Adding some fonts for addon developers
#76
@Torben We get bugs like this all of the time: https://github.com/Alexqw/xbmc-gamepass/issues/232

And there's nothing we can do about it.

So, should I go bugger off into oblivion? ;-)

I think one of the biggest misunderstandings in this thread is skinned addons vs non-skinned addons.

---Alex
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#77
I can't believe this feature is still not added... Not being able to control font for our own add-on dialog is a pain.
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#78
I worked so hard to create nice dialogs for Emby users. Look at this ugly outcome because I can't control how the font looks from skin to skin:

Image

Compared to:

Image

Please consider giving us the option to import our own fonts for add-ons, I'm begging!
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#79
Just stumbled on this whilst trying to figure out why my add-on uses a different font on different machines.

Now I've found out that it's because add-ons can't load their own Fonts.xml Sad

I'd like to add my voice to those that want font support for scripts. As noted above, even if you have skinned your own add-on window, it's impossible to get a consistent look across different skins (which after all is the reason for skinning the add-on window(s) in the first place) without having control over which font you are using.
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#80
No problem from my side

i wouldnt have a problem to include Fonts like:

- "Addon-WindowHeader" -> (Windowheader Font)
- "Addon-DialogHeader" -> (Header Font for non Fullscreen Dialogues)
- "Addon-ListHeader" -> (List Headers)
- "Addon-DefaultText"
- "Addon-SmallText"
- "Addon-ButtonText"

how this would look at the End and if it would be possible to desingn a Dialog which would do justice to every (any) Fontsice choosen by the Skinner, -> dunno..
(what if a Skinner choose Font Roboto size60 as Addon-WindowHeader - Font, while someone else choose Arial size32? Now if a addon scripter do the dialog sizing according to a specific skin, it may fit there but may in a other skin the Font need to much space.

Not a easy Topic i guss.

And if Addons would control the Fonts and sizes for there Dialogues, it would imho. always look like a "foreign object" withhin a Skin.
(Guess a good example here is the Dialog shown by "angelblue05". Nice Design but, wouldnt match every Skin Design imho.)
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#81
I don't think it's meant to 'match' the skin particularly, or that that really matters.

Including fonts for add-ons that supply their own skin .xml files is only ever going to be a work-around at best.

This Image looks different on different skins because I can't guarantee the font I'll be using. Some skins have an all capitalised font13 for instance which truncates some of the text.

Now, there are things I could do to minimize this. I could make all the labels into images thus avoiding the font issue for those. That wouldn't help with the list controls though. Capitalisation isn't necessarily a problem in those lists, I just use that as one example of something I cannot control.

I just want this window to look consistent, regardless of the skin in use underneath. Currently, that isn't possible......Well it is actually, but doing it would open a whole new can of worms that is better left shut....
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#82
While I have to agree that providing a proper mechanism for addons to define their own fonts is the best way forward on the issue, that solution is something that will not be happening in the short term. So in order to provide a 95% there solution I have renamed ALL of my font names so that I can then include ALL of the Confluence/Estuary font defintitions in my skin. So if script writers use the fonts provided by the default skins and use the controls defined in the default.xml file they will have the best chance for a consistent look that still mostly matches my skins look and feel.

I would encourage my fellow skin writers to follow suit and the script writers to make use of these fonts. A perfect solution. No, not by a long shot. But it has to be better than the current state of play on this problem. In the mean time hopefully a dev will step forward to work on a better solution. Now the only remaining issue I see is to come up with a standard name and attributes for a dialog background image. I would use the naming from the default skins, but there are more than one dialog image file in these skins, so which one would I try to match to give the script writers the best chance of producing something that looks ok?

Wyrm (AppTV)
If required a FULL debug log can now be submitted from the skin in settings->skin settings->support. Or follow instructions here if you can't access skin settings.

FAQ's located at :- http://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:AppTV
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#83
We currently have this issue in OSMC.

OSMC has a configuration utility known as My OSMC, and we have always wanted it to look the same across all skins. This has been hard, and in the past one of our add-on developers has (quite hackily) injected the necessary fonts in to the Font.xml that the skin provides. This has worked well since February 2015, but it means we need to trigger ReloadSkin, which has a race with Skin Shortcuts sometimes and can occasionally cause a crash. This is usually when Kodi is updated (and script.skinshortcuts rebuilds the menus).

For Krypton, I plan to allow add-ons to load their own fonts in OSMC. They just need to use a 'Fonts.xml' like a skin would, but the limitation is that the fontset id must always be Default for now. But this approach is better as it means we are not modifying skins, which can cause issues when they are updated.

My patch is here: https://github.com/osmc/osmc/blob/krypto...font.patch It lets you have different fonts for 720p/1080p etc.

I will refine it for our Krypton release. I suspect it's too hacky to even consider for upstream, but I don't know enough about Kodi's skinning internals. For OSMC however, it is suitable: it means that My OSMC can always rely on its fonts being available, regardless of the loaded skin. This lets us have a consistent visual appearance and not have problems where people say they can't read text etc.

It's good to know we are not the only ones who have wanted this option. I wonder if it can be adapted to serve a more general purpose.
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#84
I'm one of the developers for m-TVGuide an electronic guide program addon, and this is a huge issue for our developing trying to support multiple skins. I hope you can make an effort to fix this.

Mariusz
mods-kodi.pl
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