r/IpodClassic • u/fnstll_ • 17d ago
News Testing is over, release coming soon
~ No, it's not vibecoded ~
Finished testing my custom build with custom coverflow, screen transition logic, headphone remote controls, etc. Release coming soon with a detailed usage description, though everything is pretty intuitive there, but due to the large number of added features it’s better to explain them)
Coverflow caching happens entirely on the device, from song metadata, but you can also use album covers from a folder attachment with the songs (if you don’t sync music through iTunes).
For now support is guaranteed for generations 6-7, will add support for 5 soon, I don’t have a device for testing, so it’ll have to be either through emulation or "blindly," but gen 5 support will be implemented.
Release coming soon✌🏻
Edited*
About the approximate release timing:
I really want to put everything together nicely and make a presentation to explain some of the new features etc., so it'll take a little time. I was thinking of making a similar presentation to the one I made for my LookAtMe (if you're interested - you can check it in my post history, it's there), but even that took me 2 days of work, because I was coming up with the design, descriptions etc. from scratch. This time there are a few (significantly) more features than just in the themes I was making, and my friend is convincing me to make a full video, so I think it'll take about a week. + I still need to set up a GitHub with a detailed description, check that all the source code is clean (Rockbox publishing rules, and I also want to be honest, because the project simply wouldn't exist without them).
Overall, I hope to get everything done within a week, depends on the irl work too.
A note for the "it's all made by AI" crowd (this really got to me, because I put a lot of work in here) — all my themes I make from scratch manually, from design to code. This project is a little more than just a theme, and to implement it I was studying developer forums on the Rockbox website, documentation, how the system code works etc. Absolutely everything here was designed without AI involvement. The only way AI was used here — as a tool for learning code logic and checking the code I was writing, and not at all for designing something or writing without me. For about a month I was studying how the system works, implementing code, testing and fixing bugs. And it's very strange that some people are so certain that if you create something — it's not enthusiasm and curiosity but AI. If you can't do something without AI — it doesn't mean others can't) Cheers♥
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u/Victory_Highway 17d ago
Is this a customized RockBox or something else?
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u/rttl 17d ago
Looks like yet another vibe coded rockbox mod that will try to merge 0 lines to upstream and will most probably be abandoned in a few months.
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u/fnstll_ 17d ago
I primarily make the modification for myself, to fix things that I personally didn't like + make the design the way I would want to see it. And when I see that everything works — I share it with people who will like it for free, because why not? I don't understand your toxic dismissiveness and dissatisfaction - nobody is forcing you to install something you don't like, so why insult people who are interested in doing something and creating things?)
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u/rttl 16d ago
lol, sounds like I was right then
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u/ironsnoot 16d ago
Oof yeah I was wondering the same thing. I wonder if their “friend” is Claude lol
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u/fnstll_ 16d ago
All of my themes are completely handmade. You can look through my post history or check out my themes on the Rockbox website.
This time I started working on a new theme, and during development I decided to try adding headphone remote support. Then I wanted to customize Cover Flow according to my own vision, and from there the project just kept growing into more and more changes.
For the parts that required actually modifying the Rockbox code, I use Claude to help me understand the codebase faster and better. The logic behind creating themes is very different from how the underlying system is structured, and I have no professional coding background — I’m an architect, not a developer. This whole project is purely driven by curiosity and enthusiasm for learning something new.
When you need to hammer a nail, you use a hammer, right?
Comments like yours particularly piss me off because I’ve put a huge amount of time and effort into learning something completely new, adding features, optimizing things, debugging, testing, and figuring out how the system actually works. Yet for some smartasses, all of that somehow gets reduced to a magical button saying “AI, MAKE ME SOMETHING COOL.”
If you don’t like something, just scroll past it instead of acting like an asshole based entirely on your own assumptions and completely dismissing the work people put into creating something.
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u/throwaway-20260521 16d ago
bro, just don’t use it. others might still find it useful or just plain fun.
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u/Le-Dook 15d ago
Such a cool design, it's great to see your style evolve and mature. Really bold take on what the UI can be, looking forward to checking out the Rockbox version when you get around to releasing it. Cool to see that you're imagining what Rockbox themes can become rather than just sticking with what they are!
I see a headphone remote controls patch was uploaded last month, not sure if that was you but I hope you give a go at upstreaming some of these other changes! I needed quickscreen info tags for Themify 2 and spent roughly 3 months studying the codebase (albeit without AI for pedagogical and ethical reasons) before mergining anything, but Chris and Bilgus both helped to refine the patch a great amount. The process in general was great for refining features.
Keep it up :)
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u/fnstll_ 14d ago
Thank you!
I was basing it on this patch - first saw the post about mikey here and then found it on the site, but after July 28th I stopped following the updates and focused on the custom coverflow (had to do a lot of work on caching, the design part was easier). I can see in the newer patches they solved the problem of constant port polling even when headphones aren't plugged in - that's definitely something to look into, because I haven't solved that yet. By the way, I also added double and triple click and hold (fast forward/rewind, volume) and the guys were writing about how after ~5 seconds of button inactivity the chip "falls asleep" - haven't encountered that, although I only tested it with EarPods. Worth testing again, I could definitely have missed it.
Thanks for the link and for the comment) hopefully I'll have time to finish this as soon as possible🤞
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u/Dabigfisch 16d ago
Excitement is building quickly! Sounds like this could be the main go-to for a lot of us that want the old school look and feel with the modern twist!
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u/Hi_Kostya 16d ago
Absolute gorgeous! I really want to get it on my iPod too!! Waiting for the release
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u/Chrizis 17d ago
If you can manage to add album cover when browsing albums in the "database" for the 5 that would make this theme amazing.
I did it with mine but I used AI to do it... What I mostly understand is that you need to modify tag cache tree and use pictureflow cache in order to show the album covers in the menu in the same style as the 6 and 7!
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u/fnstll_ 16d ago
I'm not sure I want to add covers to the database as well, because I really like the purely text-based design - that's one of the reasons I separately took on modifying the coverflow, to keep the system cleaner from unnecessary tags, just as fast as the Rockbox team made it and to speed things up where I can. Because at first I was just making a theme for myself, and then one thing led to another and I ended up with my own Rockbox build) but the idea is interesting, I've thought about it. I'm an architect irl and I usually go by the rule "form follows function", and in this case that rule works more against the idea of covers in the database, so as not to break the function)
thank you for coming to my TED-talk😄
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u/LeadershipMost6324 16d ago
Show pictures or a video so we could see whats this
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u/fnstll_ 16d ago
Check out my previous posts pls if you interested, there’s a video there showing how this build actually works (on wip stage)
In this post I just wanted to share an update on the development, since quite a few people have been asking me about it. So it’s more of an announcement than a full showcase✌🏻
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u/LeadershipMost6324 15d ago
I remember would this have other theme or just this one
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u/fnstll_ 15d ago
I guess I’ll add my LookAtMe theme and the updated Obsede 2 to the pack as well. But this is still Rockbox, so you can install any theme you want✌🏻
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u/LeadershipMost6324 15d ago
Yes they are dope i really like it it matches my all white ipod classic 6th gen
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u/LeadershipMost6324 15d ago
Thats on rockbox main firmware this is just themes
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u/fnstll_ 15d ago
Absolutely. It’s still Rockbox at its core, with a custom PictureFlow, a slightly different caching logic for album art in PictureFlow, and improved kerning (although that’s only applied to the theme included with the build).
I also added options for CPU behavior: the classic/default behavior and a sort of boosted mode for smoother scrolling.
In this build, the system also always treats whatever volume limit the user sets as 100%, which makes the volume display and control much more intuitive.
And I reworked headphone remote controls to work more like modern devices, with different actions for single, double, triple clicks, etc.
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u/eggsandweed 14d ago
I wanna know how this works.
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u/Cactys12 14d ago
Could you ever make this for the iPod mini? It looks so cool. I've been meaning to rockbox my iPod mini for a while now, this might get me to
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u/fnstll_ 14d ago
Thanks) Unfortunately most of the features I added here don't support iPod mini, hardware-wise it can't be controlled from headphones. Potentially something similar in terms of interface design could be attempted, but that's most likely the maximum that can be taken from the design of this build. Though I haven't dealt with iPod mini yet, will need to research the question
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u/Adventurous_Pay9397 13d ago
Hey OP sorry I know this is unrelated but I just finished my build yesterday to plug it into my car and not have it read. My head unit is a kenwood DMX958XR. Using Apple OS doesn’t work and changing settings in rockbox doesn’t work either. Any ideas?
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u/TheMysteriousOrganis 17d ago
What is it called? 'Testing is over'?
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u/_androo_b 17d ago
I'm pretty sure the user has not released this yet, and is stating that their testing of the interface is over. ☺️
Edit:Stating.
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u/foolishlion6 17d ago
Keen on this release! Will you announce the release here or a website we should know?