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Hello! I'm a developer specialized in themes for Symbian Os. I develop free and commercial themes that are published in my website and in Ovi Store.

After seeing the new device from Nokia, N900 running maemo 5, i am bit worried about the possiblity to develop theme applications.

In Symbian, developing themes is complex and difficult, as there are hundreds of elements to be skinned; but the result is great as every aspect of the interface can be customized. And there is the possiblity to pack themes in application files that can be installed as common apps, and sold in Ovi store also.

Will it be possible to develop themes that are easy to install, and hopefully to add them to the ovi store marketplace? if so, does themes for maemo allow heavy costomization, including icons, and are they compatible with scalable vector graphics (SVG)?

thanks

Pizero

In my symbian life I've always appreciated pizero's themes, so hey! Thanks pizero for your creativity.
Regarding your questions, well, the previous maemo devices could change several elements of the ui, including icons and backgrounds, and you'll find several threads in this forum. Look for themes like plankton, lcars, titan, velvet (to name some I have on my device).
Since the os is open I don't think there will be problem to make installable packages - in the standard .deb format of debian.

There'll be a Theme maker application released soon that'll make it very easy to create themes for Maemo. Anyway with the OS being open source there's no limit to customisation.
In LCARS there isn't a thing that wasn't themed. There is a new startup screen, icons, buttons, colour palette, sounds, wallpaper... everything you can imagine. And installing is just a one-click thing.
Take a look: https://synthesize.us/Maemo_themes/LCARS_complete

I don't know how the integration with the OVI store will be made, because that's not announced yet. I assume it'll work like with any other phone.

You can to see Theme Maker here with a small tutorial about its use: http://thememaker.garage.maemo.org/

I imagine the way to use it hasn't changed very much in Maemo 5.

There'll be a new Theme Maker for Maemo5 released sometimes soon by Urho Konttori.

Pizero is a legend in the Symbian community, if you guys don't know! What up, bro? Glad to see you here! I'm feeling more at home everyday. I hope you don't abandon the sister OS, Symbian, any time soon. Maemo just got a monster of an artist for themes and graphics.

You can also directly edit and replace the icons (as I have) on the tablet. /usr/share/icons/hicolor/ has them all in different sizes on Diablo. Probably the same on the N900 as well.

Dear Pizero,

this is a bit off-topic, but there is already a thread about OVI store for Maemo: http://talk.maemo.org/member.php?u=2037

I wish you could work for maemo too! I already appreciate your contributions on symbian. With an OVI store I could see your business model expand to the new nokia flagship!

FYI: http://konttoristhoughts.blogspot.co...-for-n900.html

As posted by Timsamoff on facebook, here it is https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=36 - thanks to Uhro