[guichan]

Hi everyone !

I'm new at skinning, and I came accross two difficulties, which seem to be impossible to do.

I kinda read about both, but nothing "official".

- in a fullscreen gallery, is there a way to use ListItem.Cast ?
Documentation states that is is only in infoview, and i read that was performance related, but in gallery mode there would be only one request at a time... Or maybe a workaround like having a transparent infoview ?

- in a thumbnail view (like for seasons and episodes, or file view), is there a way to use a background fanart or even better a multimage ?

I'm trying to have a coherent skin with gallery mode to select the tv show, and keep the same aspect on the seasons/episodes selection, with the same graphical codes (objects, background image, etc.)


Thanks in advance !

[jmarshall]

1. No, ListItem.Cast is not available in the main list. This is for performance reasons (it's an additional query per movie). Further, it's pretty useless information for the most part.

2. You can use fanart in any view you wish. What exactly are you after?

[guichan]

Thanks for your answer !

1) Actually I wished to display my movies / Tv shows as a fullscreen gallery view with a fullscreen multimage of the extra fanarts as background, the names and pictures of the main actors on that page. As it is one page per movie, the performance issue should not be too big a deal, isn't it ?

2) I wanted to use the same vision for the next screens (seasons and episodes screens), with fullscreen multimage of the extra fanarts as background, on top of which the panel of seasons\episode.

I used something like that :

<control type="multiimage">
<include>screen_Dimensions</include>
<imagepath background="true">$INFO[ListItem.Path,,extrafanart]</imagepath>
<aspectratio align="center">scale</aspectratio>
<timeperimage>1500</timeperimage>
<fadetime>800</fadetime>
<pauseatend>2000</pauseatend>
<randomize>true</randomize>
<loop>yes</loop>
<visible>[Container.Content(tvshows)|Container.Content(movies)| Container.Content(seasons)] + Skin.HasSetting(gallery.extrafanart) + System.IdleTime(3)</visible>
</control>

That code worked for the gallery view, but not for the seasons. I must be doing something wrong, but can't point it out.

If you have any clue I would be grateful ! As I wrote earlier I am really new at that stuff, so I have a lot to learn.
I will try to post a capture later to show where I am

Thanks again !

[jmarshall]

1. You have a list of 1000 movies whether you can only see 1 on screen or 300 makes no difference: The data needs to be loaded.

2. Attempting to load images by concatenating paths does not work. Several skins attempt this and do not function correctly for many users because of this.

[guichan]

Thanks again. I'm not sure to get what you mean for point 2, sorry. How can I access the extrafanarts in a different way than getting to the item's path and adding the extrafanart folder at the end ? It seems to work rather flawlessly for the movie parts actually... What is the proprer way to do that ?

Here are two pictures to display what I'm looking for. First one is what I have now (for movies/tv-shows) I'd like to have the same thing with the panel on top for seasons selection, but the background stays blank whatever I try.


The second is a quick mockup of what I wanted to have with the Cast part. Anyway to achieve that sort of thing ? (it's rather dirty, I just took 3 minutes to add the pictures and frames



Sorry for my newbie questions, I guess I should get back to try some more

[jmarshall]

There is no proper way to do it. ListItem.Path will not return a folder appropriate for appending extrafanart to in a whole bunch of circumstances. Rarred movies, zipped movies, movies not in separate folders, stacked movies, the list goes on.

And no, listitem.cast is not available and likely won't be.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[guichan]

Thanks for your answer and for your time.
(Even though as I need to change my plans, I would obviously have preferred another answer )
Thanks anyway !