[Jeroen]

Goes beyond the "as much fanart as possible" trend which is totally good. [i](Sometimes I feel that users care more about having nice backgrounds in their views than having functions and info in them.

I tend to agree. Don't get me wrong, I love fanart, it adds a great dynamic aspect to xbmc. But in the end I see it for what I think it should be, namely decoration of the interface and not the star of the show. Because, for me at least, that is my media. I try to get a good balance between showing as much of the fanart as possible, but not at the cost of sacrificing more important info. If you think fanart is the most important, create a slideshow of it

Thanks for making this. In case You would need any help I would be glad to hand you with development.

I appreciate the offer, no doubt you have great skills. I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to this stuff though That's not a no though, development still just feels experimental/searching at the moment so I wouldn't know what to ask really. But of course if you have good ideas let me know and we'll talk.

@Stunts38: That's good to hear

As for the problems in 4:3, it's weird because for me it scales down reasonably to 4:3. I did screw up when first uploading Alpha6 though. I uploaded a version which had some old files in the PAL folder. Could you check which files are in the PAL folder? Only fonts.xml should be there. I there's more, try deleting any other files that might be there.
But in the end this version was not made for 4:3. And honestly, with the download numbers/feedback ratio as it is I honestly don't know if I will be motivated enough to go through the process of spending a lot of time creating a seperate version.

[Jeroen]

screenshot of a new alternate homescreen menu I'm working on:



Pressing up on items in the menu will open up a submenu with more choices for that particular menu item like in the original homescreen menu. Big advantage of this menu is that the visibility of any item on the menu can be switched on or off in the skin settings. Also menu options are able to be hidden based on the platform. So for instance no advanced shutdown options are being displayed when running on the xbox.

[Competes2win]

I like the look of that new optional home screen very much. Keep up the good work.

[Stunts38]

Jeroen

This alternative screen looks great, as mentioned above please keep up your good work!

[CptKen]

Looking good, I have been running this skin for the last week or so, and I am simply in love.

It looks like it is only getting better too... Keep up the good work!

[mrt2]

Mine looks exactly like this... I get no background pictures and it's just a solid blue background and text is all bunched together... am I doing something wrong?

[Jeroen]

you're not doing anything wrong, alpha 6 just has no support for 4:3. it is mentioned in the first post.
the blue background is the default background, if you want background pictures you'll have to choose them.

[mrt2]

I have a 16:9 TV though, not a 4:3...

I thought when you selected a resolution in XBMC it keeps that resolution even when you change skins? I have mine set to whatever the full screen res is and my TV is a 16:9.... Is there some settings I should check?

Oh yeah, and what is SVN? Sorry for the dumb questions...I'm new.

[Jeroen]

First and foremost alpha 6 was made for HD screens. I have not tested it on an SD screen as I don't have one anymore. That screenshot seems 4:3 to me, but maybe that has something to do with how xbmc creates screenshots or something. Changing skins will not change your resolution.
It may be that 16:9 SD has problems with font sizing as well as I didn't really pay any attention to other screentypes. I'll see if I can make some quick adjustments to the fonts for the next release.

To put it simply SVN is an online repository where a project can be stored and versioned. This way users can always get hold of the latest developments on for instance a skin, a plugin or the entire XBMC project. And the developers can roll back the project to an earlier versions in case something doesn't work out.

[mrt2]

Thanks for the speedy responses dude

I don't think I was clear before... I am on an plasma HD TV that is 16:9... that screenshot that he posted might have been on a 4:3 screen or SD, not really sure but I just used that as an example of the same text bunching I've been experiencing when trying to use Focus.

So for SVN is there a plugin or something that I can use that points to an SVN source so I can update things from within XBMC? Like let's say a new version of a skin comes out on SVN can I go to like an SVN section and hit update? Or are SVN releases manual updates?

[Jeroen]

Thanks for the speedy responses dude

I don't think I was clear before... I am on an plasma HD TV that is 16:9... that screenshot that he posted might have been on a 4:3 screen or SD, not really sure but I just used that as an example of the same text bunching I've been experiencing when trying to use Focus.

Ok, well then there's two possible reasons. Either you have your screen settings set up incorrectly for HD. If you go into "appearance settings" go to "screen" and make sure it's set to 720p 16:9. Then underneath choose "test resolution" and it will switch to this resolution.
Or, if you're running on an xbox then you won't be able to use true HD mode even though you have an HD screen, and xbmc will use 16:9 SD mode. That is unless you have an HD pack for the XBOX.

So for SVN is there a plugin or something that I can use that points to an SVN source so I can update things from within XBMC? Like let's say a new version of a skin comes out on SVN can I go to like an SVN section and hit update? Or are SVN releases manual updates?

Something like that. You have to get an SVN client (most people use Tortoise) which you point to the SVN location. Then you can download the newer version after which you have to run a simple batch file to compile the skin (skin images are stored individually on the SVN, the build script compiles them into a single compressed texture format, improving speed and memory usage).
So they are manual updates, but there are plugins that periodically make updates to skins and plugins available through the xbmc interface. Bram77's Favorites Plugin Installer for instance: http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-favorites/

[mrt2]

Ok, well then there's two possible reasons. Either you have your screen settings set up incorrectly for HD. If you go into "appearance settings" go to "screen" and make sure it's set to 720p 16:9. Then underneath choose "test resolution" and it will switch to this resolution.
Or, if you're running on an xbox then you won't be able to use true HD mode even though you have an HD screen, and xbmc will use 16:9 SD mode. That is unless you have an HD pack for the XBOX.

Choosing 720p 16:9 put's XBMC in a window/windowed mode... same for choosing 1080i 16:9... I have a 1080i 16:9 tv but choosing these modes under 'screen' puts XBMC in some sort of windowed mode... I asked about this in the XBMC forums and they told me to use the 'full screen option' which said something like '1280x700 full screen'. Which made me wonder... if I'm in this mode then am I truly utilizing my HD potential? I'm using an Apple TV... should I format and do a fresh install of XBMC to try to fix this or what?

[mrt2]

Something like that. You have to get an SVN client (most people use Tortoise) which you point to the SVN location. Then you can download the newer version after which you have to run a simple batch file to compile the skin (skin images are stored individually on the SVN, the build script compiles them into a single compressed texture format, improving speed and memory usage).
So they are manual updates, but there are plugins that periodically make updates to skins and plugins available through the xbmc interface. Bram77's Favorites Plugin Installer for instance: http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-favorites/

I checked out the page for XBMC Favorites and it says it's a plugin for XBOX only, can I still install it on my ATV?

[Jeroen]

Yeah you can use the full screen option too. I have xbmc start up with a "-fs" switch in the shortcut/alias that starts xbmc, so it starts up full screen no matter what resolution I set it too. Don't know how that works in OSX but I guess there is a similar way.

If you have an HD ready screen 1280x720 would be the highest you can go, although setting it to 1080p will work but your screen will downscale it. If you have a full HD screen your full resolution would be 1920x1080.
I don't see any need for a reinstall really.

I checked out the page for XBMC Favorites and it says it's a plugin for XBOX only, can I still install it on my ATV?

No that won't work. There's a windows and linux version of the plugin, no osx version afaik.

[mrt2]

Yeah you can use the full screen option too. I have xbmc start up with a "-p" switch in the shortcut/alias that starts xbmc, so it starts up full screen no matter what resolution I set it too. Don't know how that works in OSX but I guess there is a similar way.

If you have an HD ready screen 1280x720 would be the highest you can go, although setting it to 1080p will work but your screen will downscale it. If you have a full HD screen your full resolution would be 1920x1080.
I don't see any need for a reinstall really.


No that won't work. There's a windows and linux version of the plugin, no osx version afaik.

I was just using that res as an example, my tv is actually Full HD... which still makes me confused as to why the skin won't render properly for me.
The XBMC favorites plugin page says it's a mod of the original XBMC addons plugin... Can I keep this skin and/or other skins updates using that plugin instead?