[giftie]

well i mean it's quite ugly (in my view) that if you use a white skin for example and an addon opens up a black UI.
then the skinner needs to adapt those files again to match his skin

Quick answer... Don't use a white skin... Just kidding.. But as one of the add-ons that opens up a black UI(It's really a speaker grill... Honest), I somewhat do agree with you.. The change is quite drastic sometimes... I also work in a field that I need to create UI's for a control system(looks nothing like cdART Manager btw..) I've gotten to understand flow... I personally would create skin version GUI if I had the time.... I also know that relying on the skin developers is not a good plan, as most of them also have too much to work on(I know, I asked.. ) I also firmly believe a lot of users are afraid to comment on add-on GUI and these 'ugly', 'confusing' or 'all around unpleasant' UI go with out change... Sometimes it is stubborn add-on developer faults as well..

With the number of skins out there it is tough to work with every one and working in the confines of the skin are not always possible, so custom add-on GUI's will not always appeal to all users...

[MassIV]

..or don't go the extra mile to support certain things.

It is already so much work. Like seriously, you have to be doing it for yourself or you are going to land on the huge pile of unfinished wip skins. I already don't use 40% of the required stuff that still needs to go in the skin. Well fair enough, that's a standard. But then there are addons that don't even work in my country, which is kind of where it ends for me.

One question that came to mind - for add ons there are different views (list, thumbnail, Media info 1, media info 2, etc.). Where do those 'live'? The add-on developer creates his/her add-on, chooses to support some or all of the above, then what? Is the appearance totally controlled by the skin? Is it the skin + some basic conventions enforced by XBMC? Can the skin declare "when this skin does a list it'll be on the right instead of the left like everyone else"?

A skinner makes a bunch of views in a skin. At least one basic default list, and usually one thumbnails view, that both work on everything. The other views are either specialized (to f.e. albums or movie posters) or specialization can be set by user (i.e use square thumbs instead of posters in this view). And then those views will be limited to the content type they were made for. One of the problems with plugins not getting access to those views is them not setting (or having?) the content type needed to make the view available. Which is sometimes worked around by a skin enabling a view to the one specific plugin. Or making a view for a specific plugin. Both are not ideal, and communication between skin and plugin could be better.

In my opinion a plugin would ideally know what content is is providing on a per folder basis, and have it set accordingly. This would get you the same viewtypes you would normally have for that content type. But i doubt all plugins know what exactly they provide at all times. Might not be so easy for something like youtube, i dunno.

[edit]
@Bstrdsmkr I don't want to de-rail the conversation about folder depth. And this won't help addons that provide their own UI the same way as for example globalsearch. But for plugins (folders) to get access to more views i believe you'd have to set one of the following.

Code:

xbmcplugin.setProperty(handle, key, value)
xbmcplugin.setContent(handle, content)

As the views look at (no 4 on the list):

Code:

Container.Content(parameter)

[Bstrdsmkr]

Might be something good there, sounds like an issue of lacking a common vocabulary. Obviously that doesn't solve everything, but every bit helps.

What information do you need as skinners? Once we can establish that, maybe we can boil it down to common generic categories?