[Martijn]

svn/git is preferred as it makes things easier to maintain on our end,
but we do accept .zip files as well.

For skins? I thought the textures had to be available?

just zip your uncompressed (so without .xbt) skin and put it on a fileserver somewhere and send the link to us.

[Hitcher]

Or they either can't be bothered coding something they'll never use themselves - after the nightmare of doing it myself for XeeBo I personally don't fancy the prospect ever again.

Indeed Skinning XBMC is a huge job these days and paying attention to the bits you don't use is often a chore.

I had an idea while back between eden and dharma that would cut out the need to skin 90% of all the dialogs (and therefore 60% of the work with it) but never went anywhere because it needed changes to the c++ side and people had other "features" and "fixes" they would rather add

I remember discussing something similar years ago where all the skinner would have to do is define a bunch of defaults for dialogs and XBMC did the rest.

Any chance your idea could be resurrected because taking the chore out of skinning would help get more in the repo?

[liquidskin76]

beta defines imo:
*Fully functioning skin
*has all windows and dialog
*PVR windows is something i myself don't find it a blocker if this is not present. So i'd say optional.
*Have all strings at least in English localized. Not having any other languages than English is fine. However strings should already be in the string.po file and not in skin code.
*quality control should be done by some alpha release to at least get mayor flaws out. The smaller ones are for beta stage.

What about an official beta repo that your need to install yourself. This takes about the problem for novice users as they won't see it, you get a larger audience as all skins are in same repo, do frequent updates (this can be done as public is far less so no strain on server). It's very obvious that these are beta/RC skins and bugs are more likely to be present.

Of course this be done with a private repo to however that way it's still very fragmented.

PVR not being a requirement would be great, at least so you can get a skin in to the repo, then work on PVR support for later.

Also, +1 for a beta repo. That would be cool. Maybe a live beta repo, that upon entering you get a warning/disclaimer dialog pop up?

Cheers

[bossanova808]

What happened to the earlier replies in this thread - e.g. pkscout, and mine?

[liquidskin76]

I would bet a big reason is the people who make addons for xbmc most likely always run nightly versions of xbmc so their skins tend to need stuff that is not included in the current stable version that the repo is for

Also the Frodo repo has a crap load of changes needed over Eden like adding PVR that are no small task to do and do right and do fully so many may still be working on it

after the nightmare of doing it myself for XeeBo I personally don't fancy the prospect ever again.

Non-PVR skin disclaimer?

Ouch... now i'm really excited about coding PVR support!

Non-PVR skin disclaimer would be cool.

[MassIV]

Yeah it might be good to put focus on stream-lining what we have this time, instead of new features for skinning.
A little case of 'less is more'? 'Tick and Tock'? More skins and more quality where it matters.

If we can get a really great basic set of dialogs that still give the option for color and font, i'd be down.
Maybe an override for if you really want to do them or already have them?

[Angelscry]

What happened to the earlier replies in this thread - e.g. pkscout, and mine?

I have the same question. Where gone my post explaining why I have stoped submit my program add-on to official repo? This leaves a strange feeling...

[Martijn]

What happened to the earlier replies in this thread - e.g. pkscout, and mine?

I have the same question. Where gone my post explaining why I have stoped submit my program add-on to official repo? This leaves a strange feeling...

They were moved to the Python dev area since this is skin specific

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=156190
Thus to keep things more clear for each section

[bossanova808]

Yeah I figured that out. Maybe edit the first post to say skins somewhere. When browsing new posts it didn't leap out at me.

Back to your regular programming....

[pecinko]

Indeed Skinning XBMC is a huge job these days and paying attention to the bits you don't use is often a chore.

For me, it's a lack of motivation.

1. It seems that most users are interested in more complex/advanced skins.

2. It does not work with addon X. This is problem with addons that have been "tailored" for Confluence without taking any other skin in consideration

3. Poor library navigation. I have been banging my head for couple of years on how to solve this skin wise. Spoiler - it can not be satisfactory solved ATM. This leads to extensive use of favourites script in order to compensate this.

How many people really use xbmc as it was intended - Videos>Movies>press down 2 times>Titles ? After that press back 3 times to return to home page. In order to remedy this we put Movies as separate link on home.

Now fun begins as you have both Videos and Movies. One would expect that Videos would be for home clips, while Movies and TV Shows are separated, but no. Videos still has everything video related probably because from programmers point of view Movies and TV Shows are still subset of Videos. Because of this one must "extract" Movies filters and put them beneath main nav bar on home.

Now, what about video playlists that are recommended way of separating your Movies/Videos into subsections? I can go on and on.

4. Scripts. There are quite a few scripts that extend functionality for sets, fanart, extra thumbs. Users expect them to work in every skin.

Finally my main htpc - Mac mini with audio problems in Frodo, I don't use addons, have 0 music videos, do not use PVR at all, no smart playlists, no sets, no extra (fan)art of any kind. How much fun do you think I have maintaining my skins? To be quite frank, I have updated my skins only for the sake of other users. I could have stayed on Eden with audiofix (thanks toiva!) waiting for better library and xbmc server.

[butchabay]

I think something like a wip or beta section in the official repo would be very welcome ...

we all know how hard it is getting a skin to 100%, daily changes on addons/scripts, bugfixes, changes etc.

A lot of users are already aware of WIP skins, see for example xbmc passion repo --> about 96'000 downloads for cirrus extended v2, seeing the downloads on my repo --> about 400 downloads.

I really think an unfinished wip skin that is constantly updated and fixed will get more downloads than an official skin.

[BigNoid]

I dont care too much for a beta/wip repo. Users who want that sort of stuff already know their way to the forum. It will only open up the way for users who dont know what they are doing to easily download and install stuff that can break overnight.
Allowing skins without PVR is a big +1 from my side. If I ever make a new skin I couldn't be bothered with adding PVR, I wont use it and never will and I think there are many users out there who feel the same.

[zag]

I'm very interested in this as I came from another project where virtually all plugins were submitted to a central repository.

I'm not an add-on writer but I would imagine some of the reasons:

- Lack of an automated system to validate add-ons (basic structure, metadata ect)
- No real list of golden rules that explain what is not allowed (piracy, commercial stuff ect)
- Lack of a website front-end website to show the add-ons *cough*
- Lack of clear wiki documentation (try to find out how to submit a plugin from the main wiki page to see what I mean)

[Martijn]

I'm very interested in this as I came from another project where virtually all plugins were submitted to a central repository.

I'm not an add-on writer but I would imagine some of the reasons:

- Lack of an automated system to validate add-ons (basic structure, metadata ect)

This is not really the concern of the developers but for the repo maintainers so i don't see the real issue there.
Developers only need to submit their work and the rest is up to the repo maintainers.
If it's code validation there's great tool made by phil65 and common sence testing will show the mayor flaws.

Sure we could make more clear what happens behind the scenes but it's not really that interesting.

1. Dev sends request
   
2. We check code and if needed provide feedback
   
3. We take a copy of that code and do a single commit push to our addon repo
   
4. a script is triggered to take the updated code, package it and put it on our mirrors
   
5. repo md5 file is updated so when xbmc check for updates he sees there are some new ones
   

- No real list of golden rules that explain what is not allowed (piracy, commercial stuff ect)

The list of rules is right there on the wiki
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Off...Your_Addon

and if they don't know they can always ask

- Lack of clear wiki documentation (try to find out how to submit a plugin from the main wiki page to see what I mean)

It's right there on the wiki frontapge "official add-on repository" which bring you to the page with the guidelines and how to submit

[mcborzu]

I dont care too much for a beta/wip repo. Users who want that sort of stuff already know their way to the forum. It will only open up the way for users who dont know what they are doing to easily download and install stuff that can break overnight.
Allowing skins without PVR is a big +1 from my side. If I ever make a new skin I couldn't be bothered with adding PVR, I wont use it and never will and I think there are many users out there who feel the same.

Both Ronie and Martijn have said PVR is not a requirement, recommended but not a requirement. Even when I submitted my skin a week ago Ronie confirmed that...

I'm in same boat, PVR being a requirement would definably turn me away...