nvaia Wrote:This should be the default pause bar as well...looks beautiful
I agree. However, I'd much prefer it with the transparency gradient at the top as per an earlier design. Also, I'm still not of the mind that we all need 9 buttons on every screen. It does against the design of the skin. I think the buttons should be hidden and then animate in when you press 'up'. That way, you can still pause/play and fast forward/rewind without viewing the buttons. How often do the other buttons *ever* get used anyway?
jaytyler Wrote:I think the buttons should be hidden and then animate in when you press 'up'. That way, you can still pause/play and fast forward/rewind without viewing the buttons. How often do the other buttons *ever* get used anyway?
The problem with hiding things with another menu you get to by pressing up is that you still have to deal with the mother-in-law factor of people who get all confused when they accidentally press up and no longer understand what they have done or how to get back to where they were. I think I'd rather see a single consistent layout of buttons (apart from ones that are not used for the type of media that is playing).
I agree. I hardly ever use the other options, and for a minalistic screen the bare essentials is a great idea, and I also love the look and style of the buttons shown earlier but with the larger look and fade out that kristvwatcher came up with.
This project is rapidly coming togeather.
Just read Weavus post. I also agree about the WAG MIL problems...
mmm kiosk mode? or smaller buttons for the not so used options. tucked to one side?
Broads Wrote:The problem with hiding things with another menu you get to by pressing up is that you still have to deal with the mother-in-law factor of people who get all confused when they accidentally press up and no longer understand what they have done or how to get back to where they were. I think I'd rather see a single consistent layout of buttons (apart from ones that are not used for the type of media that is playing).
I'd agree until you look at what the button actually do. Does that level of user do anything more than pause, forward and back? Do they change video and audio setting for each file? I'd say not. No buttons on screen and just using the buttons on the remote for those functions is much simpler for your average user.
jmarshall Wrote:The problem with the homescreen scaling is <aspectratio>keep</aspectratio> in Defaults.xml.
The normal practice is to leave it out of Defaults.xml (thus ensuring you have stretch by default) and then add it back in for only those images that need it (thumbs and backgrounds basically).
Ofcourse, you're welcome to default it to keep and then specify stretch in other places should you wish to do so!
Cheers,
Jonathan
I keep forgetting about the defaults.xml - it's where I've used Empty to get the skin functioning - thanks for heads up.
XBMCG33K Wrote:@Hitcher do you have specific plans for weather? If not I have an idea I'd like to pm you about.
Not yet, feel free.
jaytyler Wrote:I agree. However, I'd much prefer it with the transparency gradient at the top as per an earlier design. Also, I'm still not of the mind that we all need 9 buttons on every screen. It does against the design of the skin. I think the buttons should be hidden and then animate in when you press 'up'. That way, you can still pause/play and fast forward/rewind without viewing the buttons. How often do the other buttons *ever* get used anyway?
Have you actually used XBMC?
If you had you'll know that there's the Seekbar (shows progress when pausing, FFing, RWing, etc and has no buttons) and then there's the OSD which, by nature of it's name 'On-Screen Display'*, has all the buttons you need to use. And let's not forget some people are using remotes with the basic Up, Down, Left, Right and Select.
*
Some computer software also uses OSDs, especially support programs for so-called "enhanced keyboards", which often had additional media keys for actions like skipping through music tracks and volume adjustment.
Yup I'm one of those with a limited remote, VISTA MCE.
I have to call up the osd to pause ff etc. So if we could make the pause button the default when calling up that would be great !!
Weavus Wrote:Very nice!
Can I ask a question about lists like these... Is it possible to have it non-wrapped like the main menu is (i.e. get to one end and and fly to the other & dont visually display the same thumbnail twice)? Can they co-exist with wrapped lists as a selectable option? Personally, I think having repeating season/episode thumbnails is going to ruin the clean and simple look of the skin.
I very strongly agree with this. I never "got" the idea of repeating the content, so as to fill the screen. I find it loses clarity and adds the need to examine the content much more closely to understand it. With simple, big, bold and clear being the asthaetic motivations of Alaska, the repeating content thing doesn't seem to quite fit. If i have two seasons, show me two items.
medicineuk,
Nice job, fits Alaska perfectly
I would really like that bar to be the pause/seek bar with Movies also, maybe with a smaller thumb of the current playing movie in the bottom left (where the music cover is).
Very talented people in this thread, thanks everyone!
seuj Wrote:Sorry to be a pain, but is anyone still seeing issues running on non-HDTV resolutions? The stretch ratio trick works for the background but leaves the glass overlays and text out of alignment.
FWIW, this is running on Plex, not XBMC - so happy to help sort this out if it's a difference in app. Also worth noting is djh_'s original release looks absolutely fine in Plex - no tweaking necessary and no black bars.
Thanks!
Edit: just confirmed this looks the same for me in XBMC
seuj: did you have to do anything special to get the home screen or settings icons to show under plex? that's the one thing i'm having a problem with.
many thanks,
marc
PS. saying that, i'm also finding i have to delete '<include file="Viewtype_Landscape.xml" />' from includes.xml to stop the skin crashing when entering tv or movies? same with you?
For those with Aspect Ratio issues, I've updated my Github (which is in sync with Hitcher's). It works on my Display but may need to be checked by others. See
http://github.com/redtapemedia/Alaska
Also note, there's only one file that's changed, Defaults.xml.
Also working on fixing Now Playing.
El Massman Wrote:seuj: did you have to do anything special to get the home screen or settings icons to show under plex? that's the one thing i'm having a problem with.
Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Plex/guisettings.xml and search for the Alaska.custommovies and Alaska.customtv etc settings. If set these to a path to a folder of thumbnails with dimensions of the scale 524x450, you should be good to go. E.g. for my Alaska.customtv setting I have:
<setting type="string" name="Alaska.customtv">/Users/xxx/Pictures/Artwork/TV/</setting>
where xxx is your short OS X username.
El Massman Wrote:i'm also finding i have to delete '<include file="Viewtype_Landscape.xml" />' from includes.xml to stop the skin crashing when entering tv or movies? same with you?
Yup same here! Thanks for figuring out the offending file - was driving me nuts!
redtapemedia Wrote:For those with Aspect Ratio issues, I've updated my Github (which is in sync with Hitcher's). It works on my Display but may need to be checked by others.
Sorry, still looks the same here as per my previous image post - glass borders and text are out of alignment. Thanks, though!
I'm running 1920x1200 - anything I can help with?
seuj Wrote:Sorry, still looks the same here as per my previous image post - glass borders and text are out of alignment. Thanks, though!
I'm running 1920x1200 - anything I can help with?
Screenshot maybe? Running Plex or XBMC?