transparency level applied. Setting this high can make text visible on otherwise useless images at the cost of image definition and contrast.
Although the PocketPC has a 240x320 pixel resolution some of those pixels are used for the toolbars so your background image will be limited to 240x268 pixels. Your Start menu image is smaller but variable: its size depends upon the number of programs in your start menu and the length of their names. With the default program selection it's 148x285. It will never get longer than that (although it can get shorter) but its width will change depending upon the programs displayed. The Theme Generator can crop images automatically (although it always crops from the upper left-hand corner) so you don't have to be spot-on with the sizes. Since the Start Menu size is variable we find it best to use the same source image for both the background and the Start Menu and set a different transparency level. The Depressed Press Theme GalleryWill the Depressed Press publish my themes? Sure, as long as they don't offend us in some way. Just contact webmaster@depressedpress.com if you'd like to make a submission. Some of your images are obviously copyrighted, do you have any rights to use them? Although most of the themes in our collection represent wholly original works, some do not. We do not claim ownership or usage rights of any kind for these themes. We make every attempt to credit copyright holders. We're simply fans that like to promote those things that we find worthy of promotion. We will gladly remove any theme upon the request of its copyright owner. Are there any usage rules for the themes available at DepressedPress.com? Not many. We grant you an unlimited, non-exclusive license to use any of the themes we provide. You may pass them out to your friends, enemies or total strangers. You may not sell them or claim authorship or ownership of them. Can I put your themes on my site for download? As long as the file is accompanied with a link to DepressedPress.com and an author credit. Although we prefer you link to this site we would rather you put the theme file on your site than "blind link" directly to the file. |
What devices can use the themes?
What size do my images need to be?