Kodi Community Forum

Has anyone ever brought up the idea of making the various elements of skins compatible with the addons.

Kind of like a mix & match selector for skins. So the Wrap view for one skin could be used in another.

I know that it's no possible right now because of the way skins are written, but could it be possible?

It would require skin elements to be more self sufficient, and more self contained, but I think it could lead to better skin development.

Currently to create a skin, one has to create a whole bunch of views, and seeing how this is done is our free time, great skin ideas don't always see the light of day. A few views are created, but the rest is never finished.

If skins were broken up into separate elements, we could add different view modes ideas from various skinners to suit our taste. I really like the homepage from one skin, but think the list view from another is better for me, currently, I have to take them both apart, merge them together, and create a "MOD" to get what I want. Having the various elements separated would allow me to simply choose my home screen, and then choose my list view, no hacking together interfaces.

Granted each element would become a little more complicated because of the need to add color/background settings, but most skins have a whole slew of options for each screen already.

The skin selector page in settings would be more complicated, ie. a home selector, a video file view selector, a music library view selector, but most could be set automatically by downloading the various skin addons.

I think it would speed up design advancements, and give the end user what they want, exactly how they want it. Whole complete skins could still be released, but users could swap in and out the various element they want.

Instead of having various skin folders (skin.night, skin.confluence) it would look for like this:

Quote:-xbmc
----skin
------home
---------alaska.xml
---------alaska.xpr
------video library
---------night.xml
---------night.xpr
------video filemode
---------aeon.xml
---------aeon.xpr
------keyboard
---------confluence.xml
---------confluence.xpr
------settings
---------confluence.xml
---------confluence.xpr
.......

Skin elements could also choose to use a global setting from the appearance screen for things like font color if they wanted.


Just an idea. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

but then, wouldn't skin designers be limited by design/layout to make sure all these add-on views looked correct in their skin?

for instance some skins use the whole screen for displaying icons whilst others opt for a central horizontal bar with the icons in it. you just couldn't get every view to fit with every skin.

example 1 - try putting a wall view into PMIII. you would have to redesign the whole screen (including skin textures), not just the "view" (this may be an old skin but serves for a good example)

example 2 - try putting any of "night" views into Say PM3 again. total different layout would require a complete overall of the skin to fit it in.


or if done in a sensible way to make it work, you would simply find all skins looking the same apart from maybe color themes.


(following your recent edit) xbmc would be a patch work sheet of different colors and design which would probably make you feel sick whilst navigating.

Im always interested in hearing new ideas but im sorry to say this one just dosent do it for me. (no offense)

Makes no sense for me as well, sorry

indeed what rudeboyx said it basically limits flexability and forces skins into a universal layout and positioning of things so everything can blend in proper. Not to mention textures I doubt Alaska's bright textures would fit very well into confluence. and even if we used confluences textures we would need to all be named identical and and sized the same

No not a view, but the whole element, home.xml, settings.xml.

I mean a redesign of the way skins are laid out and selected. I by no means think it could be done tomorrow, I mean a direction to move towards in the long term. Compartmentalized skin elements. To allow mixing and matching, or even to just make it easier to release updates and MODs.
There is no need to download a 60mb file every time an icon needs to be shifted to the right 5 pixels. Just the element could be updated, and downloaded.

The folder structure I posted should make it more clear what I mean.

And yes, skin designers could adjust the way an elements colors are chosen, or not, if they wanted to make their skin element bright purple with no form of color selection and not use a central global color settings available in the settings, then they can. And someone could turn around and code in the ability to change the color to match the global settings, and release it as a MOD, and users could pull it done in the skin addons page.

even "whole element, home.xml, settings.xml." screws up things like transition effects between windows and work flow for a user

MacGyver Wrote:There is no need to download a 60mb file every time an icon needs to be shifted to the right 5 pixels. Just the element could be updated, and downloaded.

SVN update anyone??

I was just thinking more along the lines of MOD addons and long term. Currently it takes a long time to release a whole skin, and almost an army to get it done. It just seemed the only way to spread the design out.

I think it would be a good idea, at least from my understanding.

You'd have your skins as normal but add like an advanced page under appearance so you could mix elements, so load initially alaska, but decide to use the osd from pm3 and the tv section from night etc.

I like the theory of it but doubt I'd use it, barring maybe being able to switch out the osd which I think should maybe be seperated from skins anyway but that's a whole other conversation, as it would lead to an inconsistent feel across ui and end up something you'd go oooh and play with and end up just using the skins anyway.

It seems like certain skins die off, because new views are created for other skins, when lots of pieces of the older skins are still completely fine and useful, individual elements could updated or changed out alot easier if each part worked independently from the others. A side effect would of course be that elements of various skins could be mixed together if one wanted to, but whole skins could be used as well, with just choices.

I see that I have now been downgraded from "Senior Member" to "Fan", that's great. Sorry I bothered, good bye.

MacGyver Wrote:I see that I have now been downgraded from "Senior Member" to "Fan", that's great. Sorry I bothered, good bye.

I seriously doubt anyone downgraded its more than likely because you got to 300 posts your changed category to FAN witch is probably higher than Senior member

MacGyver Wrote:I was just thinking more along the lines of MOD addons and long term. Currently it takes a long time to release a whole skin, and almost an army to get it done. It just seemed the only way to spread the design out.

An army....most skins are created by 1 or 2 people. A skin is usually an individuals vision and I think it should stay that way. I look for very little outside influence and leave any variation from what I want to modders.

I think it is a good thing that skins take time. That way they are done right and people have something solid when it is done. This way we aren't over run with a bunch of terrible skins that are garbage. Any skin on here that is worthwhile took time and it shows.

Senior Member 2 Fan is an upgrade