[mxlance]

i for one am not a big fan of the new flat look designs.
to me the persona skin looks like a screen with post-it notes stuck to it.

it occurred to me perhaps the choice of skin is dependent or influenced in large part by how kodi is being used.
i only use kodi for TV. we have a mix of small and medium size CRT and LCD displays, really like fanart and have old eyes.
so aeon nox, metropolis and transparency are our go to skins.

i do not currently use kodi on any mobile device or even on the desktop other than to configure kodi.
maybe my taste would change if i was.

i am curious if device and usage influences the choice of skin?

[natethomas]

Whoa. CRTs? I had somewhat assumed those were all gone by this point.

[Martijn]

Whoa. CRTs? I had somewhat assumed those were all gone by this point.

my colleague still has a CRT TV. It just keeps going and he can put a lamp on top of it. That's not possible on flatscreens

[natethomas]

I have heard of people using them for old gaming, sometimes for games like Halo 2 that just look better on CRTs, and sometimes for games like Duck Hunt, that simply don't work on anything else.

[mxlance]

nice!
now i feel really old, just call me 19th century man.
i bake all my own bread too.
when the big 32" monster dies i will upgrade but it just keeps plugging along.

the only comment i get is to make fun of my CTR display?
thanks

[Prof Yaffle]

@mxlance - don't take it personally - I think Nate was responding as if you'd said that you use gnomes to carve images into wax sheets, and then flip them past at 50 sheets per second to make a moving picture. Surprise rather than mockery - I'd suggest that the prevalence of large-screen TVs, AVRs and complex surround sound setups is somewhat higher on this forum than in most places, so people's frame of reference shifts.

I was using XBMC on a CRT until not that long ago. I gave the damned thing away since it just wouldn't die... that's old-school Japanese engineering for you.

All that said, I struggle with skins. Confluence looks dated, yes - but everything else falls short. I'm not a huge fan of the Metro-style flat interfaces; I don't like how many skins only use posters and not thumbs (so multiple 'recently added' episodes of a series get the same image); I find the visual noise of too many pictures all stacked against each other just clutters things up.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, and I'd get used to anything quickly enough... I've just never found something as universally-usable as Confluence (vertical or horizontal, with bubble images or the old separate pictures). A really good makeover of the default skin would be a huge leap forward, much more so than a new CODEC IMO.

[mxlance]

i was just having a bit of good natured fun - thanks for the support.

[natethomas]

As a follow up, mxlance, I actually spent some time looking at how shaders could be used to emulate the CRT display look on flat screens for retroplayer. In my mind I thought we were so far removed from CRTs that we were now going full circle and beginning to develop nostalgic mods to emulate the look of the past. The fact that you (and honestly, probably a lot of people still) actually have a CRT makes me wonder how silly it would look to put a CRT shader onto a CRT screen.

[mxlance]

@natethomas
WOW! just tried the image on my antique tv and it was like being back in 1981 watching "video killed the radio star" on MTV.
wish i could share the experience.

[natethomas]

@natethomas
WOW! just tried the image on my antique tv and it was like being back in 1981 watching "video killed the radio star" on MTV.
wish i could share the experience.

Haha, awesome.

[patseguin]

i for one am not a big fan of the new flat look designs.
to me the persona skin looks like a screen with post-it notes stuck to it.

it occurred to me perhaps the choice of skin is dependent or influenced in large part by how kodi is being used.
i only use kodi for TV. we have a mix of small and medium size CRT and LCD displays, really like fanart and have old eyes.
so aeon nox, metropolis and transparency are our go to skins.

i do not currently use kodi on any mobile device or even on the desktop other than to configure kodi.
maybe my taste would change if i was.

i am curious if device and usage influences the choice of skin?

I agree, I'm not a huge fan of flat designs. It seems like a huge step backwards. Just because MS went flat with Windows 8, everyone thinks they have to copy it. I personally think that Windows 7 was way more attractive looking than Windows 8.

[Calum]

i for one am not a big fan of the new flat look designs.
to me the persona skin looks like a screen with post-it notes stuck to it.

it occurred to me perhaps the choice of skin is dependent or influenced in large part by how kodi is being used.
i only use kodi for TV. we have a mix of small and medium size CRT and LCD displays, really like fanart and have old eyes.
so aeon nox, metropolis and transparency are our go to skins.

i do not currently use kodi on any mobile device or even on the desktop other than to configure kodi.
maybe my taste would change if i was.

i am curious if device and usage influences the choice of skin?

I agree, I'm not a huge fan of flat designs. It seems like a huge step backwards. Just because MS went flat with Windows 8, everyone thinks they have to copy it. I personally think that Windows 7 was way more attractive looking than Windows 8.

For me and my usage its more about information density on the home screen. I want to see all of my apps and addons at once and not have to scroll to see what's available. Scrolling is fine for me, but when my mom is babysitting it just doesn't work. There should be a kiosk mode in the default skin as well.

[TerrorKeed]

I wonder if the team would pick some nice ideas from here

[awp0]

I tried several of the more complicated and flashy skins, but eventually settled on Bello. Simplicity won out (especially for the family). I'd love to see something similar as the default.

[patseguin]

Yeah, I sort of agree on information display. I just prefer to have it visually pleasing and not overly crowded. I think Bello has the perfect blend of beauty and simplicity. Something like Persona is a great example of coding, just overly attractive looking imho. These flat ui's look like they were designed in 1990 during Windows NT. I think with the beautiful simplicity of the new Kodi logo, a beautiful simple UI using the same blue would make the most sense. Maybe even commission Nessus to design something like he did for TLBB. Maybe it would be fun to have a thread for concept ui's like they did for the logo. Probably a lot of people have great artistic ideas but aren't suited to coding (like me).