Home Downloads F.A.Q. Documentation BUG!
 




Making Themes
Contents
Introduction
In Short
Tools
Button States
General Styles
Main Controls
Play
Stop
Pause
Fast Forward/Rewind
Skip Forward/Back
Secondary Controls
Playlist Controls
Toolbar
Icon List
Releasing
Credits
Licenses

Chapter 6. Main Controls

This is just a brief look over of the main controls and how to make icons for them. The buttons in the main controls are play, stop, pause, fast-forward, rewind, skip forward, and skip back.

Play

The play button is usually represented by an arrow pointing forwards. I like to make the play button an equilateral triangle, but it is often shorter horizontally than vertically. Likely due to the association with stoplights and the play button being 'go', play buttons are sometimes green.

The play icon is named 'play'.

Play Examples:   play play play
Stop

The stop button is commonly represented by a square. I usually make the stop button slightly shorter than the other icons in the main controls are tall, because a square fills a lot of space and often appears larger than it is. Keeping it smaller makes the main control panel looking a little more balanced. As with the coloring of play buttons being for 'go', stop buttons are colored for 'stop' and are commonly red.

The stop icon is named 'stop'.

Stop Examples:   stop stop stop
Pause

Usually, the pause button is represented by a pair of vertical bars. I try to make them the same height as the stop button, because they are adjacent and look bad when not of equal size. It is important to be careful when making the pause button, especially if you edit while zoomed in particularly far in a vector graphics program, to keep the space between the bars wide enough that it will be visible. There should probably be a full pixel between them in the output. If the bars are too close together, the final PNG may only have a blur between them instead of a gap, making them look really bad.

The pause icon is named 'pause'.

Pause Examples:   pause pause pause
Fast-Forward and Rewind

In eMotion these buttons are not as they are on VCRs and DVD players. Because of the way MPlayer works, there is not something to accelerate playback. Instead, these buttons cause the video to skip ahead slightly, so they serve about the same function as fast-forward and rewind.

These are usually represented by doubled up arrows, both facing forward for fast-forward, and both facing backwards for rewind, playing off of the play button's design. Be careful when you make these that the back arrow is far enough back that the tips are distinct from the rear points on the front arrow.

The fast forward icon is named 'fastforward' and the rewing icon is named 'rewind'.

Fast Forward Examples:   fastforward fastforward fastforward
Rewind Examples:   rewind rewind rewind
Skip Forward and Skip Back

Skip forward and skip back change play from the current file to the next or previous file in the playlist, respectively. This is slightly different from the skip forward you would have on a DVD player, which would skip to the next title. The common symbol for these is an arrow pointing into a block. I usually overlap the end of the arrow and the block, although I have seen it done otherwise.

The skip forward icon is named 'skipforward' and the skip back icon is named 'skipback'.

Skip Forward Examples:   skipforward skipforward skipforward
Skip Back Examples:   skipback skipback skipback

 
Home   Downloads   F.A.Q.   Documentation   Report Bugs
Email the Site Administrator
Site Copyright 2003 Jame K Studios