[wyrm]

Announcing the reboot of xTV SAF skin, AppTV

Aim:

AppTV is an AppleTV inspired skin for XBMC. It provides a very light weight minimalist gui while also allowing access to a number of advanced Kodi features not available in the AppleTV interface. The skin has a very small footprint, ideal for lightweight Kodi systems (AppleTV's and Raspberry Pi's), while still providing a full feature set of a modern Kodi skin.

Skin is Kodi Helix (and all version after this) compliant, with the skin available in the main Kodi Helix (and all repos after this) repo. A rudimentary wiki is located here.

Development builds:

Are available via GitHub here. Be warned this is my development repo, so there may be monster's (little ones, with BIG nasty teeth).

Screenshots:

Home screens







Other images available on the wiki page for this skin

Current release features:

1.7.0 Matrix release
 

• Changes require to make skin compatible with Kodi Matrix.
  
• Add PVR Guide extended navigation dialog. Longpress 'Select' brings up navigation controls.
  
• Add support EDL and Chapter marks to Video progress bars.
  
• Add Versions button to Addons info screen.
  
• Add Reminder button to PVR info screen.
  
• Add Sets support to Video Info screen.
  
• Removed support for Artwork Beef script as most of it functionality now provided by Kodi
  
• Requires ongoing work but due to Kodi switch to Python3 addons, some skin functions may no longer work. I hope to return missing functions as scripts are updated by their authors or replacement scripts become available.
  
• Numerous minor bug fixes and code cleanups.
  

Wyrm (September 2020)

[grey]

please, give us some screens

[emanon5302]

I've been using this skin for a month now. So clean and simple. Anyone can use it. Excellent work!

[wyrm]

please, give us some screens

Sorry about that, with the last minute rush to get into the repo this kind of got forgotten. Will upload some screenshot here and on the wiki in the next day or so.

Give it a day or so and then 'remind' me again if you don't see anything.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[lipo]

finally the secret is out
looks very polished, BTW what the default home scren for apptv?

[wyrm]

finally the secret is out
looks very polished, BTW what the default home scren for apptv?

Hiya Lipo,

Long time no hear. No secret mate, while I said that there was probably not going to be another xTV-SAF, the fact I was all over the forums asking question about skins should have clued people in that I was still working on something. I have learnt from watching the forums NOT to announce projects until you have something to show due to the pressure people put you under to release something.

Polish is largely due to Samfisher and his boundless patience while I "bike shed" his graphics. That and the name change gave me a chance to drop or redo a number of features that I thought needed some major work. Just the same the last minute rush to release the skin with the release of Helix ment a number of silly bugs got thru. Most of the bugs that I have found have now been fixed, so will try to push a bug fix release soon..

Default home screen is the first image shown above (horizontal), although this home menu has some problems on touch screens and I would recommend that people use the third image above (Icon) in that case.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[wyrm]

New release 1.0.1 (Bug fixes) has now be uploaded to the main repo. See first post for changelog of this release.

Sorry, but have not had a chance to work on making the skin more touch friendly, put will make it a priority for the next release.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[wyrm]

New release 1.1.0 has now be uploaded to the main repo. See first post for changelog of this release.

Main features for this release include.

• Skin now supports touch.
  
• Settings hints on skins settings menus.
  
• Added support for NextUp script.
  
• Updated support for TV Tunes script, now uses v5 calling api.
  
• Added a number of graphics to show if additional content is available onscreen (same as iOS).
  
• Volume Up/Down buttons on all OSD dialogs and windows.
  
• Show temperature range AND current temperature for today in weather shelf and window.
  

Note this is the last Helix supported build of the skin, although it should be fine to run on Isengard, there may be a couple of minor issues in the PVR section.

Remember bugs and feature requests to this sub forum.

Enjoy
Wyrm (AppTV)

[SideStepSociety]

I love this skin, however, I think it could use a bit of a graphics overhaul. A lot of the graphics seem low resolution in 1080p and feel somewhat bland and dated. I did a little simple adjusting myself, using some iOS 7 inspired icons I found on the web and Apple's new San Francisco font and came up with this...







I wish I had Photoshop skills so I could make some icons for the remaining apps (Search, power, etc), but unfortunately, my skills in Photoshop and skinning are limited, at best.

[SideStepSociety]

I also created this icon to go with it...

[wyrm]

I love this skin, however, I think it could use a bit of a graphics overhaul. A lot of the graphics seem low resolution in 1080p and feel somewhat bland and dated. I did a little simple adjusting myself, using some iOS 7 inspired icons I found on the web and Apple's new San Francisco font and came up with this...

I wish I had Photoshop skills so I could make some icons for the remaining apps (Search, power, etc), but unfortunately, my skills in Photoshop and skinning are limited, at best.

SideStepSociety,

First of all I have to say I like it a lot, especially the San Francisco font. But, and unfortunately it's a big but, I can't duplicate any of it as those images and font as they are probably not open source.

If someone could find me a open source font that closely matches the look of San Francisco I would use it in a heartbeat. Currently I am using the Ubuntu font ( and have considered a change to Googles Roboto font), but neither one floats my boat like San Francisco.

As to the icons, again I think SamFisher did very well coming up with icons that followed the spirit of iOS without slavishly copying the iconography of iOS. But once again if someone could come up with an alternate open source set of icons, there is no reason why I could not include them in the skin as a alternate for users.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[SideStepSociety]

I kind of figured you wouldn't be able to use the Apple logo, fonts, etc. Should be noted, though, that Apple has made the San Francisco font available to Developers, so one has to wonder if they're willing to share.

I mostly just wanted to show off what this theme was capable of to other users, should they want to edit it themselves, since I believe this to be the most accurate of all of the Apple TV skins out there, excluding some of the graphics and little things like highlight colours, etc. I'm doing some work on my own setup to change the blue highlights for menus, buttons, etc. to greys/whites since that seems to be the way of the new Apple TV interface.

I would however, really like to see this supporting 16:10 aspect ratios, which is way beyond me.

I originally pulled the icons I used in the images above from:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Apple-TV-i...-525972456

So all credit goes to him for that. And of course, big thanks to you for giving me some kind of foundation to work with, otherwise I'd be without a paddle!

[wyrm]

I kind of figured you wouldn't be able to use the Apple logo, fonts, etc. Should be noted, though, that Apple has made the San Francisco font available to Developers, so one has to wonder if they're willing to share.

I mostly just wanted to show off what this theme was capable of to other users, should they want to edit it themselves, since I believe this to be the most accurate of all of the Apple TV skins out there, excluding some of the graphics and little things like highlight colours, etc. I'm doing some work on my own setup to change the blue highlights for menus, buttons, etc. to greys/whites since that seems to be the way of the new Apple TV interface.

Basically the rules for me to have the skin in the main Kodi repo prevent me from using anything that is not open source. There is no reason why users can't use their own icons and fonts to achieve a closer look to the original look and I would encourage anyone to give it a go just as a learning experience. I am planing to provide the skin with a couple of alternate themes (a light and dark theme) and I'm looking forward to see if the latest rumors on a new AppleTV pan out (a updated lighter GUI). Also to be fair, this skin has changed over the years to focus in on the newer interfaces while still keeping the oldest one viable, so there are a number of compromises I have made to achieve this. That and while I have tried to stick fairly closely to the Apple way, I have now included some display elements to help the user understand some of the Kodi user interface conventions (what I call the screen settings menu, but what others would call the side menu for one). This all adds upto a skin that is close but not quite there as far as looks.

I would however, really like to see this supporting 16:10 aspect ratios, which is way beyond me.

I am constantly trying to improve how the skin looks in varying screen aspects, but to a large degree the skin engine only allows me so much leeway before I have to rewrite ALL of the code to change the layout to suit a particular aspect ratio. That and I have a 4:3 and a 16:9 screen to test the skin on, so I would be coding blind to code for 16:10 or any other aspect ratio not listed above. All I can suggest is that you provide screen grabs of screens that you think don't look right and I will try to provide some general code that might improve the look of non 16:9 screens

I originally pulled the icons I used in the images above from:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Apple-TV-i...-525972456

So all credit goes to him for that. And of course, big thanks to you for giving me some kind of foundation to work with, otherwise I'd be without a paddle!

I took a look at the icons you mentioned. I'm not sure, maybe he did draw those from scratch, but they look very close to the original images. Really I can't be sure that someone (a Fruity electronics company maybe) might not take exception to me distributing a skin with copyrighted images included, that and there is always the Kodi repo guardians opinions to consider as well. As I said, I liked the look, it's just I'm pretty sure I can't use it. But for your own personal use, hey go for it.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[SideStepSociety]

I completely understand all of those points. As I mentioned, just wanted to share. ?

In regards to the aspect ratio thing, I, personally, wouldn't mind if black bars were simply added to the top and bottom of the screen to accommodate the different aspect ratio. I'd be happy to test this for you if needed. I've attached a screenshot of the 16:10 ratio to give you an idea. As I'm sure you'll notice quickly, the quit/power button is a dead giveaway.



Additionally, I wonder if you'd be could give me a hand with getting custom weather icons setup? I've tried going through skin settings and pointing it to my custom "weather" folder containing images labelled 0 to 47/NA, but after enabling the custom weather icons setting, no weather icons are displayed, and only blank space appears above the temperatures.

[MoRbIdBoY]

Really love this skin, but there seems to be a major bug. Helix 14.2. (Same on all versions up). Skin version 1.2.

The 'movie information' for addons in list view is very hit and miss. All I'm seeing on a lot of addons is the movie title and run length under it. No poster. No movie information. I can run trailer, go back, and the info and poster is there, scroll up and down a little onto other titles and it will hit a title and disappear again. Looks OK in other view modes, poster, info, etc. There's absolutely no info to start with, which makes the skin unusable for me unfortunately. I have to view trailer or something and then go back for the info to suddenly show up and then after I scroll to different titles it all vanishes again.

Dont know enough about skins to tell you whats happening, but I'm guessing something in the get information, or show information routines is crashing. Can't mention the plugs here, but the plugs I can't mention, all of them.

Also, could someone tell me what the 'Show Information' option is in the context menu and why it does absolutely nothing (should mention its there and does zero on ALL skins), cheers.

Also, could we have goodies like ExtendScript and NextAired support, I quite like it.

Skin is coming together thank for the hard work. APPRECIATED.