learn to develop with samsung explore our sdks and tools through code labs, podcasts, blogs, articles, videos and more. popular learning topics discover what our developers are watching and reading. code lab code lab measure blood oxygen level and heart rate on galaxy watch create a health app for galaxy watches powered by wear os, utilizing the new samsung privileged health sdk to trigger and obtain results of simultaneous blood oxygen level (spo2) and heart rate measurements. code lab code lab apply conditional lines on watch faces learn how to create a watch face that responds to time and notification using conditional lines in watch face studio. code lab code lab add boarding passes, tickets, and coupons learn how to integrate the add to wallet functionality with partner services, enabling users to add boarding passes, tickets, and coupons to samsung wallet. tutorial tutorial start your learning journey with code lab code lab is a learning platform where you can get started with the latest technologies and services in samsung. tutorial tutorial how to use jetpack windowmanager in android game dev learn how to utilize foldable features in android game apps. video tutorials go to youtube video oct 12, 2022 watch face studio with dark mode create a beautiful watch face that is refined and provides a more comfortable viewing experience in low-light situations. oct 12, 2022 video feb 9, 2022 how to test your mobile apps through a web browser remote test lab is a service that enables developers to control devices remotely. with this, you can test your applications on a real device by interacting with it over the network in real-time. feb 9, 2022 video mar 3, 2021 implement flex mode on a video player with galaxy z learn how to implement flex mode on a video player app using android jetpack window manager. mar 3, 2021 newsletter monthly newsletter for samsung developers if you don't currently receive the newsletter, you can subscribe here. i agree that samsung developers may use the data given by me for the newsletter. detail subscribe code lab learn about how to use samsung sdks and tools to implement various use cases with sample apps. learn more foldables and large screens boost your app's value with foldables and large screen optimization learn more the samsung developers podcast the samsung developers podcast discusses development and design with well-known and upcoming leaders in the industry. learn more

hello! i’m diego lizarazo rivera and i’m excited to let you know that i've just joined the samsung developer program team as a senior developer evangelist! since you’ll be seeing quite a bit of my work here on the blog, i thought i’d introduce myself and share with you a little bit of my history. my career prior to joining samsung includes several roles as a software developer and as a game designer. i've worked for software companies of all sizes, in three different countries (colombia, spain, u.s.), and i've tackled some cool projects and learned about many different technologies along the way. but, most importantly, i have connected with amazing teams of passionate developers with a need to solve new problems with technology. this is chili, and he's trying to survive the land of the dead in my game, chili calacas after working as a developer for a few years, i began to design games. as part of my job, i helped create the internal rules that governed the different social aspects of our games and then communicated those mechanics to programmers, artists, producers, and marketers. to find that common language to keep us going in the same direction, the message and approach had to change with every team. this role led me to realize something quite important: i am good connecting with people. it was not until a couple of years later that i found the perfect position to mix my developer experience and my ability to connect with different audiences, and i started my path as a developer evangelist/advocate. every company has a different approach to devrel positions, but generally, professionals in this area work as a bridge between a company or a technology and the developer community. i am here to help you understand samsung technologies, help you to create the perfect app for the galaxy watch, design an amazing theme that you can share with the wider galaxy store audience, or get started on that project that you have been mulling for a couple of months. samsung is a leader in so many areas thanks to its innovative prowess and the ability to listen and adapt to every new technology wave that comes year after year. i am glad to help the developer community to build even more exciting things with our exciting technologies.

whether you want to display the time in another location or create a watch face with dual-time-zone digital clocks, you can now do both with galaxy watch designer. implementation is easy, so please continue reading to learn how to add this travel-friendly feature to your next watch face. at the end of this article you’ll find the source file for the example watch face i’ve used to demonstrate the feature. please feel free to download it and experiment on your own. time zone selector steps add a digital clock to the watch face by clicking the [digital clock] button in the component sidebar. with the digital clock selected, click the menu button in the properties window and choose [set as button]. click the [action] tab in the properties window and change the action to [timezone selector]. in the dropdown for [time zone] leave the location set to [sync with device]. testing the time zone button to test the time zone button you must use the [run on device] feature in galaxy watch designer, paired with an actual device. it is not possible to test in the run window within galaxy watch designer. time zone functionality the user can tap the digital clock to change the time zone from the default device time to the time zone of their choice. digital clock date and am/pm marker if your design includes the date and/or am-pm marker, these components must be turned into separate time-zone buttons for the user to change individually. always on display the always on display (aod) is the version of your watch face design that appears when the user’s wrist has been rotated away. this version of the watch face is a limited-function, low-light design that saves battery power. because buttons do not function in aod mode, the default device time zone will be displayed for all users regardless of what time zone they have selected for their digital clock. sample gwd file and watch face to download the sample gwd source file, go to bit.ly/timezonegwd. if you have a galaxy watch and would like to download the free time zone watch face shown below, search "axeir time zone" in the galaxy store. thank you to jakia sultana for her contributions to this blog post.

as a recap from the previous section, the ar emoji from samsung is a new technology to create 3d avatars representing yourself on your samsung s10 phones or above. a 3d avatar is created by a process similar to taking a selfie and stored on your device each time you run the app. at the same time, we are also working on a unity sdk to access these avatars so you can use them in your game. you may be wondering, what’s big deal? what can you as a developer do with this and what benefits does it bring you? this is a new innovation from samsung for consumers to express themselves digitally. while self-expression via selfies is ubiquitous, photography is a medium artistically and technologically entirely different from video games. our technology is among the first of its kind that bridges and connects self-expression to video games, opening a virgin territory previously unexplored in game design. secondly, ar emoji removes or reduces developers’ needs to author 3d character assets. being 3d models like any other asset in game, developers can easily use them in place of characters designed by artists, which otherwise cost in the hundreds to thousands of dollars range each. and these 3d models are already rigged and skinned, which allows smooth animation and posing, and body parts swapping. the time your artist would have spent could instead be invested to beautiful and enhance other parts of your game. thirdly, ar emojis’ facial expression animates and smiles just as you are smiling into the camera. this is a facial animation and generation system that normally costs hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars to license. with ar emojis, such an animation system is now yours for free. so as a game developer myself, i see significant value ar emoji provides. thus it’s my pleasure to share with you the technical slides we have presented at pax dev conference in seattle recently. it presents a straight-forward api on accessing and using ar emoji from your game, as well as authoring animations with our partner adobe mixamo. and as always, please respond to this blog so we can answer your questions better. can’t wait to see your creations!

you can connect to the internet or communicate with other devices after you set up a network. when galaxy watch is not connected to a mobile phone, you can still be connected to the internet through the watch's wi-fi or cellular network. if a galaxy watch is connected to a phone, the watch's wi-fi is automatically disabled internally and the watch communicates with a network through the phone. this reduces watch battery consumption. when not paired with a mobile phone, a galaxy watch use its own data connectivity (wi-fi or cellular networks) to transmit and receive http and https packets. however, you can apply web proxy to the watch so it can perform these functions when the watch is connected to a phone with bluetooth. this blog describes how you can use web proxy to access the internet whether or not galaxy watch is connected to a mobile phone. we'll learn how to download a file from a host server and request data from a specified resource. declare the necessary privileges to access the internet and use connectionmanager api, declare the following required privileges in your application's manifest file: <privileges> <privilege>http://tizen.org/privilege/internet</privilege> <privilege>http://tizen.org/privilege/network.get</privilege> </privileges> note that http://tizen.org/privilege/internet requires a user permission, because users can be charged further fees to access the internet. info: to learn how to get a user's permission, see the galaxy watch: working with user privacy related permissions in tizen .net applications tutorial. you must be logged in with your samsung account to view this tutorial. check connectivity use connectionmanager api with the type and state of the current connectivity, we can find out whether a galaxy watch is connected to a phone and if wi-fi is activated on the watch. check the type and state of the current network connectivity with the connectionmanager api. using tizen.network.connection; connectionitem connection = connectionmanager.currentconnection; tizen.log.info(program.log_tag, "connection(" + currentconnection.type + ", " + currentconnection.state + ")"); if (connection.type == connectiontype.disconnected) { // there is no available connectivity } else if (connection.type == connectiontype.ethernet) { // when galaxy watch has a bluetooth connection to a mobile phone } else if (connection.type == connectiontype.cellular) { // when galaxy watch communicate with a network through cellular network, // without access to a smartphone } else if (connection.type == connectiontype.wifi) { // when galaxy watch communicate with a network through wi-fi network, // without access to a smartphone } use web proxy when galaxy watch has a bluetooth connection to a smart phone, you can enable your application to access the internet by using web proxy. to start, get current proxy info by calling connectionmanager.getproxy(), and then set web proxy information to access the internet as follows: else if (connection.type == connectiontype.ethernet) { // get the current proxy information var proxyaddress = connectionmanager.getproxy(addressfamily.ipv4); webproxy webproxy = new webproxy(proxyaddress, true); // set proxy information to the httpwebrequest request.proxy = webproxy; } access the internet as mentioned, we'll get data and download a file from a host server. 1. request data you can create a httpwebrequest instance with the uri of a specified resource to request resources such as a web page or a file from a host server, and then request data using the get method. using system.net; httpwebrequest request = (httpwebrequest)webrequest.create("https://developer.samsung.com/tizen"); request.method = "get"; httpwebresponse response = (httpwebresponse)request.getresponse(); // get the stream containing content returned by the server. stream datastream = response.getresponsestream(); // open the stream using a streamreader for easy access. streamreader reader = new streamreader(datastream); // read the content. string responsefromserver = reader.readtoend(); // display the content and print log. labeltext += responsefromserver; log.info(program.log_tag, "responsefromserver :" + responsefromserver); // clean up the streams and the response. reader.close(); response.close(); when you press the getdata button, you see the following screen: through a connected phone through wi-fi 2. download a file you can download a file from a host server using webclient. webclient webclient = new webclient(); if (connectionmanager.currentconnection.type == connectiontype.ethernet) { // in case that samsung galaxy watch is connected to a mobile phone, // use web proxy webclient.proxy = new webproxy(connectionmanager.getproxy(addressfamily.ipv4), true); } webclient.downloadfilecompleted += webclient_downloadfilecompleted; webclient.downloadprogresschanged += webclient_downloadprogresschanged; string downloadsfolder = path.combine(tizen.applications.application.current.directoryinfo.data, "downloads"); string pathtonewfile = path.combine(downloadsfolder, path.getfilename(filetodownload)); // download a file asynchronously webclient.downloadfileasync(new uri("https://archive.org/download/bigbuckbunny_328/bigbuckbunny_512kb.mp4"), pathtonewfile); run in the background tizen restricts apps from running in the background to save the device's limited resources, such as memory and battery, and to create a better app execution environment. galaxy watches generally go into an idle state, as the screen turns off when there is no user input. however, if you want to play music, download files, or exchange data with other devices, the watch should continue to perform even if the app runs in the background. in the following cases, tizen allows apps to keep running in the background: category description media play audio, recording, and output streaming video download download data with the tizen download manager api background network process general network operations location process location data sensor (context) process context data from sensors such as gesture iot communication and connectivity communicate between external devices (such as wi-fi and bluetooth) info: for details, see this article on how an application is allowed to run in the background. specify the specific background category in the manifest file to tell the system which background category app you want to run. sometimes, a sample app needs to continue to download a file in the background. to do this, we're going to declare background-category in tizen-manifest.xml file as follows: <ui-application appid="org.tizen.example.accesstheinternet" exec="accesstheinternet.dll" multiple="false" nodisplay="false" taskmanage="true" type="dotnet" launch_mode="single"> <background-category value="background-network" /> </ui-application> when you press the download button, you see the following screen. | | | | sample app to download a sample app, see webproxysample use what you've learned in this blog to access the internet, whether or not your galaxy watch is connected to a mobile phone. why not try it today?

the samsung developers team works with many companies in the mobile and gaming ecosystems. we're excited to support our partner, arm, as they bring timely and relevant content to developers looking to build games and high-performance experiences. this vulkan extensions series will help developers get the most out of the new and game-changing vulkan extensions on samsung mobile devices. in previous blogs, we have already explored two key vulkan extension game changers that will be enabled by android r. these are descriptor indexing and buffer device address. in this blog, we explore the third and final game changer, which is 'timeline semaphores'. the introduction of timeline semaphores is a large improvement to the synchronization model of vulkan and is a required feature in vulkan 1.2. it solves some fundamental grievances with the existing synchronization apis in vulkan. the problems with vkfence and vksemaphore in earlier vulkan extensions, there are two distinct synchronization objects for dealing with cpu <-> gpu synchronization and gpu queue <-> gpu queue synchronization. the vkfence object only deals with gpu -> cpu synchronization. due to the explicit nature of vulkan, you must keep track of when the gpu completes the work you submit to it. vkqueuesubmit(queue, …, fence); the previous code is the way we would use a fence, and later this fence can be waited on. when the fence signals, we know it is safe to free resources, read back data written by gpu, and so on. overall, the vkfence interface was never a real problem in practice, except that it feels strange to have two entirely different api objects which essentially do the same thing. vksemaphore on the other hand has some quirks which makes it difficult to use properly in sophisticated applications. vksemaphore by default is a binary semaphore. the fundamental problem with binary semaphores is that we can only wait for a semaphore once. after we have waited for it, it automatically becomes unsignaled again. this binary nature is very annoying to deal with when we use multiple queues. for example, consider a scenario where we perform some work in the graphics queue, and want to synchronize that work with two different compute queues. if we know this scenario is coming up, we will then have to allocate two vksemaphore objects, signal both objects, and wait for each of them in the different compute queues. this works, but we might not have the knowledge up front that this scenario will play out. often where we are dealing with multiple queues, we have to be somewhat conservative and signal semaphore objects we never end up waiting for. this leads to another problem … a signaled semaphore, which is never waited for, is basically a dead and useless semaphore and should be destroyed. we cannot reset a vksemaphore object on the cpu, so we cannot ever signal it again if we want to recycle vksemaphore objects. a workaround would be to wait for the semaphore on the gpu in a random queue just to unsignal it, but this feels like a gross hack. it could also potentially cause performance issues, as waiting for a semaphore is a full gpu memory barrier. object bloat is another considerable pitfall of the existing apis. for every synchronization point we need, we require a new object. all these objects must be managed, and their lifetimes must be considered. this creates a lot of annoying “bloat” for engines. the timeline – fixing object bloat – fixing multiple waits the first observation we can make of a vulkan queue is that submissions should generally complete in-order. to signal a synchronization object in vkqueuesubmit, the gpu waits for all previously submitted work to the queue, which includes the signaling operation of previous synchronization objects. rather than assigning one object per submission, we synchronize in terms of number of submissions. a plain uint64_t counter can be used for each queue. when a submission completes, the number is monotonically increased, usually by one each time. this counter is contained inside a single timeline semaphore object. rather than waiting for a specific synchronization object which matches a particular submission, we could wait for a single object and specify “wait until graphics queue submission #157 completes.” we can wait for any value multiple times as we wish, so there is no binary semaphore problem. essentially, for each vkqueue we can create a single timeline semaphore on startup and leave it alone (uint64_t will not overflow until the heat death of the sun, do not worry about it). this is extremely convenient and makes it so much easier to implement complicated dependency management schemes. unifying vkfence and vksemaphore timeline semaphores can be used very effectively on cpu as well: vksemaphorewaitinfokhr info = { vk_structure_type_semaphore_wait_info_khr }; info.semaphorecount = 1; info.psemaphores = &semaphore; info.pvalues = &value; vkwaitsemaphoreskhr(device, &info, timeout); this completely removes the need to use vkfence. another advantage of this method is that multiple threads can wait for a timeline semaphore. with vkfence, only one thread could access a vkfence at any one time. a timeline semaphore can even be signaled from the cpu as well, although this feature feels somewhat niche. it allows use cases where you submit work to the gpu early, but then 'kick' the submission using vksignalsemaphorekhr. the accompanying sample demonstrates a particular scenario where this function might be useful: vksemaphoresignalinfokhr info = { vk_structure_type_semaphore_signal_info_khr }; info.semaphore = semaphore; info.value = value; vksignalsemaphorekhr(device, &info); creating a timeline semaphore when creating a semaphore, you can specify the type of semaphore and give it an initial value: vksemaphorecreateinfo info = { vk_structure_type_semaphore_create_info }; vksemaphoretypecreateinfokhr type_info = { vk_structure_type_semaphore_type_create_info_khr }; type_info.semaphoretype = vk_semaphore_type_timeline_khr; type_info.initialvalue = 0; info.pnext = &type_info; vkcreatesemaphore(device, &info, null, &semaphore); signaling and waiting on timeline semaphores when submitting work with vkqueuesubmit, you can chain another struct which provides counter values when using timeline semaphores, for example: vksubmitinfo submit = { vk_structure_type_submit_info }; submit.waitsemaphorecount = 1; submit.pwaitsemaphores = &compute_queue_semaphore; submit.pwaitdststagemask = &wait_stage; submit.commandbuffercount = 1; submit.pcommandbuffers = &cmd; submit.signalsemaphorecount = 1; submit.psignalsemaphores = &graphics_queue_semaphore; vktimelinesemaphoresubmitinfokhr timeline = { vk_structure_type_timeline_semaphore_submit_info_khr }; timeline.waitsemaphorevaluecount = 1; timeline.pwaitsemaphorevalues = &wait_value; timeline.signalsemaphorevaluecount = 1; timeline.psignalsemaphorevalues = &signal_value; submit.pnext = &timeline; signal_value++; // generally, you bump the timeline value once per submission. vkqueuesubmit(queue, 1, &submit, vk_null_handle); out of order signal and wait a strong requirement of vulkan binary semaphores is that signals must be submitted before a wait on a semaphore can be submitted. this makes it easy to guarantee that deadlocks do not occur on the gpu, but it is also somewhat inflexible. in an application with many vulkan queues and a task-based architecture, it is reasonable to submit work that is somewhat out of order. however, this still uses synchronization objects to ensure the right ordering when executing on the gpu. with timeline semaphores, the application can agree on the timeline values to use ahead of time, then go ahead and build commands and submit out of order. the driver is responsible for figuring out the submission order required to make it work. however, the application gets more ways to shoot itself in the foot with this approach. this is because it is possible to create a deadlock with multiple queues where queue a waits for queue b, and queue b waits for queue a at the same time. ease of porting it is no secret that timeline semaphores are inherited largely from d3d12’s fence objects. from a portability angle, timeline semaphores make it much easier to have compatibility across the apis. caveats as the specification stands right now, you cannot use timeline semaphores with swap chains. this is generally not a big problem as synchronization with the swap chain tends to be explicit operations renderers need to take care of. another potential caveat to consider is that the timeline semaphore might not have a direct kernel equivalent on current platforms, which means some extra emulation to handle it, especially the out-of-order submission feature. as the timeline synchronization model becomes the de-facto standard, i expect platforms to get more native support for it. conclusion all three key vulkan extension game changers improve the overall development and gaming experience through improving graphics and enabling new gaming use cases. we hope that we gave you enough samples to get you started as you try out these new vulkan extensions to help bring your games to life follow up thanks to hans-kristian arntzen and the team at arm for bringing this great content to the samsung developers community. we hope you find this information about vulkan extensions useful for developing your upcoming mobile games. the samsung developers site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps and games. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

important notice : thank you for your interest in becoming a themes designer. recruitment of new themes designers has ended. a new themes designer operation policy is being prepared and will be announced around june 2023. this document was updated on 9 february 2023. a key component of theme design is custom icons. these icons can launch apps like email, camera, and music, and are also used as weather app symbols and user-interface indicators throughout a theme. icons are a great way to show off your design skills, enhance your theme concept, and set your design apart from others. they can be sold as icon packs or as part of a galaxy theme on the galaxy store. in this article, you'll find some useful tips for both prospective galaxy theme designers and current designers on how to create custom theme icons. becoming a samsung theme partner only those who have been accepted into a samsung theme partnership can design and sell themes on the galaxy store. you can learn more about how to apply for a theme partnership by reading how to submit a galaxy themes portfolio. you can download the theme editor software and start customizing the icons in your theme design once you're a part of the program. customization when building a theme there are many opportunities to replace the default icons, buttons, and indicator symbols with customized graphics. however, only the icons in the icon pack have to be customized when you submit a theme for approval. the theme will be rejected if the default icons are not replaced with customized icons. non-customizable icons certain icons cannot be changed. these icons include third-party apps like youtube and facebook, or system apps like smart switch and optical reader. however, you can still add a custom background or frame to these icons by using the icon tray feature. read below for more information on icon trays. icon design tips download default icons. if you would like to have example files of the default icons, download by right-clicking one of the icons in the ui preview window and selecting [download]. to download all of the icons, right-click and select [download all]. size and resolution. icons within the icon pack must be 144 pixels square in size, with a screen resolution of 72ppi. color mode. the document image color mode for icons must be either grayscale or rgb. adobe illustrator. use a vector-based program like adobe illustrator to easily edit or enlarge your icon artwork without losing quality. adobe photoshop. if using a bitmap-based program like adobe photoshop, place vector artwork as smart object layers. this allows the artwork to be enlarged without losing quality. document size. as mobile device screens improve, the themes editor software may increase the required size for app icons. start with a larger document size that can be easily reduced to 144 pixels. example: a 576 pixel document can be reduced to 144 pixels when multiplying by 25%. designing at a larger size ensures that you have master files that can be exported larger than 144 pixels in the future. jpgs & pngs. even though icons can be imported into theme editor as jpgs or pngs, i would suggest pngs to allow for transparent backgrounds. color palette. icons are easy to read at a quick glance when fewer colors are used. create a simplified, cohesive color palette with enough background contrast so that your icons can be seen. icon tray use the icon tray feature to add a background or frame to your icon pack apps. the icon tray displays an additional image independent of the icon image within the app. this is helpful when adding a similar background, or to frame third-party and system app icons that cannot be customized. to use the icon tray feature, click [icon pack] in the sidebar and then [app icons]. then, click anywhere in the ui preview window that is not within the dotted-lined rows of icons to display the icon tray builder window. select [all apps] if you would like every app in the ui theme to have the same custom background. select [unassigned apps] to add a custom background to the app icons that cannot be customized. when choosing this option you must still replace the icons that can be customized. weather widget icons the weather widget consists of 27 icons, one for each weather condition. even though it is not required to change these symbols, doing so is a great way to create a unique theme. to access the weather widget, click [home screen] in the sidebar and then [partly sunny] in the default ui screen window. take note that the size of the icons are 219 x 219 pixels. calendar app icon there are two options to customize the calendar app. the first is to upload a custom icon that symbolizes a calendar. the second option is to create a live icon that shows the current date on top of a custom icon background. 1. to create a live icon, click [icon pack] in the left sidebar and then the [calendar app icon row] in the default ui screen window. 2. click the [default icon] to the right of the calendar app to replace the app icon. once replaced, the option to add a live icon will appear. 3. click [live icon] to open the icon builder. in this window you can add a calendar background image, and set the font color for both the day of the week and day of the month. both font colors must be changed from the default font colors. if not, the save button will not be active. if you do not want the day of the week to appear, set the font color opacity to 0% in the middle option of the three customizable sections. if you would like the style of the standard calendar icon to match the style of the live icon, place a checkmark next to [set the current preview as a normal]. if not, an icon image must be uploaded for the normal calendar icon. free icons for free themes if you would like to offer a free theme and are looking for free icons, you can download different public icon packs by logging into your samsung account and visiting the themes page. these free icons are only available to those who have been accepted as a theme partner. each icon set is a photoshop file with embedded smart object icons. you can customize and save icons individually. uploading icons click the image button to the right of each icon to upload an individual icon. click the "add all" folder button in the upper right of the icons window to add a group. if using the "add all" feature, file names must match the names the default icons. bad design the majority of theme partnership applications are rejected because: icons are not customized backgrounds make the icon too difficult to read symbols do not correlate to their specific app icons are poor quality below are examples of bad icons: final design thoughts your icon designs have the greatest impact on the look of your theme design and give it unique characteristics. true for all aspects of ui design, clean and simple is the approach you should take when designing app icons. they should be easy to read not only at first glance but also when distinguishing between other apps on the same ui screen. testing the readability of your apps at actual size is very important. it is highly suggested to either view your theme on a mobile phone or print out your theme at actual size. stepping back and quickly glancing allows you to determine if your icons are designed well and that it's easy to understand what they represent. for tips on designing themes, be sure to read the blog design tips: galaxy themes. if you are not familiar with 9-patch images or the 9-patch editor, please read the blog use the 9-patch editor to create responsive galaxy themes components. follow up this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

watch face studio is an intuitive graphical tool that provides designers a means to design watch faces without jumping into complex coding. complication design is a major feature of this tool, and layout is a vital property of complications. the layout enables you to place components as you wish to create eye-catching watch faces. to learn more about complications, see the design complications using watch face studio blog post. watch face studio has six complication types: short text monochromatic image ranged value long text small image large image each complication has a set of layout options. you can use the layout to present information in a coherent way and make important elements stand out. this article introduces three important behaviors that you must keep in mind when working with complication layouts. blank elements in the default layout some complication providers do not provide data for all the components on a complication. elements without data remain blank on the watch face. for example, figure 1a shows the default layout for the short text complication. it displays the icon, title, and text from the provider. the "step count" provider does not include an icon. if the default layout is used with the "step count" provider, the watch face is blank where the icon is normally displayed, as shown in figure 1b. (a) "icon + text + title" layout (b) no icon for step count figure 1: blank icon slot for step count specifying a single layout watch face studio provides four possible layouts for the short text complication. to implement one specific layout only, you must remove the unwanted layouts from the layout list. for example, if you want to use only the "icon + text" layout, select it and remove the others. (a) keep desired layout and remove others (b) "icon + text" layout on watch figure 2: setting a specific layout components moving between layouts as previously discussed, complication components appear blank when there is no data provided for them. to avoid displaying blank components, you can implement multiple layouts. in this case, the watch automatically selects the appropriate layout based on the complication provider. components changing position this section demonstrates an issue commonly faced when implementing multiple layouts. when the watch switches between layouts, the position of complication components can change undesirably. in figure 3, a short text complication has been selected. to visualize the original position of each component, rectangles have been drawn around them, matching the component boundaries. when the default provider is set to "sunrise sunset" and the default "icon + text + title" layout is selected, the run preview shows the icon and text displaying perfectly within the bounded area. figure 3: visualizing the positions of the default layout components figure 4 shows what happens when the layout is switched to "text + title." the components’ positions have changed and are no longer aligned with our rectangles. note : watch face studio allows you to select and preview any layout. on an actual watch, the user cannot modify or switch layouts. figure 4: complication components changing position between different layouts in figure 5, the watch face has been deployed. customizing the complication reveals that the components do not consistently display in the same location. for example, with the "bixby" or "barometer" providers, the components are in the appropriate positions. however, the components of "feels like temp." and "step count" are not in alignment. (a) bixby (b) feels like temp. (c) step count (d) barometer figure 5: complication components changing position between different layouts on an actual watch fixing the position of complication components this section demonstrates how to make the position of complication components consistent, where the end result is the fixed layout. this resolves the problem of components changing position between layouts. you can follow along with the demonstration by downloading the sample project. to fix the position of complication components: in watch face studio, add a short text complication. to create a rectangle, select add component > shape > rectangle. note : instead of a rectangle, you can also use an ellipse. adjust the position and size of the rectangle to fit the entire layout. set the opacity of the rectangle to 0%. the rectangle becomes invisible. note : in the sample project, for demonstration purposes, the rectangle’s opacity has been set to 20%. give the shape a descriptive name, such as “icon, text, title background.” add the rectangle to the short text complication layout, placing it beneath the icon component. figure 6: adding the rectangle to the layout add the remaining layouts ("text + title," "icon + text," and "text") to the complication. repeat steps 2 to 6 for each layout you want to implement. the following figure shows the result in watch face studio. figure 7: watch face studio view after adding background rectangle when the project is deployed to the watch, the complication components stay in the same place even when switching between layouts. (a) bixby (b) feels like temp. (c) step count (d) barometer figure 8: consistent component position between different layouts conclusion watch face studio provides various layout options for the watch face. the layout considerations described in this blog can help you create an effective layout that enhances and communicates your design to the user. resources for more information about complications, see build complications in watch face studio. you can also visit the samsung developers forum, an active and friendly community where you can ask for and receive help with your application development. the samsung developers site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account and subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your android apps.

the key to successful marketing is building your brand and creating a loyal customer base that returns to your store to purchase again. you want consumers to recognize your brand, trust the quality, and anticipate new releases. building your brand takes time and effort. from designing compelling consumer marketing assets to expanding your customer reach, in this blog series, i offer suggestions to help grow your customer base and ultimately reach your marketing goals. what's in a name? consumers might forget the details or intricacies of your app designs, but will remember how your app made them feel. a positive association with your brand name builds confidence in your products. for some, your brand name is simply your given name, the name you used when you created your galaxy store seller account. this works well if you have a memorable name like matteo dini. galaxy.store/matteodini in many cases though, you may want to create a unique brand name that represents your style. if you have truly different styles, you may consider marketing different brand names. doing so will help build consumer expectations when they associate with these brands independently of each other. if not, consumers may get confused if you publish an app that is entirely different than what they have come to expect. marketing different brands can be achieved in several ways. the first is to apply for an additional seller account and create your second brand independent of the first. a great example of a designer marketing two different brands is tomas joscak from vienna studios. tomas decided he wanted to create an "outlet" brand so he launched vienna studios outlet. each brand has a seller office account independent from the other. galaxy.store/vienna · galaxy.store/outlet however, for watch face and theme designers, this can be a challenge because you would have to apply and submit a new design portfolio with the hopes of being selected again. just because you have been selected once, does not guarantee that your additional brand application will be selected. the success of your seller account influences the ranking of your apps and factors in the selection of galaxy store featured promotions. having separate seller accounts would prevent you from leveraging the success of one brand to assist the other. another option is to simply market different brand names under one seller account. when you publish an app, add a brand name to the title of the app and in the copyright holder field. this will create the appearance of an independent brand from your seller account and your brand name will return results when searched. below are two examples of watch faces i published using different brand names. galaxy.store/bunnystep · galaxy.store/atomict the copyright holder's name appears just below the app title when your app is displayed on galaxy store. by default, if you do not enter a copyright holder's name, your seller name will appear instead. for apps that have already been published, you can still add a copyright holder name (brand name) by going to the seller portal page and clicking update for each app. next, switch the mode from simple to advance to bring up additional settings. scroll down to the copyright holder field and type your brand name. be sure to click "save" before moving on. if you leave the app information page without clicking "save", your changes will be lost. if you haven't already done so, you will need to determine when you would like the update to publish. click the publication button in the sidebar and select from the three options: publish automatically. your app will be published the moment it passes the review. publish on date. you can specify the date and time to publish. be sure to allow enough time for your app to pass the review. publish manually. once your app passes the review, it will remain on hold until you manually publish it. when updating an app, be sure to leave a note for the review team in the comments area on the review page describing the update. click the review button in the sidebar and list the changes in the comments field. if your update is minimal, your app will be reviewed much quicker. be sure to again click the save button and then click the submit button. your update will then be reviewed by the review team. marketing info and resources additional reads: strategies for success look for new releases of my blog series, strategies for success, where i continue to deep-dive into the many areas that can influence your market growth. additional topics to include: brand names (this post) building your fan base consumer trends selling your apps samsung galaxy store: tips for marketing your apps check out my video, samsung galaxy store: tips for marketing your apps to learn more about creating brands, designing marketing graphics, social media tips, badges, and banner promotions. marketing resources looking for even more info about promoting your apps? our marketing resources page contains helpful information on promoting your apps. you can view lists of relevant hashtags to use on social media, learn more about discounts and coupons, as well as download guidelines and kits to help you get started. developer forums post questions, search for answers, or just see what are the latest topics for discussion. visiting our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem. to see the latest marketing topics, be sure to view the marketing thread. follow along i hope this article has helped you understand the value in your brand and ways to promote it. this is the first in a series of articles where i share the strategies that successful sellers use in marketing their designs and apps. stay tuned for the next post, where i will discuss ways to stay engaged with your most devoted users. follow up this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

note: as of 9 february 2023, some of the information in this blog post is out-of-date. please refer to the galaxy themes documentation for the latest information on creating and submitting galaxy themes. in this article, i'll share essential visual design requirements and tips that you can use to create a quality samsung themes design portfolio, and increase your chances of passing the review process. when you’re ready to submit a theme portfolio, make sure to visit the how to submit a samsung themes portfolio blog to learn about the open submission cycle, portfolio requirements, and more. let's get started, shall we? theme design requirements in my experience reviewing theme designs, there are often three key visual design elements missing from many theme portfolio submissions: six ui screens, default icon customization, and a highly original design. when any of these are absent, applicants are instructed to resubmit their theme design. let’s take a closer look into these requirements. submit six ui screens first and foremost, it is a requirement to include all six ui screens in your theme design: lock screen, home screen, dialer, contact, message, and notifications. let’s imagine that michelangelo woke up one day to create a theme design based on the sistine chapel ceiling. because he’s an established and famous artist, he confidently submits his work during the open submission window but decides to only include five screens instead of six. sorry, mike you’ll need to resubmit your work, you’ve got to include all six screens in your portfolio! customize all icons the second requirement is that all default icons must be customized. to find out what qualifies as a default icon, simply download the photoshop theme template. open the file and review the first layer named 1_lockscreen and the second layer named 2_homescreen. in the home screen layer, you’ll find these icons: email, camera, gallery, galaxy apps, phone, contacts, messages, internet, and apps. in the lock screen you’ll find the phone and camera icons. always use original art use your own original art in your theme designs; never use someone else’s images. established theme designers can use images for which they have a license, but portfolio submissions must be original work. theme design tips this next section consists of style tips, online tools, and simple methods to overcome creative roadblocks to improve your designs. we’ve all heard the saying “less is more,” right? it’s true, sometimes less is more. however, there are times when a design relies so much on minimalism that the art falls short of spectacular. another example is a work of art that’s beautifully executed. colors, shapes, and composition work well together, but the text isn’t legible; hence the little details get lost and the design fails. so, how do you create a beautifully balanced design? let’s find out. beware heavy minimalism simplicity in design is not a dangerous route to take. in fact, it’s one of the most popular categories in the samsung theme store. however, be cautious not to heavily rely on negative space. if you do not plan to intentionally use a minimalistic style, then all other artistic techniques should speak creative volumes. you can still create simple, elegantly-crafted visual designs, but be mindful that a mobile ui interface needs to be functional as well as visually appealing. design with consistency to produce a good, consistent theme design you must have a blueprint and the tools to help you build a solid foundation. the blueprint can be that you sketch out several iterations of your ideas on paper. next, is choosing the tool to help you pick the right color palette. finally, get a second opinion, ask for feedback and find out if there any inconsistencies in your design. whether six mobile ui screens, an icon pack, or a settings screen, your samsung themes design must portray your style as a whole. colors, font and text legibility, line weight and thickness, transparency, and color harmony must all be considered across the board. remember, whether your theme is painstakingly created from scratch or a beautiful photo that you took from the mountaintops of the himalayas, your icons, fonts, and other ui elements need to gracefully mesh with your background photo or image. i know it sounds easier said than done, but these basic methodologies will help you create a robust, well-balanced, theme design. design using high-res graphics unless you’re intentionally using pixilation as an artistic style, use high-res graphics and images. any visible signs of low resolution or blurry pixilation can impact the quality of your work in a not-so-positive way. here are a few resources where you can learn more about exporting graphics for mobile devices, exporting graphics for mobile apps, and working with images. don't overlook fonts and text font and text legibility should be a key part of your objective when designing themes. when i want to make sure text is legible, i have my peers give a look. the average person should be able to read the text twelve inches away from their eyes. if you’re placing the screen near your face to read the text, then that means the legibility test has failed. more information on this topic can be found here. find inspiration sometimes we have one of those days where the creative juices aren’t flowing. if that happens, i sometimes jump to other websites for inspiration. for example, i head over to behance for some digital-heavy art, or if i’m looking for something edgier, i jump to juxtapoz. shake things up a bit, push the envelope, and show us what you’ve got! focus on color one strong characteristic of good theme design is harmonious color relationship. how this is orchestrated throughout all ui elements and screens could be the difference between getting access to the theme editor or resubmitting your work. when i need a refresher, i refer to online tools and some color theory concepts. below is a short list of links that help me work with colors a little better. references: inspirational color palettes from images understanding color schemes color harmonies tools: adobe color cc color palette generator create a color palette from an image closing thoughts these tips have helped me improve my designs, and it is my hope that you’ll find them to be useful as you take the first step in your journey as a samsung themes developer. once you’ve put this advice into practice and are ready to submit a theme portfolio for review, visit the how to submit a samsung themes portfolio article for everything you need to know about the open submission cycle, submission requirements, and more. so, what are you waiting for? join the samsung developer program and start creating beautifully hand-crafted themes today! support for technical questions and answers, please create a support ticket help from the global community theme resources introducing samsung themes service design & develop theme apps theme webinars designing themes for samsung devices top 10 tips to maximize your revenue with samsung themes