This weekend I received the 21 entries for the SymbianPlanet Themes Factor contest, installed them all (using AutoSisInstaller, naturally) to my N95-3, and then scored them each on a number of aspects. The final results will be published on SymbianPlanet soon, but that’s not really what I wanted to explore. I was having a chat with my friend Antoine about themes.
You see, Antoine is rather disappointed with the current state of most themes – including S60. He feels as though they’re rather limited, and should be able to do more. Antoine uses the terms suit and event. Currently, themes are like suits – you put one on and it changes the outward appearance, but that’s where it stops. The changes merely include backgrounds, icons, and color schemes – nothing deeper.
What Antoine would like to see is something more of an event (this term is admittedly slightly confusing to me), where installing a new theme could change your phone’s menu layout, organization, or other, deeper feature. For instance, activating the ‘Phontography Theme’ might add a camera shortcut to your Active Standby apps, and maybe even install a few additional photo editing tools, if I get his thoughts correctly.
I liken this to the difference in a Theme and a Shell. Themes, in my opinion, should be what they are – simply change backgrounds, icons, etc. Shells, on the other hand, would be able to add a new type of menu layout, and maybe new shortcuts here and there. When thinking of the ‘look and feel’ of S60, the ‘Theme’ would control the look, while the ‘Skin’ would cover the feel aspect.
It’s an interesting discussion, for sure. What do you think? Is there more potential in the idea of a theme, or would you rather simply see themes remain the same, but a new class of ‘shells’ emerge, similar to Handy Shell?
