2017-01-28, 20:48
Update, April 6th 2017
I guess it's time I apologize for not having followed up on a promise and about the announcement I posted earlier.
During my work on Grid it has become apparent that more work needs to be done for a Krypton release of reFocus that will meet quality standards. When I started development of reFocus the skinning engine was missing several important features that these days makes it possible to code much more efficiently. And although I definitely have rewritten big chunks of reFocus multiple times to keep up with these developments, nothing beats a fresh perspective and being able to apply these techniques right from the start.
I will just get to the heart of the matter. At this point in time I just do not have the motivation (or the time) to actively work on reFocus. The available development time is being spent on Grid, and switching between codebases takes away the focus on either. I'm not saying this is the end for reFocus (I'm not saying it isn't either), I just don't know. For the sake of not creating false hope, maybe it's best to assume that this is indeed the end.
I'm sorry for any broken promise(s) on my part, do know that it was never intended. Sorry to anyone who was hoping to see another official reFocus release. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to reFocus in one way or another and to everyone who liked using reFocus.
To anyone interested, I will be making an announcement about a Grid release very soon.
Kind regards,
Jeroen
I guess it's time I apologize for not having followed up on a promise and about the announcement I posted earlier.
During my work on Grid it has become apparent that more work needs to be done for a Krypton release of reFocus that will meet quality standards. When I started development of reFocus the skinning engine was missing several important features that these days makes it possible to code much more efficiently. And although I definitely have rewritten big chunks of reFocus multiple times to keep up with these developments, nothing beats a fresh perspective and being able to apply these techniques right from the start.
I will just get to the heart of the matter. At this point in time I just do not have the motivation (or the time) to actively work on reFocus. The available development time is being spent on Grid, and switching between codebases takes away the focus on either. I'm not saying this is the end for reFocus (I'm not saying it isn't either), I just don't know. For the sake of not creating false hope, maybe it's best to assume that this is indeed the end.
I'm sorry for any broken promise(s) on my part, do know that it was never intended. Sorry to anyone who was hoping to see another official reFocus release. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to reFocus in one way or another and to everyone who liked using reFocus.
To anyone interested, I will be making an announcement about a Grid release very soon.
Kind regards,
Jeroen
Quote:Hi everyone,
I have an announcement to make about the future of reFocus.
Let me make clear right from the start I have no intention to abandon reFocus. However, development on the skin from my end will be scaled back significantly. A stable Krypton version will be released as soon as possible. After that I will try to keep the skin compatible with future Kodi releases but no big new features will be added by me.
There are several reasons for this. The first being reFocus has actually become what I set it out to be and more and better, in my personal use I am not missing anything from it. I started work on reFocus probably about 7 or 8 years ago and I have released versions for all but one Kodi release. While the WIP skins section has people jumping on a new sweetheart skin (mock-up) every week or so, I cannot think of many skins that have been around consistently for such a long time.
Being prolific has never been a reason for me to start skinning. I simply wanted my own vision of a skin to come to life starting way back in 2005 or so when I started what was to become Focus, my first skin for XBMC on the original XBOX. After various mutations this led to reFocus. An appropriate name as the goal was to rethink everything and take what I had learned to the next level both in execution and design.
A couple of months ago though some new concepts started to emerge, and coupled with some old pre-reFocus ideas these have led to what is slowly starting to become a new skin. Finding time for skinning has been getting harder as I get older, so investing the time needed to do it in a way that lives up to my own standards for two skins is not a luxury I have.
So for the foreseeable future I will be spending the majority of my time skinning on my new skin which is to be called Grid.
As I said I do want to keep reFocus alive. So this announcement is also a call to the community. I am looking for people with skinning experience (or a true desire to learn) to contribute to it's future development. The main goal will be to keep reFocus compatible with future Kodi releases. Implementing new Kodi features into reFocus will be secondary. Design changes or implementing new skin features will depend on how I feel they fit in the skin.
People can of course release mods, but for the official version this is the only way for me to handle this as the skin has been a labour of love to me.
That said, great ideas by others have made their way into the skin more than once... And it goes without saying contributions by others will be fully credited.
Anyway, that's the status at the moment. But I am definitely not going anywhere
Cheers,
Jeroen
