well i decided if xbmc was going to be my default dash i might as well start making skins for it. while reading through the skinning documentation it made references to being able to use toggle buttons rather than fonts. looking at the media center skin that was included with the 1.0 release i can see how to set this up but noticed that a font 16 is referenced in the xml in the button setup portion. is this needed? i can't see the need to specify a font if your not going to use one.
also all the other skins i've made for various programs all use the 640x480 dimensions while i see xbmc skins using a 720x576 setup. is it ok to use 640x480?
i'd appreciate any info you guys can give, and here's what i've got so far. any comments welcomed as i'm new to xbmc skinning and i'm not sure if this will turn out ok once it gets put on the screen. thanks.
hi, and welcome!
the look of that skin is very, very nice indeed
as for the fonts stuff, i don't think you'll need to define the font parameter - we check if it's valid only after rendering the button's image.
as for the coordinates system, we use 720x576 to get the most out of the screen realestate with minimal scaling. basically, if you are designing for pal, stick to 720x576. ntsc uses 720x480. if you just design for the 1 system you use, xbmc will stretch it to fit the other resolutions reasonably well, although you may find you need a few tweaks here and there.
you'll find your best bet is using the project mayhem files to base your skin off, as that is the default, and thus the only skin that is always up to date.
if you have any queries whatsoever, please don't hesitate to ask (after searching, of course).
cheers,
jonathan
puddwakkr
i really like the look of the skin thus far.
one thing i've noticed about all the xbmc skins is they are all "the same"... what i mean by that is they all have the same menu items, the same text, the same stuff!
examples:
"my programs"
my this, my that...
my my my
wholly crap... what about pictures.. does it really need a 'my' in front? we know they are yours... duh!
also, why is settings a 'main' menu item. are people always messing with them?
do you want your guests messing with them? i certainly do not! why not hide it in the pop-up menu
what about making a short-cut to games diretly from the main menu? why do we need to go through my programs? seems like needless extra steps.
why not have a 'home' button on every page? does everyone like hitting the controller back button 4 times?
sorry for the rant but when you make your skin it might just be somethings to think about to make your skin different more then just by the font, background and button images.
great looking skin! hope it gets finished!
(affini @ nov. 09 2004,00:37 Wrote:one thing i've noticed about all the xbmc skins is they are all "the same"... what i mean by that is they all have the same menu items, the same text, the same stuff!
examples:
"my programs"
my this, my that...
my my my
wholly crap... what about pictures.. does it really need a 'my' in front? we know they are yours... duh!
skinners don't really have control of the button text.
it is pre-defined in the strings.xml file for each language for internationalization purposes.
that's why all of the skins have the "my" prefix on the buttons.
feel free to edit the strings.xml file for your language to remove the "my" prefix if you don't like it.
you can also change "my programs" to "my games" if you want to.
pin87a,
i see... thanks for the info.
it looks like the skinning engine is not as flexible as many other gui front-ends i've seen (xlobby, media portal, netremote, meedio, etc)... maybe this is why i'm expecting more.
the skin really needs more flexibility to have shortcuts and such, not just changing the name of a link that still takes you several button/nativation movements to get to an often needed area... like games. look at the actual number of navigation movements... it is like 4 or 5 including the cursor movements and select buttons. if we could simply place a shortcut on the main menu to the most frequently used areas (mine are games, under programs... and my smb movies folder under videos) it could be a two point navigation.
not sure why this was not a 1.0 feature... i'd think this would have been a highly requested feature since i can do this with any other gui i've seen.
don't get me wrong... i love what xbmc gives me on my xbox but it could be more user (and skinner) friendly.
@ affini
you should try reading/understanding the xboxmediacenter.xml
the possibility to have you games show up by default as well as show a smb share by default - when entering the section is in for ages and works very well
@ puddwakkr
very nice skin - i wonder what icons you use for the other sections
those shouldnt line up with the line above imo - either make it go above the line or keep it below...
offtopic:
affini:
yes, chokemaniac is correct, you can do this no problem at all currently.
as for "not as flexible than mediaportal", i will have to disagree - if anything, xbmc is more flexible (and will be even more so soon).
remember: we are limited somewhat by the control method. if you can suggest how you would like these "shortcuts" to be implemented, then please do. currently you can "shortcut" to any window in xbmc. very shortly you'll be able add items to the homepage independent of the skins (ie the user will have control over the homepage buttons - including the text on them) - the skinner will have control over layout + look. in order to shortcut to a window + a directory within that window, there'd need to be 2 commands sent (1 to go to the window, a second to go to the appropriate directory). xbmc is currently not setup to handle this (or at least my programs isn't). with my music + my videos i think you should be able to auto-link to a particular view mode (eg albums or artists view) but not to a particular directory within those views.
some of the devs here are currently discussing adding a generic command interface to xbmc. if you have suggestions as to what might be included, feel free to pm me about them, or discuss with me on irc etc.
@ affini
the settings and weather are only there until i figure out how to setup the submenu. i'm not planning on getting too involved with the xmls until this weekend when i'm off.
since i'm using toggle buttons instead of fonts i guess i could make the buttons say "butt monkey" instead of "my pictures" but personally i like the "my" in front of the selections. a games shortcut isn't really needed. i'm currently using pm1 and whenever i click on "my programs" it instantly shows a list of all the games, and on the left there are options for apps, emulators, homebrew, and games. the home screen is just one back button away if yours is setup like this.
@ jmarshall
thanks for the info. appreciate it.
@ chokemaniac
not really sure what i want yet for my files. that's a tough one but here's what i came up with for music and pics...
final placement will depend on how it looks when it gets to my tv screen. and also thanks alot for the pm skin. it's great and the amount of time you put into it really shows.
another question if i may. is it possible to have more than one submenu on the home screen? i'd like to setup one button with power options like shutdown, reboot, hard reboot and another with the other options like trailers, weather, settings and stuff.
wow! very nice job, i'm just curious on how you make the strings "my programs" "my videos" etc. an half green and an half white.
regarding the submenu you can use just one in the skin, i beleive that you can use it in the window that you prefer but only in that one.
anyway i suggest you to concentrate yourself on the others window for now, as jmarshall said:
Quote:very shortly you'll be able add items to the homepage independent of the skins (ie the user will have control over the homepage buttons - including the text on them) - the skinner will have control over layout + look.
the home window will change soon.
yes, just a note in particular regarding this skin.
you're using individual textures in place of labels on the home buttons. while this will work, there are problems. for instance, you lose all internationalization. furthermore, it will not work with the new button bar that allows users to denote what a particular button should do.
i suggest you look in to replacing your current textures with a font based solution. yes, this will unfortunately mean that the current "my" in green look will have to go. it looks really good, but unfortunately doesn't satisfy the internationalization, or user-customisable aspects of xbmc. unfortunately, i don't think that anything can really be done about this.
cheers,
jonathan
maybe no green+white with current skin-engine, but maybe something we can allow in the new menu you plan jonathan?
@ pike impossible - the different translations are just too different - how should that work?
@ puddwakkr
very nice - ilike it - id would also really like to seperate the power options from the current submenu in another menu - like this
looking forward to try that skin - dont rush it thou
i didn't mention this above, due to the complexity of doing such a thing. how would we specify which bit of the (international) string should be the second colour? what happens when the user edits the label (as they are able to at the moment via strings.xml and soon will be able to via the gui)?
if we had a fixed home menu, then it's possible. unfortunately, users have demanded a flexible one - that means (slightly) less eye candy is possible.
edit: please see this post for a possible solution to this problem, and let me know what you think. note that using a texture in place of a label does destroy internationalization, but there would be nothing stopping you from doing this using the idea talked about in this thread (my last post):
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....w;st=15
cheers,
jonathan
ok so textures are out and fonts are in, no big deal that was more of a wish i guess.
how bad will xbmc crash if all files are not present? what i'm getting at is i don't want to make up eveything at once and then find out it looks like ass when it goes to tv and then start all over. is there defaults for everything in the xbe itself or is it possible to throw another skins texture.xpr in my skins folder and then change out parts of my skin using less and less of the xpr and the other skins xmls? things like the video osd i'd like to leave for later but i don't want crashes because the png's are not present. perhaps it's best to put a second copy of xbmc under apps and use that for skin testing.