I have been very excited about this project since Guga demonstrated the ability to toggle between 3 and 4 column layouts. He has been working very hard in implementing some ideas on how to make MFP a more dynamic and flexible environment. I want to showcase his CrazyLayouts concept.
I have found it cumbersome to be constantly toggling between tabs to do different things. What if, at the click of a button, your MFP changes to suit the activities you are currently performing.
While Guga is showing switching to different layouts via a drop-down list; I put them front and center on my top Navigation Bar.
Clicking the
Home icon, brings the familiar interface we all love:
Browse/Browse-Tri-Panel
I am still deciding which of these 2 layouts I like better. The most common activity would be to browse the web. The browser frame is not embeded in a widget. This creates more real estate area for the browser. Wile one is browsing the internet, we can still keep tabs on MFP things.
I created a Bookmarks iFrame widget that is not very pretty or easy to setup.
The size of the Browser window can be manually expanded and contracted.
Downloads
MFP Home page can monitor most of your downloads via SAB, Torrents or jDownload. On this layout, you interface with the applications. All in one simple unified screen.
Watch Lists/Managers
Here you interface with both the full Sickbeard and Couch Potato. All on one screen.
Research
I created this layout initially with the purpose of browsing and getting ideas for shows and movies and initiating SB, CP, and SAB actions. But I found that the Browser widget was taking to much space as a widget. So this evolved into the Browser versions shown above.
My vision is that one can create these layouts and configure for our individual needs. It can also spark the creation of non-xbmc related widgets like weather, iTunes control, etc.
We are no longer constricted to the real estate of a single web browser tab.
Many thanks to Guga for this...!
I would love to hear comments, suggestions and (hopefully) ideas.
PS. I did not mention the obvious in that each of these layouts can be edited to add and remove any widget as desired. The layouts show are what work for me, and should act as inspiration and not as a set-in-stone template.