Mod Mousetuary - a mouse-friendly skin
#1
Mousetuary is a Kodi skin, derived from the Kodi default skin "Estuary"

The aim of Mousetuary is to make a Kodi skin that is a bit more mouse-friendly, for those who prefer to control a 10-foot HTPC interface with just a mouse. It also aims to take UI cues Windows Media Center.

https://github.com/gilesp1729/skin.mousetuary.git (krypton branch only)

Most of the visible changes so far are in the live TV OSD. Suggestions and advice more than welcome.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#2
Great idea.
If I have helped you or increased your knowledge, click the 'thumbs up' button to give thanks :) (People with less than 20 posts won't see the "thumbs up" button.)
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#3
Nice work and excellent idea!
The only thing that i miss is a scrollbar in the widget area? I have to use my keyboard to move down on the widgets right now so....
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#4
Yes I see what you mean - they sometimes auto-scroll (inconsistently) and if you can get the mouse into an area not occupied by widgets, the wheel moves it up and down. But a scrollbar would give you a visual cue - auto-scrolling can be a pain because it often isn't consistent, and gives you surprises. Example: Estuary's Addons/My Addons menu. Try selecting something near the middle using only a mouse, without the whole thing jumping up and down!

I like the visual cue of a menu/list fading out at top/bottom - this lets you know where the auto-scroll area is, and that there is one. I'll try some of these ideas out and see how they look. Since Kodi skins all seem to prefer auto-selection with mouse movement (few clicks required) I'll stick with that paradigm.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#5
Vertical scrollbars are in the widget lists now. Auto-scrolling seems mysterious, I'm still looking into it (so I can fix My Addons) but will probably use it sparingly elsewhere.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#6
Yes i see the problem with scrolling in big lists...It is a common issue in most Estuary mods that i have try though...And because of this i am kinda used to navigate with the keyboard right now...
BUT i always wanted a simple mouse support for Estuary for simple tasks, like opening a new episode with ONE simple mouse click in widget area... Or something like the home and back button in the top left!It is something i was crying about before this so thanks.. Tongue

Anyway is there a way to enter the side menu without using the keyboard?If no can you add something like hovering in left/topleft or something for sidemenu ?
Thanks again for this! Smile
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#7
Some screenshots of the changes you've made might help people decide if this is for them.
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#8
(2017-05-11, 13:11)leon_tamp Wrote: Anyway is there a way to enter the side menu without using the keyboard?If no can you add something like hovering in left/topleft or something for sidemenu ?
Thanks again for this! Smile

The side menu (I assume the one that slides out from the left) is no longer there at all in Mousetuary. It used to appear when you put the mouse all the way over to the left, so it did have mouse support. Trouble was, it disappeared as soon as you moved the mouse again, and in any case it wasn't all that useful. What did you find it useful for? (in case I have missed something)
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#9
(2017-05-11, 13:12)jjd-uk Wrote: Some screenshots of the changes you've made might help people decide if this is for them.

I'll put screenies up when there is something more to see, but right now it's pretty much indistinguishable from Estuary :-) The idea is to be able to do everything easily with a mouse, ideally with some extra buttons pre-programmed to do common things (pause/skip/volume/mute). I have this setup with my WMC machine at the moment, which is the inspiration for all this. It's skewed towards live TV/PVR use, since that's what I use it for most, but I'll do changes as consistently as I can for video/DVD/etc.

The visible (to the keen eye) changes at the moment include:
- home and back buttons at top left in all menus except home
- windows sysmenu (minimise/windowed/exit) buttons at top right of all menus
- OSD has had a bit of a tidy up
- some text, buttons etc. are a bit smaller and less shouty

Functional changes:
- mouse works better in a lot of places (e.g. scrollbars in widget lists, good suggestion by leon_tamp).
- OSD channels is gone, OSD guide is now the full guide screen
- side menu is gone

To come:
- OSD slider displays timeshift buffer extent (when I can find a PVR backend that supplies the right information)
- guide simpler and better scrolling with wheel
- some keymap options
- anything else I can think of, or good suggestions from the forum
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#10
(2017-05-11, 13:37)aegidius Wrote: The side menu (I assume the one that slides out from the left) is no longer there at all in Mousetuary. It used to appear when you put the mouse all the way over to the left, so it did have mouse support. Trouble was, it disappeared as soon as you moved the mouse again, and in any case it wasn't all that useful. What did you find it useful for? (in case I have missed something)

How side menu is no longer there?? i can see it when pressing the left arrow on my keyboard...Or you mean that you removed the ability to appear it with the mouse?

Well i mostly use it for changing views...I hate the default list view in movies/episodes but i can't work without list view in other places like addons so i kinda jump around them...Sorting and osd/fullscreen control when you are out of the current video playing is things i used too...

And something else i just saw...When i play a movie and i exit it without closing it (pressing esc for example) the home and back buttons in the top left dissapear...If i close the movie completely they appear again... Smile
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#11
(2017-05-11, 14:51)leon_tamp Wrote: How side menu is no longer there?? i can see it when pressing the left arrow on my keyboard...Or you mean that you removed the ability to appear it with the mouse?

Well i mostly use it for changing views...I hate the default list view in movies/episodes but i can't work without list view in other places like addons so i kinda jump around them...Sorting and osd/fullscreen control when you are out of the current video playing is things i used too...

OK, I didn't notice that left arrow still opens it - my bad. I'll see if I can restore it and make the mouse action work better. Having an options button in some screen and not in others is a bit of a pain so I'd want that more consistent.

(2017-05-11, 14:51)leon_tamp Wrote: And something else i just saw...When i play a movie and i exit it without closing it (pressing esc for example) the home and back buttons in the top left dissapear...If i close the movie completely they appear again... Smile

Guessing, that's probably because you're still playing something (so you're in the OSD). I'll have a look at it.
Thanks for all your testing, btw.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#12
I am the one that is thankful here lol... Wink
Wish i could help you more with the code but unfortunately i suck at these stuff...
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#13
Try the side menu now leon - it's brought up with an options icon near the top left (near Home) and dismissed with a back button at top left. Mouse movement and focus are not used. The left-arrow key sometimes doesn't work - I've probably busted something, I'll look into fixing that. I'll also look at hiding it later when the mouse is moved out of the area.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#14
(2017-05-11, 13:12)jjd-uk Wrote: Some screenshots of the changes you've made might help people decide if this is for them.

Latest commit has screenshots in the resources directory, and in the addon.xml. They appear in the addon info screen when installing.
watch gallery
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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#15
Arrows, back and sysmenu are now an all screens that I can find.
Thread moved to Skins/Work In progress.
HDHomerun Quatro, RaspPi/TVHeadend, NUC/Win10/Kodi, Mousetuary skin, Mouse on couch!
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