[knewknow]

Well it looks like I found the answer to my gui slowdowns/stuttering after about 6 months of testing Frodo each month to see if it's been fixed. Frodo is using a default dirty regions setting of 3, where Eden had dirty regions turned off by default. All I did was turn off dirty regions completely in the advancedsettings file ... check the example:

<advancedsettings>
<gui>
<algorithmdirtyregions>0</algorithmdirtyregions>
</gui>
</advancedsettings>

Now reFocus runs perfectly smooth in Frodo just as it did in Eden. I'm still surprised that no one else has mentioned this fix or this problem on their systems. Let me know if this works out for you as well.

Just wanted to let you know that this sorted the problem on all of my boxes. Thanks a bunch.

Awesome . I was losing faith in XBMC until this fix...

[midblue]

First of all, loving the skin! Used to use Alaska Revisited, but this skin with the reAlaska Dark theme is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Been using it for a while now on eden.

is there any way to set the fanarts as backgrounds for the home page?

why does the fanart not work in the home screen for me? its really annoying I cant seem to get it to work. It works fine in refocus though.

This was already mentioned before several times. It is because there is no more Fanart directory in Frodo's thumbnails directory.

1. Create a directory elsewhere (say "My Documents\artwork-organizer" or if Linux "~/artwork-organizer"),
2. Grab Artwork Organizer addon,
3. Configure Artwork Organizer, point to the directory you just created,
4. Launch Artwork Directory : all you fanarts will be copied to this new directory,
5. Configure reFocus to use custom slideshow, point to the good subdirectory in the new directory you just created: all your fanarts will be there.

kyotocafe, thanks for the tip - indeed, this has been mentioned several times but I think several of us are still wondering: how does this work properly in regular reFocus? This seems to only be a problem on reFocus BIG. I would rather have this "just work" like it used to, and how it does in regular reFocus...

---

Also, I have two bug reports Running the latest from the skin repo on Openelec 2.99.2 Frodo.

1. With the weather homescreen item + widget enabled, and also the "status bar" enabled (this shows your movie/tv/music counts at the bottom of the home screen instead of RSS), when you highlight the weather item, it displays the "current conditions" on top of the status bar text. The status bar text should be hidden intstead. I am not home right now to take a screenshot but I can provide one if necessary.
   
2. Using the reAlaska OSD + progressbar, when you pause a TV show, the clearart is not displayed on the left of the OSD. However, if you press the info button while a TV show is playing, the same exact OSD is displayed and the clearart IS displayed.
   

Is anyone else seeing these? Or are they just me...

[wgards8]

Just tried installing this on with a clean install of frodo final on windows 8 but it is marked as broken. Finding this strange as I have it installed on 2 other computers (both windows 8) running frodo final but these were upgrades of rc3 and they are fine.
Anyone have any ideas what the problem may be?

[midblue]

Just tried installing this on with a clean install of frodo final on windows 8 but it is marked as broken. Finding this strange as I have it installed on 2 other computers (both windows 8) running frodo final but these were upgrades of rc3 and they are fine.
Anyone have any ideas what the problem may be?

I had this issue but after I did a force refresh of salem's repo and the xbmc.org repo, it worked. Force refresh is available in the context menu (highlight the repo and hit 'c')

[wgards8]

Thanks, will try again.

[fonzie]

Just found this MOD and I have to say it is great!!! Definitely a contender for my default skin. I just have a few questions:

Is it possible to add a custom menu to the home screen? (example: Kid's Movies) created using a smart playlist perhaps. Right now as it stands, I can create a custom sub-menu under the Videos category, but that is not exactly what I want.

In addition, is it possible to add a widget to the custom "Kid's Movies" item on the home screen to include the latest Kid's Movies?

I don't plan on using the search feature that appears when you press left on the home screen. Is it possible to disable it? I keep accidentally opening it up and it gets a little frustrating at times.

Lastly, this isn't a big deal but it'd be nice to have as a choice. Can the widgets on the home screen be invisible and then appear when you press the right directional button?

anyways...just want to say that this MOD of reFocus is awesome. At the moment I've been having trouble finding any skins that really suit my needs and are aesthetically pleasing. This one pretty much fits the bill. Thanks for everyone's hard work in making this.

[delanthear]

This might be a really dumb question, but where is the menu option for updating/cleaning the libraries? I really can't find it in this skin

[joro_abv]

Hi,
First of all, let me join to the group of users that highly appreciate your work on this great skin ! It is on top of my list of preferred skins, which are 4 overall - reFocus, Aeon MQ 4, Alaska and Woody :-). The original reFocus is really nice looking, stylish and well configurable and your improvements make it even better.
There's just one thing that keeps the BIG from making it really perfect for me and this is the main screen/menu. It's not that's it's ugly or something, but it's just not right ... not balanced, not solid enough ... can't find the right word. Let's say all other 3 of my list have better main menus, speaking layout wise. I think the main menu should be the "Main" menu. I mean - it should take center stage on the main screen, which happens with big, screen wide horizontal (well ... also vertical but somewhat centered) menu. I'd say Alaska (since it the closest to windows media center menu, which I like the most) is one of the nicest main menus. I guess many users are happy enough with the current style, so if you're open to a similar change - it should be a separate, selectable menu style, if it is technically possible. If you're interested in implementing this kind of menu style, I have ideas for both horizontal and vertical styles, which I believe, are original and nice looking enough. Just let me know and I'll try to make a some concept screens to present my idea.
Another small suggestion - maybe it would be nice to add settings for the clock and date colors.

[midblue]

Hi all - I decided to go ahead and fix a few issues I was observing with this skin. Paul, could you take a look at these sometime and consider including them in the repo?

1. First, a fix for the weather item on the home menu. Currently, when the weather item is highlighted, the current conditions displayed are displayed in the status bar, but they are overlaid on top of the library status count, making it unreadable. Also, there are a few spurious "\95" strings in the current conditions, I removed them. Here is the fix: http://pastebin.com/Mkh85eg0
   
2. Currently, if the user highlights the "Settings" item on the home screen, it will change the item "weather" to display the current condition instead, e.g. "27° in wilmington". If anything else is selected such as videos, movies, tvshows, it just displays as "weather". This is inconsistent - I am taking a leap here, but I believe the intention is that the weather item should always display the current conditions, unless it is highlighted, then it should display as "weather". Here is the fix: http://pastebin.com/LJvKSkNf
   
3. Currently, if you use tvshow season folders (e.g. show_name/season 01/episode.mkv) then clearart will not display properly on the reFocus BIG or reAlaska OSD for a tvshow when paused. Here is the fix: http://pastebin.com/RrQuFEPR
   
4. Currently, if you use tvshow season folders, and you use the "Gallery" viewtype for tv episodes, the background will only display the main fanart rather than cycling through the extrafanart, regardless if "use extrafanart on gallery views" setting is enabled. Here is the fix: http://pastebin.com/qFQESCL9
   

I have been using these changes for a few days now, no problems observed. Hope this helps somebody out!

Edit: Forgot to mention but the issues were observed with the latest from the repo on Frodo (Openelec 2.99.2)

[jasonlcox]

midblue, thanks for posting that, much appreciated.

[GazT81]

Fantastic skin. I've been playing around with it to suit my own eyes such as changing the fonts and sizing but I want to know if it's possible to do something like this with the default OSD.



I notice it shows in I think the original ReAlaska OSD along with the plot sypnosis but I prefer the default one as it's more transparent.

[shahark]

Hi.

Just found out about this skin and it's awsome!

Can I see the movie rating on gallery mode, without needing to go to movie information? IMDB rating, from 1-10.

[ugotd8]

Hi. Fantastic skin, curious if there is any work being done around adding a "rightlist" or "episode" view for movies/tv ?

[trihard]

Hi,

I have a strange issue and am hoping for some help. I installed this skin on both my Macintosh and my Apple TV 2, and it looks great on my Mac, but on my ATV2, I don't show the highlight bar on the main screen. Instead, the font just turns black on the highlighted item but without the white highlight bar, it is almost unreadable, especially on those screens with dark/black backgrounds. Since I installed the same zip file to both places and it works well on the Mac, I don't think it is my copy of it. Does anyone have a suggestion for how to fix this as I really like this skin and want to use it?

Thanks!

[purpleman]

I know this has been discussed before, but -
is there any way to get the home menu fanart slideshow functionality to work the same as previous versions?
I've tried setting a slideshow folder with artwork-organizer, but that solution is lame for several reasons:

1. I have to manually run the script every time I add new content to my library (which is very often and done automatically using CouchPotato and SickBeard)
2. artwork-organizer copies content to sub-folders, which means I can't have a mixed slideshow of TV-shows and movies in my library.
3. this calls for extra maintanence that needs to be done manually when I remove content from my library (which is also very often) - need to clean unused artworks from xbmc's database AND the slideshow folder.

Solutions, anyone?
Thanks.