Matching Shell Phone Splashes

One of the most annoying things about the new Sidekick 08 is the default yellow shelled phone splash, for those not aware the phone splash is the image you see when you have "Phone" selected on the main screen. Although the yellow shelled phone splash matches perfectly with the shell that comes with the Sk08, I'm sure that most Sk08 owners have already gotten new shells. The custom shells sold over at Sidekickshells.com have Black, White or Pink base (Not Yellow), that means if you have a custom shell most likely it doesn't match your phone splash. I believe T-Mobile/Danger did this to be able to sell more themes on the catalog since I've seen a lot of themes now that come with the custom phone splash. I figured it wasn't fair they have matching phone splashes on their themes and we are stuck with the default yellow shelled phone splash so I've made a set with the three base colors for custom shells (Black, White & Pink). All you have to do is copy the desired PhoneSPLASH.png file into your theme's folder and make sure you have the string below on your Theme.txt file.

bitmap chooser-phone-splash-screen phonesplash.png

Leave me a comment if you're interested in different colors.

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Custom Sidekick 08 Shells

Everyone knows the hottest thing about the Sk08 is that you can change the shell on it. I'm sure most of the Sk08 users are already aware of custom shells & sidekickshells.com so this is not a tutorial video or anything like that but I thought It'll be cool to show you how you can make custom shells out of your favorite Sidekick themes. I've already ordered a couple shells, the quality is not pristine but they look decent for $14.99.

In this video I made shells to match three of my recent themes, all the pictures I used to make the shells are included with the themes so if you like how it looks, download the theme by clicking on one of the images below and create your own! The images to use will most likely be BG1, BG2, foldec, and phone splash depending on the theme. This can be done with any theme from Sk08themes.com and SkLXthemes.com.

Graduation Shell
(click on image for the theme)


Hi Hater Shell
(click on image for the theme)


Juicy Couture Shell
(click on image for the theme)

How To Make Sidekick Icons

Making icons for the Sidekick is the same as making icons for any other purpose. Icons are just small images used to represent a program, file, and etc. therefore any image can be converted into an icon. The only difference between regular images and icons is that regular images do not contain an alpha channel. The alpha channel is used to represent up to 256 levels of transparency. When you add the alpha channel to a regular image you can make parts of that image be transparent or semi-transparent. If you look at the default instant message icon image on your Sidekick you will see a yellow smiley, but if you open the image in Photoshop or GIMP you will see the yellow smiley inside a squared transparent background. If you were to save that same icon in JPG or BMP format the transparent background will become white, that is because JPG and BMP do not store alpha channel information.

I've seen many themes posted with icons with a squared black/white background, that is becuase they have uploaded JPG or BMP files to the theme creator on the SkLX/SkSlide websites. The theme creator does not remove backgrounds for you, so do not expect to get an icon with a transparent background from there unless that's what you're sending. Formats that support the alpha channel include PNG, ICO, PSD, GIF and others, for Sidekick themes you only need to work with the PNG format.

In the video below I will show you how to add the alpha channel to regular images so that they can be saved in PNG format and used as icons. Part 1 of the video shows how to do it on Photoshop & Part 2 shows how to do it on GIMP. If you're watching this video I assume you already know Photoshop/GIMP basics and I will not go into detail about resizing and fitting the images. This video is no way near a tutorial on how to extract images (remove backgrounds), there are hundreds of ways to extract images, If you do not know how to extract images, I suggest you watch videos on how to do it because in this video I'll use the simplest method which does not necessarily yield the best results. If you're watching this video to learn how to make icons for your Sidekick themes, you should download one of the theme templates below:

Sk Slide Template

Sk LX/2008 Template

The icons made in this video can be found in my PACMAN theme.

Sidekick Screen Shot Creator

When I first started making Sidekick themes, I was only making themes for the Sidekick LX. Once the Sidekick Slide came out I started getting requests to convert my themes, I did not own a Sidekick Slide so I was not comfortable making themes for it because I didn't even know how they would look on the device. I decided to start making fake screen shots for the Sidekick Slide. The fake screen shots will not only help me assure that the theme will look good on the device, but also allow me to show people what the theme will look like before they download it. The screen shots for every theme I've posted for the Sidekick Slide so far are fake, but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a real screen shot and a fake one. Now I've organized my psds so that you can also create your own screen shots. The psds are compatible with both Photoshop and GIMP but only on Photoshop you will be able to edit the signature on my custom top bar. Watch the video below if you're not familiar with layers so you can understand better how to use the psds.

Download:
Screen Shot PSDs