More than 12 icons causes sliding dock to become "choppy"

[eiger06]

I've been messing around with a new theme design that could require up to 30 icons on the homescreen (basically two pages of 15...similar to a droid or iphone page setup). Every time I have more than 12 total icons, the pages start to transition real choppy. Am I just exceeding the memory limit for the phone? This is for the 8900...4.6OS.

Thanks

[dougeefresh]

Originally Posted by eiger06

I've been messing around with a new theme design that could require up to 30 icons on the homescreen (basically two pages of 15...similar to a droid or iphone page setup). Every time I have more than 12 total icons, the pages start to transition real choppy. Am I just exceeding the memory limit for the phone? This is for the 8900...4.6OS.

Thanks

I don't think there's a way to get around that. Once you hit the limit of what the BB can process smoothly then that's it. I also had 16 icons on a page and tried to slide that, wasn't pretty.
Instead of sliding to show/hide, you can try just the plain show/hide which won't be as sexy but it won't look and feel laggy/choppy, which wouldn't be good no matter how great the rest of the theme is.

[eiger06]

Originally Posted by dougeefresh

I don't think there's a way to get around that. Once you hit the limit of what the BB can process smoothly then that's it. I also had 16 icons on a page and tried to slide that, wasn't pretty.
Instead of sliding to show/hide, you can try just the plain show/hide which won't be as sexy but it won't look and feel laggy/choppy, which wouldn't be good no matter how great the rest of the theme is.

Thanks for the info dougeefresh. I'm really new at messing with these themes, so running into these types of things and not knowing if it is the theme or the system limits is frustrating...so thanks for clearing it up for me. And to the point that I'm new at themes, how do I do the "plain show/hide"? Would this be in composer? Can you set it up so that the entire layer shows/hides when an icon on that layer is selected? The only way I've been moving things on or off the screen has been by modifying the sliding dock code, so anything outside of that will be new to me. Thanks again for the info.

[dougeefresh]

There are many posts regarding this so do a search and you will find some. That said, it's all done thru svg. It's actually very close to sliding dock that u did. Instead using animateTransform to move the layer, use animate tp control visibility parameter.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[bbthemelab]

Checkout mattginsberg.net and bbthemelab.com.

Matt Ginsberg | Web and Graphic Designer | Blackberry Theme Developer will have the tutorials.

Blackberry Theme Lab has a community who is always willing to help - let alone free icons!!!

[BBThemes]

its worth making sure that your buttons only have 2 frames per state, as i find this makes quite a big difference on lower memory models

[DoctorNeutron]

daveastera:

Where do we set the # frames per state ? Doctor Neutron

[dcburke789]

Try putting the icons four per layer. And arranging them as if they were on one layer together.
Then all you have to do is move all the layers with one button at same duration. (or different durations if you want)

Posted from my BlackBerry using BerryBlab

[eiger06]

Originally Posted by dougeefresh

There are many posts regarding this so do a search and you will find some. That said, it's all done thru svg. It's actually very close to sliding dock that u did. Instead using animateTransform to move the layer, use animate tp control visibility parameter.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Thanks again dougefresh, I'll look this up and give it a shot. I'm still wondering if it is the size/style of icon I'm using is exaggerating the issue. I'm thinking it's taking up too much memory due to the detail and focus/normal backgrounds. I tried to add a snapshot of what I'm working with...hopefully the jpg file attached correctly.

@b15ginz - to be honest (or to be more specific I should say), I used your tutorial to learn and gain the sliding code that I've been using. Awesome tutorials I must say and thanks for teaching us newbies. I've got to apologize, but I can't find the tutorial that covers a full page slide technique...did I overlook it or were you referring to the slider tutorial? Thanks again for putting those out there...awesome work!

@daveastra - first thing I did when it didn't work was go in and decrease the frames down to 2fps (thanks again b15ginz...another lesson from your tutorial). And I must say, this was a pain after the theme was already laid out because I had to go into each icon (20+) and change all 4 states for each; would have been much easier if I'd thought about this before getting deep into the theme. Unfortunately it didn't help smooth out the slide.

@DoctorNeutron - when editing a button, the fps associated with each state is located on the bottom of the screen...I think they typically start set at 10s. If you click on the "1" at the beginning of each state, you can change the box that is slightly up and to the right with the "10" to whatever fps you'd like for that state. b15ginz covered this in his slider tutorial and explains it very well.

@dcburke789 - Does placing them in different layers help with the memory hog somehow?...if so, that would probably do the trick. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

@all - thanks again for all the feedback...awesome work. I also found a lot of great icons and theme ideas on this sight; its a great source of info to help get someone started.


Thanks