What are the reasons you don't submit your addon to official repo?
#16
(2013-02-14, 21:22)`Black Wrote: Yes that would help if it's absolutely clear to the user that he is going to install a beta skin which could have bugs and missing skin areas.

What about the amount of data that would be downloaded, sometimes my private Development Repo gets updated weekly. For users not interested in my stuff - that would be a major bummer, if incorporated into an "Official" repo.
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#17
(2013-02-14, 21:28)Mudislander Wrote:
(2013-02-14, 21:22)`Black Wrote: Yes that would help if it's absolutely clear to the user that he is going to install a beta skin which could have bugs and missing skin areas.

What about the amount of data that would be downloaded, sometimes my private Development Repo gets updated weekly. For users not interested in my stuff - that would be a major bummer, if incorporated into an "Official" repo.

Keep your repo for weekly (smaller) updates. Do beta/RC release to repo and finally bump to final release. That way you get some beta testers from your small repo who find the initial bugs. Then get a larger audience through official repo as beta/RC release.
What i noticed is that skinners don't update their skin often in repo which is something i don't get. If you have some fixes yes send a minor update (not every week of course, once a month or less).
We have a wide mirror network that should be able to handle it. Users that are not interested in your stuff won't even notice it has been updated if they haven't installed anything from you Smile
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#18
(2013-02-14, 21:01)natethomas Wrote:
(2013-02-14, 20:40)`Black Wrote: Another reason is that XBMC is constantly evolving, you need to keep up as a skinner to support all the features and you don't want to submit unfinished skins. It's hard work to have something fully ready and tested... it's easier to set up an own repo and deliver beta versions. Smile

Out of curiosity, would support for beta tagging solve this fear? So users could see your skin in a quick browse through, but also see maybe a little beta badge attached, allowing them to know it's a WIP to some degree?


What defines a beta, are missing dialogs/windows allowed, if yes what are considered essential? Are non-localized strings allowed? What about quality control, some sections look like a new skin some using dummy/placeholder images?

Beta section would just open up too many issues for novice users. I was reading alot of the comments on this post covering Frodo 12 on The Verge. Many comments regarded XBMC as too complicated and they used x device cause it's simple.
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#19
beta defines imo:
*Fully functioning skin
*has all windows and dialog
*PVR windows is something i myself don't find it a blocker if this is not present. So i'd say optional.
*Have all strings at least in English localized. Not having any other languages than English is fine. However strings should already be in the string.po file and not in skin code.
*quality control should be done by some alpha release to at least get mayor flaws out. The smaller ones are for beta stage.

What about an official beta repo that your need to install yourself. This takes about the problem for novice users as they won't see it, you get a larger audience as all skins are in same repo, do frequent updates (this can be done as public is far less so no strain on server). It's very obvious that these are beta/RC skins and bugs are more likely to be present.

Of course this be done with a private repo to however that way it's still very fragmented.
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#20
btw if someone wants to get his/her skin repo-ready and doesn´t feel in the mood to tackle that him/herself:
i´d be happy to invest some minutes correcting the needed stuff and send a PR to your repo (i already did that for some skins here)
my skin converter also helps to speed up the process for skins (not sure but i think that´s also one of the tools ronie uses to "verify" skins. would be nice if the repo admins could tell us the exact requirements a skin/script/etc has to meet)

I´ m also often playin with the idea to send PR´s for scripts I didn´t write myself. (namely script.rssclient by pieh and script.metadata.actors/plugin.moviesets by Frost) I couldn´t get an answer from both of them but it´s really a pity that all those great scripts aren´t available to a broader audience.
I´m not the biggest python expert though (still learnin) and not sure if i could fix all upcoming problems.
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#21
(2013-02-14, 19:34)ronie Wrote:
(2013-02-14, 19:04)Hitcher Wrote: Copyrighted fonts, as mentioned.
The use of in-skin scripts.
Having to use SVN/GIT may also put people off.

in-skin scripts should not have to be a problem...
if your skin needs a script, you can submit it separately to the addon repo.
you'll get extra bonus points if you code the script in such a way
that it can also be used (or would be useful) for other skins as well.

ok, will send a PR for my extras downloader then. (with task to get it workin with more skins in the future)
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#22
@Martijn - I'd be up for an "Official Beta" Repo - Audience size makes sense.

@phil65 - Hybrid is "skin.conveter" tested Big Grin
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#23
Quote:What about an official beta repo that your need to install yourself.

what about an installed beta repo that is disabled by default?

one thing i would appreciate: an option within add-on installer submenu "show only latest version" of an package ... similar to debian/ubuntu repositories. that avoids a lot of duplicate entries because of stable and/or beta versions of the same package
cu
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#24
+1 on the beta repo users need to install themselves.

Fully functioning skin, what does that mean? Does 50% Foundation skin count as fully functioning?
What is function?
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#25
(2013-02-14, 21:50)Martijn Wrote: What about an official beta repo that your need to install yourself. This takes about the problem for novice users as they won't see it, you get a larger audience as all skins are in same repo, do frequent updates (this can be done as public is far less so no strain on server). It's very obvious that these are beta/RC skins and bugs are more likely to be present.

Of course this be done with a private repo to however that way it's still very fragmented.

IMO, you will shortly end up with much more traffic on Beta repo and with increasing number of skins there. If skin meets requirements you stated then it is pretty much fit for official repo.
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Quartz

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#26
I guess its time for me to jump in on this. Getting my skin into the "Official" repo way back when did feel particularly confrontational (took three try's before the skin made the grade). A large part of this was due to the requirements not being clear when the repo system first got off the ground (much clearer now), but it would be nice if there was a way that a skin author could be pretty sure they had covered all of the bases before making the initial pull request.

Would it be possible to make the validation scripts(?) available so that we could make sure the skin is upto standard. Another area that the official repo could be made more enticing is to provide some sort of feedback to the skin author on how many downloads the skin has had (basically how many people are using the skin). The Passion repo shows me that I have about 1000-1500 users using the skin from there (these users are using my nightly build, so probably are a bit more adventurous than most users).

In short, would suggest the following:

1 - Made sure skin author knows exactly what is required (maybe post a sticky in Skin Dev forum with links to required info).
2 - Make available a way to validate if skin meets stands for inclusion to repo.
3 - Provide a carrot in the form of feedback on how popular the skin is to the skin author.

As a side note, if I can do something about the feeping creaturitus, Frodo build of my skin should be due to make a bid for inclusion to the Official repo Real Soon Now Rofl

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#27
I would bet a big reason is the people who make addons for xbmc most likely always run nightly versions of xbmc so their skins tend to need stuff that is not included in the current stable version that the repo is for

Also the Frodo repo has a crap load of changes needed over Eden like adding PVR that are no small task to do and do right and do fully so many may still be working on it
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#28
(2013-02-15, 06:04)Jezz_X Wrote: I would bet a big reason is the people who make addons for xbmc most likely always run nightly versions of xbmc so their skins tend to need stuff that is not included in the current stable version that the repo is for

Also the Frodo repo has a crap load of changes needed over Eden like adding PVR that are no small task to do and do right and do fully so many may still be working on it

Or they either can't be bothered coding something they'll never use themselves - after the nightmare of doing it myself for XeeBo I personally don't fancy the prospect ever again.

Non-PVR skin disclaimer?
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#29
(2013-02-15, 10:32)Hitcher Wrote: Or they either can't be bothered coding something they'll never use themselves - after the nightmare of doing it myself for XeeBo I personally don't fancy the prospect ever again.

Indeed Skinning XBMC is a huge job these days and paying attention to the bits you don't use is often a chore.

I had an idea while back between eden and dharma that would cut out the need to skin 90% of all the dialogs (and therefore 60% of the work with it) but never went anywhere because it needed changes to the c++ side and people had other "features" and "fixes" they would rather add
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#30
(2013-02-14, 19:34)ronie Wrote: svn/git is preferred as it makes things easier to maintain on our end,
but we do accept .zip files as well.

For skins? I thought the textures had to be available?
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What are the reasons you don't submit your addon to official repo?0