Juniskin thoughts

Mobility - It ain't easy being green!

How many years has it been since SciFi? Two at least, I think. Juni's not exactly been doing nothing, but those freelance projects for various companies do start to add up. It's far past time to make some new things, and with that, Juni was feeling a bit green for the past few months. ;)

See my previous post. and his blog for more details, but so far, as of this posting, Only the Mobihand site is truly live. Handango is activated, but they'll update it when they update, as per usual. Mobility still needs to be added to SBSH's download database, and they've been really busy lately, so we're also waiting on that before we can activate our Paypal store. In the meantime though, Mobihand is a great site run by great people.

I apologize for the delay with Paypal, but I said we would release today, and so we are.

It's been a long way, but we're here. ;)

Update:

Handango is now live. The word from SBSH is that we'll have the download db up and running soon.

Mobility is barely a day old and we're already talking updates. Some of the ideas out there are Phoneweaver support, as much 320x320 support is possible (at this moment, only today screen and WA3), and 480x800 Today Themes, making the skin suite WVGA friendly. At least updates are free. ;)

Mobility Skin Suite - Almost there

Juni lives! I told you he would release something someday, and we are almost there now. The new skin suite is done, the site is created, and there's even a teaser over at Juniskins. The only thing we're waiting on now is for SBSH to add it to the download db.

In the meantime, I can tell you a little bit about Mobility skin suite.  Mobility is a take on a clean simple default look. It has three today themes, 1 Wisbar Advance 3 theme, Pocketbreeze/Contactbreeze, iLauncher meters and tabs, and Pocketweather icons along with two layouts.

As I've talked about before, SPB Pocketplus and Marsware Weatherpanel have been dropped. Weatherpanel in its official form doesn't really exist anymore. If you're a hardcore enough user to stick with Weatherpanel, you're probably hardcore enough to port the icons yourself. We have a lot of customers who are new to Windows Mobile customization, and we just cannot offer support for a program like Weatherpanel. As for Pocketplus, most of our customers don't use it, and it is difficult to skin. When Juni started out, he made a promise to himself to keep things fun by only skinning what he uses. Remember this was supposed to be fun. ;)

Juni mentioned that with this one, there will be a grace period of a few weeks where, if you want a skin for a program added, start demanding it loudly. If enough people want, for example, Phoneweaver, or 320x320 today and WA3 themes, he'll quickly add them. It's not like he wouldn't add anything outside of that time window, it's just that as a skinner, you start to move on to other stuff.

320x320 square screen support was something we planned on offering, especially since we planned on getting such a device. But as it turns out, not many programs support it. This is because MS took the clever decision to make 320 its own resolution. It's not VGA, it's not QVGA, it's 67% smaller than VGA. This means for a program to support it, everything in its GUI has to be scaled... and probably some other stuff that I don't know about because I'm not a programmer. In terms of skins, everything has to be made 67% of VGA. Of the programs we use, only WA3 supports 320x320 (I think). As it is, all the skins are VGA and QVGA, with 240x240 square screen support.

Speaking of other stuff, he hasn't forgotten about updating the other Exclusives to WA3. SWDeluxe and SBSHDeluxe have already gotten that treatment, but Black&White is the next on deck. I've seen the new extra today theme, and the totally new WA3 theme, and with those combined, it looks like a new skin suite. The older themes will still be in there, but there will be a more modern look in B&W for those that prefer it. It also has a really cool Pocketweather layout that uses gianormous icons - totally impractical for use outside of Pocketbreeze, but beautiful. Of course a more practical PW layout is also included.

But that's old stuff, what about new stuff? Those other skin suites I kept mentioning before still exist, although the Wisbar themes will need tweaking now. After Black&White, Juni will continue work on that "summer" theme. That one is really artsy with icons and a WA3 theme that you don't see everyday.  The other skin suite has 3 complete and separate Today theme/WA3 theme combos. Again, it also departs from the default look.

If we don't hear from Amit by Friday, we'll release Mobility to Handango and Mobihand, and then add the Paypal store once customers are able to download skins. We prefer to release it everywhere at once though. The reason we don't use Pocketgear is that they only send royalties by check (which can't be cashed in Finland), or by very expensive bank transfer. However, you can purchase skins from us directly, from SBSH and SBSH.de, from Handango, and also Mobihand.

So in the meantime, those skins won't make themselves, so it's time for us knuckledraggers to get back to work. After the release of the suite after B&W, there just might be something added to SciFi that you Brown Coats find to be shiny.

So say we all.
(I wish, but Juni nor myself has come up with a look for that)

/And if you don't get either of those references there at the end, then those are not the suites you are looking for. ;)