[NotYourAverageAl]

Pressing Down should give you a scrollbar, at least it does in Composite Plex addon. From here it scrolls quite quickly, the only real difference from a list view is you're going horizontally rather than vertically. 

Picture someone not knowing what they want to watch in a 100-200 movie library. They'd have to scroll a while to get through the library.
I guess what im saying is theres a reason poster & list view types work, imo.

Im finding it hard to go through my library. Is everyone else finding it intuitive?  

Why are you scrolling through 200 items looking for something to watch randomly? That's what widgets are for. I have about 400 movies in my library and I rarely ever go into the "Titles" section of the library unless I'm looking for a very specific movie, which I will then use the alphabet strip to jump to quickly.

Widgets I use:
Random Movies not played in the last two months playlist (find something random I haven't watched recently)
In-Progress movies (continue watching something I was in the middle of)
Random Action movies playlist
Random Animation movies playlist
Random Documentaries playlist
Oscar winners.
Random trakt list (from TMDbHelper)
Random movie genre (from TMDbHelper)
Trakt watchlist (keep a list of what movies I want to watch)
Recently added movies (movies I recently added to my library)
Recommended for you (from TMDbHelper)

Also I often use the lists available in the video info dialog - just browse through TMDbHelper lists and watchlist anything that I'm interested in watching (or play it directly from there). I also use the similar button a lot to go to a list of similar movies (or same genre or recommended or director etc.). TMDbHelper will show library items at the front of the list.

Scrolling through the library to find something to watch makes no sense in a large library because you always see the items closer to the start of the alphabet.

Also, the poster view in the library shows 7 posters plus the edges of 2 more. A list view might show maybe 10 items, so there's barely any difference other than you are used to scrolling vertical instead of horizontally.

The thing is that most TV navigation is switching to horizontally scrolling lists. I've actually found that horizontal scrolling lists are more natural for people that are unfamiliar with Kodi because it is more like other tv apps that they've used before e.g. Netflix.

Also, I don't know what type of remote you use - but I use an MCE remote that has channel up/down buttons. These scroll through lists by page, so I don't even need to use a scroll bar.  

Alright alright, I'll give it a twirl; letting go is hard, hehe. Skin looks good by the way.

How do you get the full screen widget? Looks great, I see it's the default (random movies) if there is no widget selected for main men items. Am I reading that correctly?

And can I change the weather icons on the weather widget?

[jurialmunkey]

Picture someone not knowing what they want to watch in a 100-200 movie library. They'd have to scroll a while to get through the library.
I guess what im saying is theres a reason poster & list view types work, imo.

Im finding it hard to go through my library. Is everyone else finding it intuitive?  

Why are you scrolling through 200 items looking for something to watch randomly? That's what widgets are for. I have about 400 movies in my library and I rarely ever go into the "Titles" section of the library unless I'm looking for a very specific movie, which I will then use the alphabet strip to jump to quickly.

Widgets I use:
Random Movies not played in the last two months playlist (find something random I haven't watched recently)
In-Progress movies (continue watching something I was in the middle of)
Random Action movies playlist
Random Animation movies playlist
Random Documentaries playlist
Oscar winners.
Random trakt list (from TMDbHelper)
Random movie genre (from TMDbHelper)
Trakt watchlist (keep a list of what movies I want to watch)
Recently added movies (movies I recently added to my library)
Recommended for you (from TMDbHelper)

Also I often use the lists available in the video info dialog - just browse through TMDbHelper lists and watchlist anything that I'm interested in watching (or play it directly from there). I also use the similar button a lot to go to a list of similar movies (or same genre or recommended or director etc.). TMDbHelper will show library items at the front of the list.

Scrolling through the library to find something to watch makes no sense in a large library because you always see the items closer to the start of the alphabet.

Also, the poster view in the library shows 7 posters plus the edges of 2 more. A list view might show maybe 10 items, so there's barely any difference other than you are used to scrolling vertical instead of horizontally.

The thing is that most TV navigation is switching to horizontally scrolling lists. I've actually found that horizontal scrolling lists are more natural for people that are unfamiliar with Kodi because it is more like other tv apps that they've used before e.g. Netflix.

Also, I don't know what type of remote you use - but I use an MCE remote that has channel up/down buttons. These scroll through lists by page, so I don't even need to use a scroll bar.  

Alright alright, I'll give it a twirl; letting go is hard, hehe. Skin looks good by the way.

How do you get the full screen widget? Looks great, I see it's the default (random movies) if there is no widget selected for main men items. Am I reading that correctly?

And can I change the weather icons on the weather widget?

Yeah its the widget if no widgets are set for that menu item.

Yeah weather icons can be changed by going into the weather window - focus weather widget then press OK to open the actual weather window, then press a direction to open the weather menu

[NotYourAverageAl]

Why are you scrolling through 200 items looking for something to watch randomly? That's what widgets are for. I have about 400 movies in my library and I rarely ever go into the "Titles" section of the library unless I'm looking for a very specific movie, which I will then use the alphabet strip to jump to quickly.

Widgets I use:
Random Movies not played in the last two months playlist (find something random I haven't watched recently)
In-Progress movies (continue watching something I was in the middle of)
Random Action movies playlist
Random Animation movies playlist
Random Documentaries playlist
Oscar winners.
Random trakt list (from TMDbHelper)
Random movie genre (from TMDbHelper)
Trakt watchlist (keep a list of what movies I want to watch)
Recently added movies (movies I recently added to my library)
Recommended for you (from TMDbHelper)

Also I often use the lists available in the video info dialog - just browse through TMDbHelper lists and watchlist anything that I'm interested in watching (or play it directly from there). I also use the similar button a lot to go to a list of similar movies (or same genre or recommended or director etc.). TMDbHelper will show library items at the front of the list.

Scrolling through the library to find something to watch makes no sense in a large library because you always see the items closer to the start of the alphabet.

Also, the poster view in the library shows 7 posters plus the edges of 2 more. A list view might show maybe 10 items, so there's barely any difference other than you are used to scrolling vertical instead of horizontally.

The thing is that most TV navigation is switching to horizontally scrolling lists. I've actually found that horizontal scrolling lists are more natural for people that are unfamiliar with Kodi because it is more like other tv apps that they've used before e.g. Netflix.

Also, I don't know what type of remote you use - but I use an MCE remote that has channel up/down buttons. These scroll through lists by page, so I don't even need to use a scroll bar.  

Alright alright, I'll give it a twirl; letting go is hard, hehe. Skin looks good by the way.

How do you get the full screen widget? Looks great, I see it's the default (random movies) if there is no widget selected for main men items. Am I reading that correctly?

And can I change the weather icons on the weather widget? 

Yeah its the widget if no widgets are set for that menu item.

Yeah weather icons can be changed by going into the weather window - focus weather widget then press OK to open the actual weather window, then press a direction to open the weather menu 

Suggestion/request please. Can the full screen widget be selectable as an aspect somehow if that makes sense. So you could make it a rando tv shows/movies or any available playlist

[hoopsdavis]

Something I've noticed, when looking at my movies there's no Genre listing for any movies.   I noticed this when I created the submenu and made the attempt to look a the Genre listings but nothing comes up because there's no listing of genre in any of my movies.    This does show in Artic Zephyr 2


By the way jurialmunkey, thanks for sharing the latest Skin.   I didn't know there was something new until today.


RESOLVED:   I got it worked out

[jurialmunkey]

Alright alright, I'll give it a twirl; letting go is hard, hehe. Skin looks good by the way.

How do you get the full screen widget? Looks great, I see it's the default (random movies) if there is no widget selected for main men items. Am I reading that correctly?

And can I change the weather icons on the weather widget? 

Yeah its the widget if no widgets are set for that menu item.

Yeah weather icons can be changed by going into the weather window - focus weather widget then press OK to open the actual weather window, then press a direction to open the weather menu 

Suggestion/request please. Can the full screen widget be selectable as an aspect somehow if that makes sense. So you could make it a rando tv shows/movies or any available playlist

You can change what it points to in Skin Settings > Home > Fullscreen Widget Path

[jurialmunkey]

Something I've noticed, when looking at my movies there's no Genre listing for any movies.   I noticed this when I created the submenu and made the attempt to look a the Genre listings but nothing comes up because there's no listing of genre in any of my movies.    This does show in Artic Zephyr 2


By the way jurialmunkey, thanks for sharing the latest Skin.   I didn't know there was something new until today.

I'm not quite following what you mean. Are you saying that genre info is not shown anywhere? (which is true, it isn't).

Originally I was showing it above the plot (in the same way that the episode name is shown for tvshows). But that was before the buttons were introduced in the skin. The introduction of the buttons in the views meant I lost a few lines of plot and so the genre had to go (otherwise plot would be one line only).

I would like to put the genre somewhere but I just haven't found an appropriate spot yet. If you have any ideas where it might go, I'm all ears.

[mosley93]

Hi @jurialmunkey ! First of all this skin is awesome and I glad that you make it. I love and use both Aura and AZ2, but this is just another level.
Secondly I have a few questions and ideas:

1. Did you consider making the left-side home menu permamently visible? During navigation between widget rows menu could indicate current position.
   
2. Home menu also should have items labels (like in Estuary) and collapse to just icon after moving to widget sections.
   
3. I think the home icon is unnecessary in homemenu. The menu itself is enough to indicate that this is home menu.
   
4. If the menu had labels, you might think of deleting the headers (current window label and clock) in widget section in order to leave more space for widgets. The same thing could be done for info page.
   
5. While navigating between rows it would be a good idea to include part of previous row and the top part of next as this helps navigating: Android TV for example. This could work like this in both info page and homescreen.
   
6. Can you include the big landscape widget that is currently available in Aura?
   
7. Would you consider changing full screen fallback widget into widget that resembles THIS?
   
8. Could the top-section in library resemble this? (replacing clearart with fanart and adding clearlogo)
   
9. Do you plan on modyfing the video osd?
   

[hoopsdavis]

Something I've noticed, when looking at my movies there's no Genre listing for any movies.   I noticed this when I created the submenu and made the attempt to look a the Genre listings but nothing comes up because there's no listing of genre in any of my movies.    This does show in Artic Zephyr 2


By the way jurialmunkey, thanks for sharing the latest Skin.   I didn't know there was something new until today.

I'm not quite following what you mean. Are you saying that genre info is not shown anywhere? (which is true, it isn't).

Originally I was showing it above the plot (in the same way that the episode name is shown for tvshows). But that was before the buttons were introduced in the skin. The introduction of the buttons in the views meant I lost a few lines of plot and so the genre had to go (otherwise plot would be one line only).

I would like to put the genre somewhere but I just haven't found an appropriate spot yet. If you have any ideas where it might go, I'm all ears. 

No worries, I got it figured out.     Thanks  (Maybe add the Genre in the "Overview" screen

[jurialmunkey]

Something I've noticed, when looking at my movies there's no Genre listing for any movies.   I noticed this when I created the submenu and made the attempt to look a the Genre listings but nothing comes up because there's no listing of genre in any of my movies.    This does show in Artic Zephyr 2


By the way jurialmunkey, thanks for sharing the latest Skin.   I didn't know there was something new until today.

I'm not quite following what you mean. Are you saying that genre info is not shown anywhere? (which is true, it isn't).

Originally I was showing it above the plot (in the same way that the episode name is shown for tvshows). But that was before the buttons were introduced in the skin. The introduction of the buttons in the views meant I lost a few lines of plot and so the genre had to go (otherwise plot would be one line only).

I would like to put the genre somewhere but I just haven't found an appropriate spot yet. If you have any ideas where it might go, I'm all ears. 

No worries, I got it figured out.     Thanks  (Maybe add the Genre in the "Overview" screen

I actually just did that (add genre to overview in info dialog) and I came back here to see that was your exact suggestion!

[jurialmunkey]

Hi @jurialmunkey ! First of all this skin is awesome and I glad that you make it. I love and use both Aura and AZ2, but this is just another level.
Secondly I have a few questions and ideas:

1. Did you consider making the left-side home menu permamently visible? During navigation between widget rows menu could indicate current position.
   
2. Home menu also should have items labels (like in Estuary) and collapse to just icon after moving to widget sections.
   
3. I think the home icon is unnecessary in homemenu. The menu itself is enough to indicate that this is home menu.
   
4. If the menu had labels, you might think of deleting the headers (current window label and clock) in widget section in order to leave more space for widgets. The same thing could be done for info page.
   
5. While navigating between rows it would be a good idea to include part of previous row and the top part of next as this helps navigating: Android TV for example. This could work like this in both info page and homescreen.
   
6. Can you include the big landscape widget that is currently available in Aura?
   
7. Would you consider changing full screen fallback widget into widget that resembles THIS?
   
8. Could the top-section in library resemble this? (replacing clearart with fanart and adding clearlogo)
   
9. Do you plan on modyfing the video osd?
   

a. It's been possible to lock the menu position since v0.1.56
Skin Settings > Home > Lock main menu position

b. That's already on my todo list:
https://github.com/jurialmunkey/skin.arc.../issues/49

c. Home icon is there for spacing/alignment reasons.

d. No. There are very strict spacing guidelines that are applied in the skin so that information is always displayed at specific points on screen. You can see how the skin adheres to a specified layout in the screenshot below


e. Limitations in the way Kodi handles grouplists means that there isn't a nice way to handle how the widgets align with the overspill. I'm not a fan of the way Estuary does it because there isn't any consistency to where focus is on the screen - e.g. in Estuary the items are positioned differently depending on whether you scroll up or down through the items.

In Aura I tried to have the focused widget center align when scrolling up/down. I was able to do it fairly well. The problem was that it relies on a series of complicated hacks which make the skin hard to maintain, break the possibility of mouse interaction, and are quite unwieldy to implement. If there was a less ugly way to do it, I would - but since there isn't, I prefer the consistency and cleaner approach that I'm currently using in AH.

f. No. I've covered this point before. I don't like how it looks. I think it looks too large.

g. The Arctic Mirage screensaver looks like that. It will eventually be possible to use it as fullscreen widget - there are just a few roadbloacks


h. Clearlogos available in Kodi are too inconsistent in terms of cropping/spacing/sizing to replace title text in a reliable manner. I'm really not a fan of that faded corner fanart Netflix look. I think even in that screenshot that you linked it looks fairly average -- the fade is spilling over the details of the artwork and is making the colours look muddy. And that's with specific art chosen for a mockup - in general usage it can look really bad if the artwork is not suitable for that style (e.g. lots of detail on the edge that is being faded). These sorts of things only look good with very carefully curated artwork. Every skin I've seen that tries to attempt something like that only looks good in very select circumstances, and in general use often ends up looking very average and unpolished.

i. In what way and for what reason?

[FXB78]

With the addition of the new 'lock home screen' view the arrow indicator now appears momentarily when this view is unchecked (when pressing right). It's not a big issue but once you spot it you can't unsee it Would it be possible for this to not happen? Also, when the option is ticked would it be possible to hide this indicator altogether, the user can see which section they are in by the header which for me makes it a bit unnecessary. I just don't think it looks great especially when using dark mode, in light mode it's much less prominent. Maybe a toggle could be added to enable/disable?

Alternatively perhaps a Plex style indicator could work better:

[Rijs43]

1. Already on my todo list
https://github.com/jurialmunkey/skin.arc...n/issues/6

thanks

2. I can't add too many different things to the widget label as it has to be adaptable to a large number of situations. Because Kodi doesn't allow passing params to variables, it means that I need a separate label control for every permutation (then each control is hidden in the background). The more controls, the more complexity, and thus the greater difficulty to maintain and higher chance of introducing bugs.

you are the expert here, but can you consider this please as this would make sense to see next to title rather than guessing or going into movie info firsy

3. It's possible (and it's already built into the skin - you can see it on items inside the video info dialog) - I just generally avoid for widgets because it would mean that widgets based on library items would have a mark for every single item.

Is this not possible for moviedb helper widgets only?

4. Already on my todo list
https://github.com/jurialmunkey/skin.arc.../issues/13

you are a star

5 I'm not quite sure what you mean by next up episodes view. Anyway, text under posters would make it a different size to the other widgets which I'm specifically avoiding.

I get you here, but is not needed if widget label can have title and year

Jurialmunkey, please see my comments in red above.

Cheers.

Just open information if you need to know the year?
It seems pretty rare that I'm scrolling my widgets and go "well, I'll watch that, but ONLY if it came out in 2012..."

if yiu have different people in one household.. my mom likes movies from years 1940-1990, however I do not like them and want to see more new films and therefor easrier to distinguish these on widgets. I understand
clicking on info, but that is another unnecassary clicks (in and out of info)

And what do you mean by "notes" on posters in widgets?

the little block on right poster corner indicating available in local library

Hi, see above in red

[jurialmunkey]

With the addition of the new 'lock home screen' view the arrow indicator now appears momentarily when this view is unchecked (when pressing right). It's not a big issue but once you spot it you can't unsee it Would it be possible for this to not happen? Also, when the option is ticked would it be possible to hide this indicator altogether, the user can see which section they are in by the header which for me makes it a bit unnecessary. I just don't think it looks great especially when using dark mode, in light mode it's much less prominent. Maybe a toggle could be added to enable/disable?

Yeah after using it for a bit, I agree that it looks better without the indicator (and not really necessary since the label is in the header). I've removed it from the latest.

[FXB78]

With the addition of the new 'lock home screen' view the arrow indicator now appears momentarily when this view is unchecked (when pressing right). It's not a big issue but once you spot it you can't unsee it Would it be possible for this to not happen? Also, when the option is ticked would it be possible to hide this indicator altogether, the user can see which section they are in by the header which for me makes it a bit unnecessary. I just don't think it looks great especially when using dark mode, in light mode it's much less prominent. Maybe a toggle could be added to enable/disable?

Yeah after using it for a bit, I agree that it looks better without the indicator (and not really necessary since the label is in the header). I've removed it from the latest. 

I was having a bit of a play with it and came up with a monochrome type view when it's not focused, now I'm not sure if I prefer this look over no indicator at all. Just an idea if you think this would fit better, I can't quite decide :

[Rijs43]

Hi JurialMunkey,

Another request

Possible to have on home page of sections (i.e. movies, series) when showing widgets and select a poster, rather by going into movie info, seeing something similar to Arctic screen saver on top of the widget/screen? This would look really awesom for the skin and people can see immediately what the movie/serie is about etc..