Kodi Community Forum

(2016-04-25, 16:35)Slurrrp Wrote: [ -> ]

(2016-04-23, 14:22)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]Forgot to get back at you about this, sorry. A video would be helpful yes. Even though it looks mostly the same the entire widget implementation was rewritten completely for 3.0 so it's totally possible some things behave differently, intended or not.

Here's a (real crappy quality) video. The widget fanart shows only once on every home menu option. Then the problem is gone until you move away from the home screen and return and open a widget again.
Am i really the only one with this problem?

https://vid.me/fDdQ

Also with the latest git there's no fanart showing on the home screen. So i used the one from last friday.

Thanks for the video, that makes it clear. I'll look into reproducing it.

I recently pushed a quick fix for a problem with home screen fanart when no widget is configured for a menu item but I had a feeling it might cause a problem elsewhere. Looking into that as well.

(2016-04-25, 16:38)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]Then show me an example of a skin doing this...

A colleague of mine uses Eminence 2 Mod which seems to do it, and he has just shown me FTV skin doing exactly that behaviour.

Clicking a cast member brings up the list, pressing the down arrow on the keyboard brings up extra info about the actor.

(2016-04-25, 17:42)lstar337 Wrote: [ -> ]

(2016-04-25, 16:38)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]Then show me an example of a skin doing this...

A colleague of mine uses Eminence 2 Mod which seems to do it, and he has just shown me FTV skin doing exactly that behaviour.

Clicking a cast member brings up the list, pressing the down arrow on the keyboard brings up extra info about the actor.

This is quite different from using the context menu, which doesn't exist in the info dialogs.

To be honest I don't find these mystery buttons intuitive in any way. Pressing down to open an information screen is not logical when in every other part of Kodi these are brought up by pressing info or using the context menu. In no way whatsoever is pressing down on something associated with opening or starting something. There is no (visual) cue about what button you need to press, not to mention not knowing about the function can result in accidentally opening it. And I'm not going to put a label in there saying "press down to..." or silly things like that.

I understand in your use case the current situation is not ideal, but that comes down to (Kodi) limitations. Using illogical button presses just because that's the only way around it is not the way to go imo.

Unfortunately I can't use the info button to open the actor info here as that is already assigned to opening and closing the movie info itself and I cannot overrule that. And I cannot overrule the select button either otherwise I could open a custom menu first from which you could choose between opening the actor's movie list or the actors info page.

I'll keep it in mind, maybe some other solution comes up in time but at the moment this cannot be implemented in a proper way imo.

(2016-04-25, 21:40)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]And I cannot overrule the select button either otherwise I could open a custom menu first from which you could choose between opening the actor's movie list or the actors info page.

I'll keep it in mind, maybe some other solution comes up in time but at the moment this cannot be implemented in a proper way imo.

Mimic and Aeon Nox have a custom window that works just as you've described. I copied the implementation from BigNoid.

https://github.com/braz96/skin.mimic/blo...Select.xml

(2016-04-26, 02:08)braz Wrote: [ -> ]

(2016-04-25, 21:40)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]And I cannot overrule the select button either otherwise I could open a custom menu first from which you could choose between opening the actor's movie list or the actors info page.

I'll keep it in mind, maybe some other solution comes up in time but at the moment this cannot be implemented in a proper way imo.

Mimic and Aeon Nox have a custom window that works just as you've described. I copied the implementation from BigNoid.

https://github.com/braz96/skin.mimic/blo...Select.xml

Thank you Bryan, I only had a quick glance and didn't see right away how initiating the window from the info dialog works but it would be a great solution

(2016-04-25, 21:40)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]To be honest I don't find these mystery buttons intuitive in any way. Pressing down to open an information screen is not logical when in every other part of Kodi these are brought up by pressing info or using the context menu. In no way whatsoever is pressing down on something associated with opening or starting something. There is no (visual) cue about what button you need to press, not to mention not knowing about the function can result in accidentally opening it. And I'm not going to put a label in there saying "press down to..." or silly things like that.

I completely agree with you on that front, mystery buttons are of no use to anyone. I only listed the FTV skin as another example of implementation of the actor info screen. Eminence 2 Mod is the better implementation as you just hit the select button. I have always found the list of movies that pops up to be fairly pointless.

(2016-04-26, 02:08)braz Wrote: [ -> ]

(2016-04-25, 21:40)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]And I cannot overrule the select button either otherwise I could open a custom menu first from which you could choose between opening the actor's movie list or the actors info page.

I'll keep it in mind, maybe some other solution comes up in time but at the moment this cannot be implemented in a proper way imo.

Mimic and Aeon Nox have a custom window that works just as you've described. I copied the implementation from BigNoid.

https://github.com/braz96/skin.mimic/blo...Select.xml

Yeah, it is the same in Eminence 2 Mod.

(2016-04-26, 08:32)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you Bryan, I only had a quick glance and didn't see right away how initiating the window from the info dialog works but it would be a great solution

It would be the perfect solution.

(2016-04-26, 02:08)braz Wrote: [ -> ]Mimic and Aeon Nox have a custom window that works just as you've described. I copied the implementation from BigNoid.

Ah I see, you're not loading Kodi's actor list but the one provided by the add-on Code wise it's still a bit of a hack, but it's a good idea nonetheless, thanks

For Jarvis version - is there no way to have a folder of background images, like in previous versions (where it switches every few minutes)?
I can't seem to find how that works on 3.x

TIA

(2016-04-27, 02:40)hydog Wrote: [ -> ]For Jarvis version - is there no way to have a folder of background images, like in previous versions (where it switches every few minutes)?
I can't seem to find how that works on 3.x

TIA

Yeah, there is. This function has been moved to the "Customize menu items and widgets" skin setting (so where you configure your home screen menu) I probably should rename that to better reflect what you can change here.

Ok, I have added a couple of new features even though I promised myself to go into feature freeze. I felt like diving into these for a bit though so I added them anyway. After this I will focus on getting rid of bugs until the Jarvis release is ready to go on the Kodi repo. Well, apart from re-adding a now playing widget which I had already planned...

The settings screens now have quick shortcuts to the other setting categories allowing you to skip through them a bit more easily.



The main settings screen has an options menu now too, containing quick shortcuts to system related tools. As a result system information has moved from the settings screen to the options menu as it was never really a settings screen to begin with.


In Skin Settings->Add-ons there now is an option called "Supported Add-ons" which will open a dialog showing all required and optional add-ons supported by the skin. It will show whether they are installed, and if so which version. Selecting them will open the add-on's settings dialog. I plan to add the option to disable / enable the add-ons from within this window in the Krypton release (there's some new Kodi features required to do it right).


And as discussed selecting an actor in the movie / show / episode information window will now give you two choices. You can either search your library for movies starring this actor or open the actor information screen.


Please note though, there is one known issue with this feature. If you select "Search library for this actor" and select a movie from the results, selecting the actor again will not open the menu shown above. You will need to exit and re-enter the movie / show / episode information screen.

I need some time to find a solution for this bug.

(2016-04-27, 17:25)Jeroen Wrote: [ -> ]Ok, I have added a couple of new features even though I promised myself to go into feature freeze. I felt like diving into these for a bit though so I added them anyway. After this I will focus on getting rid of bugs until the Jarvis release is ready to go on the Kodi repo. Well, apart from re-adding a now playing widget which I had already planned...

The settings screens now have quick shortcuts to the other setting categories allowing you to skip through them a bit more easily.



The main settings screen has an options menu now too, containing quick shortcuts to system related tools. As a result system information has moved from the settings screen to the options menu as it was never really a settings screen to begin with.


In Skin Settings->Add-ons there now is an option called "Supported Add-ons" which will open a dialog showing all required and optional add-ons supported by the skin. It will show whether they are installed, and if so which version. Selecting them will open the add-on's settings dialog. I plan to add the option to disable / enable the add-ons from within this window in the Krypton release (there's some new Kodi features required to do it right).


And as discussed selecting an actor in the movie / show / episode information window will now give you two choices. You can either search your library for movies starring this actor or open the actor information screen.


Please note though, there is one known issue with this feature. If you select "Search library for this actor" and select a movie from the results, selecting the actor again will not open the menu shown above. You will need to exit and re-enter the movie / show / episode information screen.

I need some time to find a solution for this bug.

Excellent as always Jeroen. Is this on Git?

ReFocus is starting to experience feature-creep, in my opinion. When I sit down to watch TV, all I really care about is finding what I want to watch and watching it with the least amount of fuss possible. All these add-ons, selection boxes and pop-up windows make the interface less elegant, intuitive and robust.

I think there is a perverse incentive structure producers face when they develop a product. The first is the latent assumption that adding features constitutes progress. Like adding more courses to a meal, it improves things until it doesn't. The second is that the most vocal user-base wants the most full-featured experience. When a product has a high barrier to entry, those that do make it inside want to justify their expenditure of effort by maximizing the experience through more features. The natural urge is to placate these users, but doing so further increases the barrier to entry and degrades the experience for the majority.

I urge you to think about what real-life problem some of these new features are trying to solve. For example, is the average person really going to read a multi-paragraph biography of Matt Damon on their TV? In my experience, they're probably only interested in finding out his character... or in much rarer cases the other movies he's been in. That information is currently buried either as small text under a huge photograph (of which the vast majority of actors listed won't have) or in a hidden sub-menu. To make things worse, if you move your cursor from the actors list back up to hover over play, explore, cinema or manage, you can't re-enter the actor list without going back to the cast/plot box.

(2016-04-27, 23:12)ZwartePiet Wrote: [ -> ]ReFocus is starting to experience feature-creep, in my opinion. When I sit down to watch TV, all I really care about is finding what I want to watch and watching it with the least amount of fuss possible.

Tell me, what recent developments have interfered with this for you?

Quote:All these add-ons, selection boxes and pop-up windows make the interface less elegant, intuitive and robust.

The extended info implementation has been going on for quite a while (too long actually), I don't recall you voicing your opinion about this earlier. If it's other add-ons you're referring to, I'm really curious which ones. Because the small amount of add-ons that have been added (several add-ons have actually been made optional, whereas they were required in 2.x and before, and Krypton will open up more possibilities to reduce on this) mostly have nothing to do with adding more features but with saving loads and loads of code.

Quote:I think there is a perverse incentive structure producers face when they develop a product. The first is the latent assumption that adding features constitutes progress.

Don't even know what to say to that... you should definitely try not to make too much assumptions. One of the biggest progressions in 3.0 to me is having been able to streamline code once more greatly reducing the amount of code (in some windows nearing 40-50%) without limiting on features. Stuff you will not notice visually...

Quote:Like adding more courses to a meal, it improves things until it doesn't. The second is that the most vocal user-base wants the most full-featured experience. When a product has a high barrier to entry, those that do make it inside want to justify their expenditure of effort by maximizing the experience through more features. The natural urge is to placate these users, but doing so further increases the barrier to entry and degrades the experience for the majority.

If you have been paying attention over the years I have been skinning you would know I am probably one of the most reluctant skinners out there in this aspect. I have had to deal with people complaining about me not adding feature x or y over and over and over, people telling me how it should be done... And now I am urged to not add too much?... It just never stops does it? I can't tell you how many times I have contemplated to stop releasing updates because of all the whining.

I don't see how anything I have added in 3.0 has degraded the experience for the majority. Also, I wonder what statistically solid research you have done to be able to determine what the majority wants or who that majority even is? How many people did you interview about this? Of course I am being sarcastic, if you're going to speak on behalf of the majority you might want to be able to back up any claims you make.

Just so you know, I started and still am skinning for myself. I have never used any other skin than my own for an extended period of time, apart from PM3 on the X-Box. Yes, I do sometimes add features I don't necessarily use myself. But I only add them if I think it adds something that fits within my design philosophy and if it can be done in a way that makes sense. I would never add obtrusive features that get in the way because that would mean I have to deal with them myself.

Quote:I urge you to think about what real-life problem some of these new features are trying to solve. For example, is the average person really going to read a multi-paragraph biography of Matt Damon on their TV? In my experience, they're probably only interested in finding out his character... or in much rarer cases the other movies he's been in.

The average person doesn't even use Kodi, they fire up Netflix on their Apple TV.

Again, I wonder how that information being there affects you in any way? It only shows when you, the user, selects it...

Quote:That information is currently buried either as small text under a huge photograph

Which shouldn't bother you as you are not interested in the information to begin with.

Quote:(of which the vast majority of actors listed won't have) or in a hidden sub-menu.

See above.

Quote:To make things worse, if you move your cursor from the actors list back up to hover over play, explore, cinema or manage, you can't re-enter the actor list without going back to the cast/plot box.

This has nothing to with feature creep, add-ons or anything you are objecting too.

And ultimately, my final argument about these types of posts is always: If you don't like it, the source is right there. Remove what you don't like, add what you miss, turn it into anything you want. It's open source...

But that of course is not the answer we like to hear... Because we all want it served up on a golden platter, cooked and presented just the way we want it to. Because when all the work is done for you, then open source is great!

(2016-04-27, 23:12)ZwartePiet Wrote: [ -> ]ReFocus is starting to experience feature-creep, in my opinion. When I sit down to watch TV, all I really care about is finding what I want to watch and watching it with the least amount of fuss possible. All these add-ons, selection boxes and pop-up windows make the interface less elegant, intuitive and robust.

I believe you are completely welcome to not upgrade. Older versions of ReFocus still exist, and you are perfectly able to use them.

(2016-04-27, 23:12)ZwartePiet Wrote: [ -> ]I think there is a perverse incentive structure producers face when they develop a product. The first is the latent assumption that adding features constitutes progress. Like adding more courses to a meal, it improves things until it doesn't. The second is that the most vocal user-base wants the most full-featured experience. When a product has a high barrier to entry, those that do make it inside want to justify their expenditure of effort by maximizing the experience through more features. The natural urge is to placate these users, but doing so further increases the barrier to entry and degrades the experience for the majority.

Ironically, you complaining about new features being added is no different than those complaining they 'need' certain features. My opinion is that it is Jeroen and nobody else who is to decide what does and does not get put in the skin, for the simple reason that it is his. I think you need to give Jeroen a little credit too. He isn't crying at home every night because he cant keep everybody happy, he considers requests carefully, and decides what will and will not work. I haven't been on this forum long, but I have been here long enough to see Jeroen reject plenty of ideas, and implement some too.

Not to mention that the real skill of a good skinner is keeping a coherent and intuitive UI while incorporating an array of useful features. It is easy to keep a skin simple and easy to use when it is completely featureless, there is no skill in that at all! IMHO, ReFocus has always been about the blend of 'simple but beautiful' which is reflected in the graphics, the navigation, and the feature list.

(2016-04-27, 23:12)ZwartePiet Wrote: [ -> ]I urge you to think about what real-life problem some of these new features are trying to solve.

I can give you a real-life example. My OH enjoys watching a wide array of films/TV with me from my box, and often asks who actors are and what else they have been in. Currently I have to use my phone to look them up on imdb, but thanks to Jeroen's effort I can find what I need right on the box.

(2016-04-27, 23:12)ZwartePiet Wrote: [ -> ]That information is currently buried either as small text under a huge photograph (of which the vast majority of actors listed won't have) or in a hidden sub-menu. To make things worse, if you move your cursor from the actors list back up to hover over play, explore, cinema or manage, you can't re-enter the actor list without going back to the cast/plot box.

This to me sounds more like you are taking issue with the implementation rather than wishing the feature were not included at all.

Jeroen, I tried to install the latest version last night but it failed on dependencies not met.

Is it really necessary to have the UI sounds as a dependency?

I don't use them as I have created my own UI sound pack, but now I will have to install them either way.