[braz]

It's essentially my specialist subject, so if you have any questions please do ask

Hey Mr. Cratchett (aka Unfledged)! I haven't said it yet, good to see you here. I just downloaded the latest from github and changed button 309 to 312. Widgets created from addon nodes don't work out of the box though. I just started looking at Arctic Zephy code, so not sure how it all ties together with the skin code. I might be better off waiting to see what Jurial Munkey does with it.

Great work on the script by the way, it's the main reason I recently switched from my Mimic skin (based on Aeon Nox 5) to Arctic Zephyr.

[BobCratchett]

It's good to be here (And please, call me Bob!)

With the new widgets - aka button 312 - the properties that are returned are quite different from the old implementation. Most notable widgetTarget and widgetPath are both new and need to be handled. widgetTarget tells the skinner what needs to go in the target attribute of the list that's going to contain the widget, widgetPath what's going to be the content of that list:-

Code:

<control type="list">
    <include>widgetListPositionAndLayoutAndFocusedLayout</include>
    <content target="Container(MainMenuID).ListItem.Property(widgetTarget)">Container(MainMenuID).ListItem.Property(widgetPath)</content>
</control>

(And combine that with a template to allow the new widgets to be animated between, rather than them all sharing a single list instance )

Can I be a little disappointed you switched from Mimic? Not that I'm not excited to see what you can do with Arctic, but I really liked the visual style you had come up with

[braz]

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I read about templates...seemed complicated, will see if I get that far.

I wanted to convert Mimic to fully use skinshortcuts, but couldn't figure it out so switched to a skin that already implements it for the main menu and widgets. If I get comfortable enough with it I'll give it another try.

[stueeey]

Can I be a little disappointed you switched from Mimic? Not that I'm not excited to see what you can do with Arctic, but I really liked the visual style you had come up with

...for what its worth, I am also slightly disappointed too.

As a Kodi Home Theatre user I've found mimic's home screen style to be the best & simplest for large screen sofa viewing. Don't get me wrong I love some of 'artics' views, widgets & features (such as the full screen plot etc)... but it doesn't have the same impact or presence that mimic does from farther afield.

I know its early days with this arctic.zephyr mod, but if I had just 1 request -

....I am hoping some alternative larger home screen views, like mimics 3 & 5 home screen menu's may be adopted. arctic currently has 8 home menu's available at one time (when clock is hidden), to small for my sofa viewing (and yes it is a big screen - lol)

conscious this is a personal quest for you braz, but you said to ask and cross my fingers

[braz]

Don't worry stueeey, Mimic isn't going anywhere, I plan to update it for future Kodi versions. I just ran out of things to do with it and found it too difficult to update its widgets/backgrounds, etc to use skinshortcuts.

No plans to change Arctic Zephyr's main menu...I sit fairly close to my 55" tv so font size isn't much of an issue.

[stueeey]

just to confirm - does that mean you are going to adopt the new skinshortcuts widget/background features within mimic?

... or do I still have to purchase some binoculars for Arctic Zephyr's main menu?

[braz]

I don't think I'm up to the task of updating Mimic to fully utilize skinshortcuts.

So you'll have to use Mimic as-is for now or pull out the binoculars, haha.

[stueeey]

ok no worries, I use a lot of addon widgets from PleXBMC, so I've been keen to see what they have been working so hard and how it may benefit my kodi experience etc.

I hadn't realised how dependant on skinners enabling the changes it would be.

I shall experiment with the arctic fonts and home menu, now where did I put my coding for dummies book

thanks for all your help, keep it up, it is appreciated by us mortals lol

[braz]

In your case, a skin that fully utilizes the latest skinshortcuts features would be a big help. You'd be able to create an unlimited number of custom widgets directly from your addon paths. I'm going to wait and see what Jurial Munkey does with Arctic Zephyr regarding skinshortcuts. He's working on Eminence 2.0 now though, so I'm willing to wait.

[stueeey]

yes, fingers crossed... I'm currently struggling to find skins that have adopted its new features (still early days I guess). from what I can see most of the early adopters are skinners who have worked on the script and are now implementing within their own skins Titan & Eunique etc. ...but these also seem to be heavily affiliated to Emby as a server, which is great but Emby does not work well on Mac OS X

also following eminence.2 - love the 'Big Icons' view Jurial Munkey has implemented, looks fantastic even from behind my sofa !! amazing view.... he has implemented the new skinshortcuts widget features which are a godsend for me... only trouble is he hasn't implemented the multiple posters across the the screen widget, just the 1 widget option is available so far.... and likewise with arctic zephyr, the home menu's are to small and icons don't tickle my fancy. Its looking really good though... a lot of fantastic skins & skinners about at the minute !

[jurialmunkey]

Because Arctic is at a stable stage I'm holding off on implementing the new skinshortcut features until it hits the repo. Also, been using the time to work on eminence2 - that's been my testing ground for the new features. I have to say, these new skinshortcuts features bring things to a whole new level.

@stueeey - regarding the overlay. What I do is turn it off from automatically showing and then use my key map to map a button to display it instead (sort of like a quick info overlay button).

Use this command to show the overlay:

Code:

SetFocus(9601)

[jurialmunkey]

4. Could you please add subtitle language flags in the video info dialog?

This is already in the main skin (assuming you have script.skin.info.service installed). Audio and Sub language flags are shown on the info screen - audio in full colour and subs are slightly dimmed.

[stueeey]

Because Arctic is at a stable stage I'm holding off on implementing the new skinshortcut features until it hits the repo. Also, been using the time to work on eminence2 - that's been my testing ground for the new features. I have to say, these new skinshortcuts features bring things to a whole new level.

@stueeey - regarding the overlay. What I do is turn it off from automatically showing and then use my key map to map a button to display it instead (sort of like a quick info overlay button).

Use this command to show the overlay:

Code:

SetFocus(9601)

thanks for the advice @jurialmunkey... shall be sure to implement that when I get a mo.

ps. far to excited right now as I have just been experimenting with adding the PleXBMC addon as a hub to Eminence2 - working like a charm !

really great work, thank you

[jurialmunkey]

Yeah there's some stuff in marcels skin helper script for plex stuff I think - so will have to look into that once things with eminence get settled a bit. Looks like all sorts of possibilities for easily adding plex/emby/Netflix content and widgets.

[braz]

4. Could you please add subtitle language flags in the video info dialog?

This is already in the main skin (assuming you have script.skin.info.service installed). Audio and Sub language flags are shown on the info screen - audio in full colour and subs are slightly dimmed.

I just pushed an update that uses the new properties provided by Jarvis...the script is no longer needed.

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2095420