Thanks for the quick responses.  I have just one more related
question.  Do the same restrictions (dark background with light text)
apply to the Dialog theme since the dialog is merely a frame around
whatever content the user decides to display?

Here it seems ok to let the frame change to be light background with
dark text since it doesn't affect a developer's content.

Thanks,
Nick

On Feb 14, 5:35 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote:
> Runtime skinning is a whole other issue, which we would certainly like to do
> but requires some work in the resource system (a fair amount of
> infrastructure is in place, but there are some missing pieces) and for a
> production quality solution requires figuring out how this interacts with
> zygote, which pre-loads key system resources at boot time to optimize app
> process initialization.
>
> And even so, if an application uses the theme with a dark background, you
> can't skin that to a light background and expect reasonable compatibility
> with existing apps.
>
> The widgets already work with either light or dark backgrounds, since they
> retrieve all of their display information from whatever Theme they are
> instantiated with.
>
> The apps as I said will probably need some customization to work with a
> different type of background.  Even ignoring that, many of them have their
> own custom images that you will probably need to modify anyway to really
> have something that consistently matches with your new UI design.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Nick <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > No, I don't want to make 3rd party apps consistent (that's not the
> > goal). If they don't care and used the default, then it seemed
> > reasonable to let it change.
>
> > The heart of the idea was to simplify the system applications and
> > widgets since I want to re-skin all of Android to this new Theme. I
> > was trying to take the approach of having different system themes that
> > the user can select much like changing the theme on your desktop.  I
> > know this is a major task so that's why I wanted to know the
> > ramifications before proceeding further.
>
> > On Feb 14, 3:05 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > Yes this will break things.  This is why they are defined the way they
> > are
> > > -- when you use Theme you are promised to be sitting on top of some dark
> > > background, and Theme.Light to be on top of some light background.  You
> > just
> > > can't change this basic assumption without breaking applications.
>
> > > If you want to change the look of the standard apps to this extent, you
> > will
> > > need to go and modify them.  Note this could very well require doing more
> > > than changing the theme they use, because there are likely some custom
> > > graphics and colors that will no longer work in the new environment.
>
> > > And trying to make third party apps consistent?  That's a losing battle,
> > > don't even try.  Third party apps get to do what they want.
>
> > > On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 8:39 AM, Nick <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > > The only assumption with the default theme in the SDK is that light
> > > > text on a dark background.  However, will an OEM jeopardize being
> > > > Android compatible if they change the default theme to be dark text on
> > > > a light background?
>
> > > > The reason for this is that I don't want all the built-in applications
> > > > to have to specify some custom theme since it's easier to just change
> > > > the default theme.  Also, I would like those 3rd party applications
> > > > that use the default theme to change as well so there is consistency
> > > > throughout the device.
>
> > > --
> > > Dianne Hackborn
> > > Android framework engineer
> > > [email protected]
>
> > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to
> > > provide private support.  All such questions should be posted on public
> > > forums, where I and others can see and answer them.
>
> --
> Dianne Hackborn
> Android framework engineer
> [email protected]
>
> Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to
> provide private support.  All such questions should be posted on public
> forums, where I and others can see and answer them.
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