2011-07-05, 18:07
So one of the things I set out to do with reFocus is to have the media flags feel as an extension of the skin.
Regarding studio flags I made the decision to only make reFocus specific icons for tv show studios as the amount of movie studios and substudios is just staggering. For tv shows it has been pretty doable with the help from users.
So with the introduction of the PVR functionality in XBMC I'm at a similar crossroad. As you can imagine there is an enormous amount of tv channels all over the world and to do reFocus styled logos for all of them is an impossible task for me to take on.
Right now in the PVR reFocus checks the same folder as tv shows to see if there's a studio flag that corresponds exactly with the studio name. The PVR however offers the possibility of setting a default folder for tv channel logos and it will try to match it with the tv channel name.If it can't match it automatically, the user can set the icon for individual channels by hand from the gui.
There's two different routes I can take:
1. Provide a skin setting to either keep reFocus' studio images or use an external folder with studio images.
This way you can use any studio logo pack you want.
The dimensions of the studio images in the code however is optimized for reFocus' own studio images and that will not change under any circumstance as I want to only use reFocus styled logos myself.
The problem here is that there is no standard set of properties for these types of logos, and because of that some external logo packs may not be displayed in an optimal way (blurry if they are lower resolution than reFocus studio images and jagged when they are higher resolution)
2. Move the tv show studio logos folder out of the .xpr
This way you can use reFocus' logos and also put missing logos in this folder yourself and point XBMC to this folder in XBMC's tv settings (or do as described above in option #1)
Ideally, I would like option #2 to result in a community driven project.
If you prefer to have all logo's in a uniform (reFocus) style, I can provide a way for you to easily make new reFocus styled logo's for the tv channels that are missing. After that you can post the logo's on the forum so other people can use them too, and they can be included in the reFocus releases as well.
This would also benefit tv shows in the library as they can use this folder too.
This is all not thought out properly yet, so consider this as a poll to see if there is any interest whatsoever in gettting this going as I may be the only one this anal about uniformity
Cheers for reading,
Jeroen
Regarding studio flags I made the decision to only make reFocus specific icons for tv show studios as the amount of movie studios and substudios is just staggering. For tv shows it has been pretty doable with the help from users.
So with the introduction of the PVR functionality in XBMC I'm at a similar crossroad. As you can imagine there is an enormous amount of tv channels all over the world and to do reFocus styled logos for all of them is an impossible task for me to take on.
Right now in the PVR reFocus checks the same folder as tv shows to see if there's a studio flag that corresponds exactly with the studio name. The PVR however offers the possibility of setting a default folder for tv channel logos and it will try to match it with the tv channel name.If it can't match it automatically, the user can set the icon for individual channels by hand from the gui.
There's two different routes I can take:
1. Provide a skin setting to either keep reFocus' studio images or use an external folder with studio images.
This way you can use any studio logo pack you want.
The dimensions of the studio images in the code however is optimized for reFocus' own studio images and that will not change under any circumstance as I want to only use reFocus styled logos myself.
The problem here is that there is no standard set of properties for these types of logos, and because of that some external logo packs may not be displayed in an optimal way (blurry if they are lower resolution than reFocus studio images and jagged when they are higher resolution)
2. Move the tv show studio logos folder out of the .xpr
This way you can use reFocus' logos and also put missing logos in this folder yourself and point XBMC to this folder in XBMC's tv settings (or do as described above in option #1)
Ideally, I would like option #2 to result in a community driven project.
If you prefer to have all logo's in a uniform (reFocus) style, I can provide a way for you to easily make new reFocus styled logo's for the tv channels that are missing. After that you can post the logo's on the forum so other people can use them too, and they can be included in the reFocus releases as well.
This would also benefit tv shows in the library as they can use this folder too.
This is all not thought out properly yet, so consider this as a poll to see if there is any interest whatsoever in gettting this going as I may be the only one this anal about uniformity
Cheers for reading,
Jeroen