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That's also an option, and was what I first though of.
When the menu changes too much it looks "alien".
I also like how Canon changes the color schematic based on the menu category.

That's the same I though, the text is too small, it would be too hard to read on a camera like the 5Dc and 1100D.
Also he used an anti-aliased text, which is possible but not feasible.

I'll make something on top of that design, together with the original ML menu.

Edit:
Here's a test, based off that previous proposal:

Yellow and dark shades of gray really go well together...

I didn't put any anti-aliasing on the text so it looks closer to what is feasible, here's a downscaled version, that's how it will (probably) look in the camera itself:


Of course, this is just a test though, I'll try to improve it, so I want some feedback, and then I can work on it and do something that's both useable, not cluttered, and good looking.

Edit #2:

Darkened the right side a bit to make a contrast with the selected option.
Also looks very good with green instead of yellow.
Red is also an option.

This proposal was quite nice, but also would require a major overhaul. That yellow color kinds of screams "Nikon" for some reason.

I'll try to come up with some tests.

Also if there is anyone else with experience in design and want to help me, PM me. This way we can come up with something really good and worthy of the time to implement it.

Yeah, but the color palette is really limited, at first I though changing the palette was quite trivial, also I though it would be possible to use the same palette Canon use on their menus.

It is be possible to make a better look using gray scale plus the colors available but it is quite a challenge.

I see...
So it could also give ERR70 if you try to change it in realtime... probably would trigger some kind of error check.

Without being able to change the palette or ensure that it uses at least the same palette as the original menus use, the only option would be a grayscale design (not bad really, but kind of limited).

At least we have 42 different shades of gray.

Any chances of finding the actual function canon uses to change the palette?

Maybe their way of changing the palette are similar to the ugly hacks you're talking about, and they simply write the palette to that area when they need to change it.

Isn't this Canon's palette? Why only the first 80 entries can be used?

Edit: Ok, I've seen why.

I think there is a canon function to change the palette, judging by what I've seen here, it is called when entering menus, this will load this palette to the memory... the palette address is always the same? if it is it might be safe to write to it and restore the value later... maybe...

Modifying the palette in realtime was a common practice in the 16bit/32bit video game consoles, I see canon does the same here.

[Design proposals for future ML interface]

Design proposals for future ML interface

Note: these proposals are not for the next release, so don't be afraid of suggesting major changes.

A good design is not always flashy, sometimes just plain colors without any kind of fancy gradients and gloss will look good.

What ML GUI needs are some tweaks and better colors, and a better font.

I'll be helping with the EOS 1100D port, and I'll be working on a font to make text more readable at 1100D's low resolution display. At the same time I'll play around with a more round font, similar to the one in Canon's firmware to see if it looks better.

Currently this is the design we're working on:

Alternative top menu


Also has been proposed that each menu category have its own color, similar to how Canon's firmware is separated in color coded categories:



Note: We don't have to necessarily color the icons each with the color of its category, we can just change the base color when the category is changed. This is for illustration purposes only.

Separate each category as the following:

Blue: Audio, Expo, LiveView
Green: Movie, Shoot, Focus
Yellow: Prefs, Display
Red: Debug, Info

Also could be separated like this: (suggestion by nanomad)

Blue: Expo, LiveView
Green: Audio, Movie, Shoot, Focus
Yellow: Prefs, Display
Red: Debug, Info

So they are categorized as:
Blue: (General shoot/movie settings)
Green: (Mode specific settings)
Yellow: (Magic lantern settings)
Red:  (Debug information and tools)

About the colors:
Currently we're limited to Canon's palette. It is possible to change it, however, it requires some hacks, and causes a flickering bug in the menu sometimes, so it is better if we use only these colors.



Some notes to keep in mind while creating the design:

• * Many users will be working with their cameras outdoors, in bright sunlight. So it is important to have a lot of contrast.
• * We're currently limited to the colors in Canon's palette (above), so for now gradients and other effects can not be done.
• * It's a good idea to keep the design resembling the camera's original menus, this way ML feel more like it is part of the camera itself.
• * Fancy effects, gradients (currently only possible in greyscale) and animations are nice, but sluggish menus are not. A camera is not a phone, it is a work tool used by both amateurs and professionals, so it must be simple and fast.
• * It is good to keep the design and layout uncluttered.
• * It is not possible to use antialiasing in text. Also the text must remain crispy, in order to be more readable on small screens.
• * The text must be relatively big, so it is possible to read it properly, also some cameras, like EOS 1100D and EOS 5D classic have low resolution screens, so small texts are impossible to read.

Feel free to suggest changes, this design is by no means definitive.
We'll be working on top of suggestions to improve this design.

Ok, I'll setup the toolchain on my PC here,
Then I'll look into 5Dc source.

I've seen some 5Dc constants in bmp.c and vram.c (CONFIG_5DC), won't some of them work on 1100D?

It seems that Canon is using some tricks to get most of 1100D display, can someone send me some screenshots of the original firmware menus? I want to take a look how Canon is doing it.

By the way, there is any specific reason ML font is looks like a system font?
I'm thinking about creating a more rounded font, similar to the one in the official firmware, I can do it from the scratch, pixel by pixel (I have some experience with pixel art for games and stuff).
This is specially useful for extremely small text, so I can tailor it to look good in low resolution.

Hey there!

I'm want to help with the development for T3/1100D, I have a lot of experience with C/C++, but I don't have experience with reverse engineering, is it enough to help?

Also, I have experience with graphic design, so maybe I can help develop a special font that will look better on 1100D low resolution screen.

There is anyway to render ML menus in 720x240 natively, then upscale it using nearest neighbor to 720x480? I think that's how it is done on the official firmware. What would be required to change in ML in order to do this? or is it not possible due to it requiring to rewrite core parts of ML?

By the way, is 1080p video option really completely locked down on this one? Or did you guys found out anything? I remember seeng something about this on ML Google Groups last year.