So I’ll keep this as short as possible. This all relates to Creator Pro & Apple Watch faces.
Having seen some of the very beautiful designs on the store which utilised custom complications with coloured dials/surrounds to match, I figured I’d upgrade to creator pro so I could unlock the full customisation and make some proper colourful & elegant designs, instead of just… black meridian, black meridian & more black meridian faces.
From what I now understand after upgrading to Pro, you can’t actually change anything besides what appears inside the complications with Facer? No new options are added? No option to use the standard white meridian face? No option to colour the dials? Nada. Only the ability to insert stuff in complication areas and change their colours & functionality.
I’ve tried searching this topic but it always leads to a dead-end thread or rough explanation/guess from a helpful user as to how these designers manage to get around this and change the dial & face colours. Never quite enough information to work from though.
Could some kind soul please explain or point me in the direction of a post, tutorial, video or anything that would divulge this super top secret information? If you don’t have to kill me first that is!
Adding color is just done on the element you wish to color. On the top right corner of the element should be a paint brush icon. Clicking that makes it possible to change the color with the theme picker. You can see how I’ve done it in this watchface. Inspection is open.
Thanks for your warm welcome & very helpful response! I believe it were some of your posts I initially read on this subject!
I indeed do have an Apple Watch, iPhone & even create the images I use for the Watch faces on a MacBook.
I’ve had a read of your posts you linked to as well as the above & I still can’t figure out how on earth it’s done. I see no way of sending a design between the Watch or iPhone that would suddenly allow these features to be edited or manipulated. I believe whatever they’re doing is much more complex than sending & editing designs between two devices.
From what I’ve read on StackOverflow, they’re likely utilising Xcode to change these locked Apple features. However, they’d have to have figured out a way to export their watch face from Facer to their computer, edit or insert the necessary code & then upload the .watchface file back to Facer.
This is pure speculation, but perhaps Partners can upload .watchface files via the website & this is just something Facer choose to not be public knowledge. cough Apple EULA cough. Again, this is pure speculation, as nobody who commented on SO has a definitive answer or has been a Facer partner.
Thinking about it, this may be a club us late-comers will never be allowed in. If it was common knowledge, the Facer store would be flooded with stunning free designs & the competition would be fierce for partners. It would significantly impact a Facer partners’ ability to standout from the crowd & continue to make the money they do. Let’s be honest, a very select few creators absolutely dominate the Facer platform because of their knowledge on how to do this to the Apple Watch. Why would they share something that would potentially impact their sales/income? I notice designs which feature this kind of editing are never made viewable to the community so they can see how it’s done. They also never support themeable colours. This to me suggests it is potentially a “hacky” workaround and likely frowned upon by Apple & the AppStore.
Hopefully someone like MOD, Architect et al, decide to share this knowledge with us having seen our frustration and creativity being hindered by Apple! I highly doubt it though, for all the reasons above.
Well you are well on the way . I think you are right that it is or was a Premium thing . Before Designing for Apple was opened up in Creator there was some sort of premium Gig where those faces could be ported to Facer . So it seems like that still survives but as you say it seems to be an Exclusive Club . I have asked the question so many times to be faced with a brick wall . I do not want to make too much of a pest of myself . Some times you get to chat with Partners on SLACK . You can Invoke the whole group with @channel . Some times you get a response with @Facer_Official here . You could always try Little Labs be Email . facer@little-labs.com
After digging deeper all yesterday evening, I believe I’ve figured out how to import all of the standard Apple Watch faces in different colours and add custom complications to them.
The downside is it’s a janky process and requires you to build the complications you want to use in a different standard Facer template to the final desired Watch face you want to use. You then have to use your Watch or iPhone to put the final build together and upload it to Facer. After that point, you can’t use Creator to edit it. There’s a few issues I need to solve with importing the complications but as soon as I figure those out, I’ll post back here with a step by step guide as to how it’s all done so we all can make beautiful variations of all the Apple Watch faces!
I’m still trying to figure out how to change the colour of the dials/numbers on each face. That still has me puzzled for now. Likely it’s an even jankier process than the one above but I’ll figure it out.
But yeah, so far so good. We’ll all soon be able to do what the Top 1% on here do! No more silly secrets!
Oh Well Done .I will be Wonderfull of you to share this Hard Won Secret that no one else was prepared to .
I can only only Presume you learn the Art of JANKY at the same school as VOODOO .
Hats of to you Sir .I do not have an Apple Watch but am very excited . I look forward to seeing your work .Sadly there are no Interactives . I kind of guess you really know what you are doing . it would be a Stunning Coup if you could do something with thier Hands . I have a feeling No Janking will crack that .
Hehe thanks bud! I learned the art of Janky from the School of Bodge Jobs! Luckily Bob the Builder turned out to be a pretty solid professor!
I actually used to design & build apps for the Pharmaceutical industry back when the iPhone 5 was the newest Apple product, so I’m fairly clued up on most things app related. Certainly a learning curve picking this all up again now though. As with anything tech related, once you’re no longer using that skill set daily, you come back and find the way things are done have moved on and changed somewhat!
I’ll need to test it out, but I believe so long as you have an iPhone you can import the faces & build them. It will just depend on if the Watch app locks you out of the face library because it doesn’t detect a watch. Again, I’m sure we can find a workaround for you if not. I may be able to Publish each standard Watch face as a design & allow the option for the community to see how it’s built. That in turn might allow it to be opened & edited within the creator and save a tonne of steps for people.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress and will be sure to put something helpful & easy to follow together with screenshots etc. I think just typing out bullet points will likely add a lot of confusion & put people off even trying. It’s one of those things that’s a lot easier to do than it sounds. Hopefully it also doesn’t get me banned for sharing how it’s done, as I may be about to annoy a lot of powerful creators on here. Eek!
How could you possibly get Banned for Doing what the Partners and Others do ??? I wonder if you have been Introduced to MARVIN the Guardian of the Server. I am sure you can guess his Character :::)))
I know this is a bit lengthly but towards the last responces in the Topic Mike O Day joins in and spells out a bit of what you are discovering. However no Instriction. He is one of the few Partners that Does Contribute so he deserves respect for that .
Check the first response in the Topic . Also you can Change colours Using a VAR with a Tap Pad on your face . We need to know what you know so Far . Have you played with VAR and Opacity.
Ha Ha . You have joined a Tiopc that is covering some Advanced PRO stuff . The fist Question is , Are you signed up to Pro . The second question is Have you looked through The Layers and Tags available to a PRO .
VAR ( Variable ) is a TAG that updates or Toggles a number every time you Tap It .
I doubt the variable can be used on apple watch. In times I had my pro subscription running I could not find any extra feature for them besides themes. And themeable can be only elements inside the template “windows”, not the background nor the template time display.
I understand the question like how to make the change at all, not whether the user later on could switch the color. And I doubt this has anything to do with having pro or not.
Those faces we see in store, that are somehow manipulated beyond the template limitations in Facer, are probably made in some different app on iPhone or tablet and then “shared” with facer app. At least that is how I made this (without having the actual watch):
