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st0nedpenguin · 2014-02-20, 04:11

I have noticed that seemingly at random the home screen will be completely blank, I can hear navigation sounds going on in the background but all I see is a black screen.

Spamming backspace for a bit usually fixes it.

MANY thanks for your work on this skin though, words cannot explain how happy I was just to get a version of Alaska running on Gotham let alone this light version!

Scott00007 · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-20, 04:50 by Scott00007.)

Happy Birthday Freem@n!!!!

Is there an option for auto scrolling TV show/Movie plots?

Thanks for all of your work, enjoy celebrating your birthday.

Scott00007 · 2014-02-20, 05:25

Nevermind....it was just me...I have auto scrolling plots.

Scott00007 · 2014-02-20, 07:47

The "working" circle that comes up when something is loading, say a YouTube video, shows up the in the upper left corner which is where the YouTube (in this case) name is located. If the coding isn't too much I think that it would be better in the upper right corner so nothing is obscured. Not a deal breaker but an improvement for sure.

Galefury · 2014-02-20, 08:40

Happy birthday, Freem@n !

Scott00007 · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-22, 05:40 by Scott00007.)

When it comes to the "working" circle I have moved it for me. I don't use the date/time function so maybe this is just something I want but after editing the dialogbusy.xml file to change it to:

<posx>1200</posx>

I am more than happy.

spjonez · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-22, 18:47 by spjonez.)

I'd love to use this skin but the option to add custom home screen items has disappeared. Was that intentional or a mistake? The label is wrong in Gotham, it shows up in Refocus Big under Homescreen -> Enable fixed latency playback mode but is actually the menu to add playlists to the homescreen.

st0nedpenguin · 2014-02-23, 02:41

(2014-02-22, 18:46)spjonez Wrote: I'd love to use this skin but the option to add custom home screen items has disappeared. Was that intentional or a mistake? The label is wrong in Gotham, it shows up in Refocus Big under Homescreen -> Enable fixed latency playback mode but is actually the menu to add playlists to the homescreen.

I'm assuming it was one of the features removed for performance reasons.

Scott00007 · 2014-02-23, 03:08

Performance is the main focus of this fork so that feature has been removed (I asked Freem@n the same thing). You can add your own if you edit the homemenu.xml file.

spjonez · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-23, 15:16 by spjonez.)

(2014-02-23, 03:08)Scott00007 Wrote: Performance is the main focus of this fork so that feature has been removed (I asked Freem@n the same thing). You can add your own if you edit the homemenu.xml file.

I could yes, but then every time it updates I'd have to repatch it. I did that for a while with a previous theme and it gets tiring fast. I use smart playlists to categorize my media, my home screen is only playlists and settings (all the default options are removed).

What about custom items is costly, could that part be reworked? I'm game to give it a shot if you can tell me why that feature is considered slow.

Scott00007 · 2014-02-24, 09:05

Freem@n made the decision to remove it. I'm not sure what about it slows things down. I use the save my homemenu.xml file to a different directory/update the skin/copy it back work around.....not perfect but if you want an option not supported by the main skin then I'm not sure what else can be done. ReFocus Big has the option but is not as responsive as this mod so maybe it's just a performance for feature decision on your part.

spjonez · (This post was last modified: 2014-02-24, 23:40 by spjonez.)

(2014-02-24, 09:05)Scott00007 Wrote: Freem@n made the decision to remove it. I'm not sure what about it slows things down. I use the save my homemenu.xml file to a different directory/update the skin/copy it back work around.....not perfect but if you want an option not supported by the main skin then I'm not sure what else can be done. ReFocus Big has the option but is not as responsive as this mod so maybe it's just a performance for feature decision on your part.

I did a diff on homemenu.xml from both skins and custom categories are baked into the file and use config settings for their paths and display (hide or show). I don't see how this could make a noticeable impact on performance? Removing them certainly made the file smaller, my guess would be smaller size = faster read/parse and I'm assuming the author doesn't use this feature (making this a micro optimization).

If not having them shaved 1/2 a second off load I can see why you'd remove them. But if it's only a few ms it seems like keeping such a powerful feature would be worthwhile. I'm not asking the developer to fix whatever is wrong with them (if there is a reason I don't see) I will fork the repo and send a pull request, I just need to know what problem I'm trying to solve.

st0nedpenguin · 2014-02-25, 02:03

Are you running on a Pi? Every minute optimization really helps.

spjonez · 2014-02-25, 16:04

(2014-02-25, 02:03)st0nedpenguin Wrote: Are you running on a Pi? Every minute optimization really helps.

Yes I have 5 Pi's in the house. One is a Raspbian server the others are all running MilhouseVH's OpenELEC Gotham build. I've been using RefocusBig for around a year on 4 of them, with storage on USB and a modest overlock I never found the theme that slow to begin with. Over the last year massive improvements have been made in asset loading/caching on the Pi. That said, after trying this light version there is a definite improvement in navigating the GUI and I'm glad more people are starting to optimize for the device.

What can I say I want both features and speed, and I'm willing to help to make that happen Big Grin

Scott00007 · 2014-02-26, 14:50

I like to use a custom folder to have fan art as the background image on the TV Shows/Movies menu on the home screen but I would like to shorten the time between changes. What .xml file do I need to edit to change this?