[niamu]

Since the alpha release of Tree_Jammer's Lightbox skin followed by the conspicuous absence of Tree_Jammer, I've taken it upon myself to add in as many features as possible to Lightbox in a way that hopefully gracefully embodies the original design.

I have contacted Tree_Jammer about this project, but haven't received a response yet and it would be a shame to see this beautiful concept left incomplete. Hopefully I'm not stepping on anyone's toes here.

I have added many features and fixed bugs. Nearly all dialogs have been coded now and I think the project has reached the point where I can't sniff out all the bugs on my own and need some testers.

You'll find many of the feature requests from the previous threads have been added, if there's still something that you want and I can fit it in comfortably with the rest of the skin, I am open to adding more features. However, I am not typically adding features for specific add-ons. So if you're looking for your favourite add-on to get placement on the home screen I'm sorry, but this probably isn't the skin for you.

Notable features:

• PVR
  
• Continuous browsing in panel view by pressing "right"
  
• Updated music view with same scrolling text as original skin
  
• Option to disable background fanart for low power devices like the Raspberry Pi
  

watch gallery

It would be nice to get this theme in the official repo, but mods are not accepted. Unless by some miracle there is a blessing from Tree_Jammer on this I think the best you'll get is something I'll call a final release here.

Needed before final:

• Localization (There are many unlocalized strings at the moment)
  
• Possible Artist view or Artist/Album view with use of script
  
• Unicode font support. I recall people have had problems with this
  
• Icons. There are lots of added buttons that need new icons. I am not a graphic designer, so hopefully one of you can contribute something that fits for the buttons that need it.
  

Special thanks:

• Tree_Jammer for the amazing skin and the phenomenal amount of work that was put into it. (Also for not hating me hopefully for hijacking the project hopefully)
  
• ursli for the use of their PVR backend. PVR wouldn't have happened without them.
  
• Sabish for their watched icon flag which I shamelessly added as part of the skin
  
• larshall for their fantastic xbtfextractor project and great support. I wouldn't have been able to slim down this skin so much if it weren't for this project.
  
• All of you who have tested to date and provided bug reports. Especially username145 who helped test PVR so much.
  
• I hope I haven't left anyone out.
  

I hope you like it.

Download | Github

[butchabay]

Congratulations,
I have to say, very well done mate!

[gabsaoleo]

It's unbelieavable! Amazing skin!!!!!

I'll test it and I'll bring you reports. Thank you.

[Martijn]

Fix your outstanding issues (especially localization and check if font is not copyrighted ) and I think this would be a very welcome addition too official repo since it already near complete.
Congratulations on a great job


Edit:
Small suggestion, if you do install from zip file the browse window on the right has very large scroll blocks in comparison to the directory / file names.
Make selection block smaller I think. Other than that I'd say don't add anything else. Keep it thus clean

[ronie]

It would be nice to get this theme in the official repo, but mods are not accepted.

No mods. Mods are great, and pop up frequently in the forums. But they are only confusing to non-forum-goers. This can be vague, each is evaluated on its own merit.

as Martijn said, you're more than welcome to submit your skin :-)

we'll probably re-evaluate this no-mod rule soon anyway
and try to make it easier for skin mods to get into the repo.
if the original skin is abandoned then mods are fine imo.

[niamu]

Thanks everyone for your very warm response

For a while I wasn't sure about continuing the project to completion, but the community here gets under your skin in the best possible way.

Small suggestion, if you do install from zip file the browse window on the right has very large scroll blocks in comparison to the directory / file names.
Make selection block smaller I think. Other than that I'd say don't add anything else. Keep it thus clean

I'll definitely change this. Looks like I was expecting big thumbnail images for the list content but that's not necessary. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Elbert]

Very impressive! Love the clean and consistent look across the whole skin.

[baruchin]

A follower since the original lightbox. Simple, light and beautiful skin. The only thing I think could be very welcomed is more views. So, you have green light to submit nbox to official repo, congratulations for that! Keep the good work!

[username145]

My mistake regarding the buffering display. Edited the wrong dialog. Hopefully correct now. It's a difficult thing to test.

Still no buffering dialogue, but the one that came with the "o" stats is gone.

This is really more of a problem with what XBMC is doing than a skin problem. I've made an adjustment that may or may not work where instead of the current channel it will hopefully display the next show for the currently selected channel in the list. I can't test as I don't have PVR on the system I'm at right now.

Unfortunately the area is now blank. If it isn't feasible though, could always borrow what Metropolis has


Yay new thread, congrats!

[gabsaoleo]

Why can't I translate the main menu strings? I couldn't find "films", "tv shows", "live pvr" and, yes, my XBMC build is in my own language.


Love the skin!!

[niamu]

Why can't I translate the main menu strings? I couldn't find "films", "tv shows", "live pvr" and, yes, my XBMC build is in my own language.


Love the skin!!

I haven't localized many of the strings yet. It is on the to-do list though.

[gabsaoleo]

ok, thank you!

[username145]

Just saw the latest commit, many thanks for that, channel surfing ought to be very intuitive now, will test when home

If I could make one last request, it would be to display the nice clock in the corner when you hit "i" and perhaps a small "finishes 9:30pm" kind of entry below it. Though I would be conflicted on the placement since PVR info OSD already has that info displayed in a great way.

Other than that I cannot think of anything to improve on your work (about time? ). This thing runs as fast as confluence somehow on my weaker HTPC

[niamu]

I've added the current time below the "End Time" in the PVR OSD. I know this isn't as pretty as the clock in the menu views, but it doesn't really fit as part of the OSD of a playing video. I think it's more useful alongside the end time of the current show anyways.

[username145]

Thanks again!

What are your thoughts on having the time and "time finish" info available for regular film/tv show content? I'd been using metropolis for some time which displayed both and think i'd miss it; OSD current time is a feature of pretty much all skins I think.

Pressing "i" is better than the interruption of backing out to a menu or pulling out the phone. Finish time is more of a luxury here but great when you do need it (can I finish this show before running that errand? Will this end before the kids' bedtime?). Apologies for the cheesy user cases

(In my opinion only) For consistency this would be visible when the OSD is activated for all content including PVR, with or without the date:



Finish time not a huge deal, but could be in smaller text under it and/or replace the date text. Please let me know when I'm stepping on your toes

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit: did some testing:

- Really hate to say this after reading those commits, but no buffering dialogue still haha. The way I test is playing a high bitrate network stream (any video streaming addon, eg Hulu, Youtube, 1channel) and skipping further in. It says paused but you can see the buffer build up in the stats dialogue.

- The "current time" entry in the PVR OSD is overlapping the "ratings/stars" entry; preferably would just get rid of the ratings entry for PVR completely

- The "on next" info in both the main window and the OSD channel list look fantastic and function perfectly, but the former is stuck completely in lower case and the latter just has "on next" in lower case

Will see more use tonight