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View Full Version : [gnome] Theme designed specifically for a TV?



rjcoolpix880
March 17th, 2009, 04:02 PM
I spent a hour or so customizing my theme to be usable on my TV media center. ultimately the key was to make the font larger so i could read it on the low-res Television screen. I mainly use this to watch TV shows online ( i have boxee, for example), but still need to be able to read menus and configure the system and just tinker around in linux.

Does anyone know of a theme (or where i can look) to find themes that were actually designed for a TV? I haven't had any luck searching. It is different than a normal desktop theme in that it has to be low res (800x600 or 1024x768) and to be readable from 10 feet away.

Ive been so excited to FINALLY get Linux to work just like i want after years of failed attempts. And now i can get into the fun stuff and the tinkering!

mcduck
March 17th, 2009, 04:46 PM
Your best bet is to use even lower resolution, for TV use 640x480 would be the closest "normal" computer resolution. Both 800x600 and 1024x768 need to be downscaled for TV use. This is quite OK for movies and pictures but makes all graphics and text blurry and hard to read, even more so if you want to use the computer further away from the display.

rjcoolpix880
March 17th, 2009, 06:14 PM
The problem i have found is that i can only get to see all of the windows on specific programs if i set it to 1024x768 (or bigger i assume). if it is smaller than that i cant, for example, see the accept button at the bottom of a window, and cant re-size the window so i can scroll down...

mcduck
March 17th, 2009, 07:40 PM
In that case you can use Alt+left mouse button to move the window freely around from any point in the window (not just the titlebar). This would allow you to access parts of the window that don't fit on the screen.

It's pretty much a question of screen space versus usability. higher resolutions allow you to fit more things on the screen, but the truth is that only low resolution actually is usable on a low-resolution display like a TV and from longer viewing distances. Even if you'd find a theme that made everything big enough to fit on the screen you'd end with the same problem, as it would also make the program windows bigger just like changing the resolution does.

For the best results you'd need to use the exact TV resolution and then some user interface (not just a theme) made to be used on small resolutions. Of course that won't help with programs that still need more space, but TV just isn't the display suitable for normal computer use.

Command line, of course, doesn't need much display resolution and is quite usable with a TV as a display. But of having a home theater box with command line interface would be a bit on the geeky side.. ;)

edit: by the way, I used to have a Linux machine with TV as the only display, and I found Windowmaker to be the most usable window manager with TV resolutions.