[butchabay]

Looks great. I have a slight concern though.. will the text be big enough to read from the couch?

Btw, I think the pop up movie info in the latest screenshot should also have shadow?

Shouldn't be a problem reading from a distance, what i can do is make the light grey slightly darker.
Shadow will be added ...

Pop-up looks excellent! Agree that the pop-up should have a shadow also so that it appears that all the text elements are on the same level and the fanart is in the background. I was going to suggest that it would seem more natural to have the clock to the right of the date, but no need as you already done this in the latest screenies

@butchabay - wow, so you don't previz anything in a graphical software? Impressive. Btw, have you noticed the other two small changes in my mockup Oh, and any concept where to place the power button? Will the top menu scroll? Also, PVR menu entry is missing. If you don't intend the top menu to scroll, an idea would be to use icons for system (gear-wheel) and power and move them to the top right corner.

1. No i just start to code and see what happens ...
2. Yeah noticed the changes, will try something out ...
3. No scrolling, Power Menu will show in System, Favourites in Apps, Picture in Apps when Live TV is enabled.

[DjCisco]

This looks great, kind of a mix between equilibrium and substratum.

One comment that really doesnt have to do with the skin. Most of the WIP I see in the forum focus a lot on showing their concepts with Movie and Tv Show Content and one rarely sees how the skin design translates into the music sections of the skin (albums, songs, music videos). Usually one sees this until the skin is installed and a lot of times it just doesnt look good. If those sections were also presented here those users who love and use the music capabilities of xbmc (I am one), could give feedback.

So it would be great if you could also at the appropiate time display your ideas for the music sections.

Cheers

[jurialmunkey]

1. No i just start to code and see what happens ...

I do the same, rarely ever do mockups, find it quicker and more flexible to just code because I don't need to mess around with rescaling and position posters etc.

Nowall, i like the 3th one but don't think it's possible let a textbox scroll horizontally

For horizontal scrolling plot all you need to do is use a label control (rather than textbox) with scroll enabled and place it outside the list container.

PHP Code:

<control type="label">
     <width>1920</width>
     <scroll>true</scroll>
     <label>$INFO[Container(id).ListItem.Plot]</label>
</control> 


[butchabay]

This looks great, kind of a mix between equilibrium and substratum.

One comment that really doesnt have to do with the skin. Most of the WIP I see in the forum focus a lot on showing their concepts with Movie and Tv Show Content and one rarely sees how the skin design translates into the music sections of the skin (albums, songs, music videos). Usually one sees this until the skin is installed and a lot of times it just doesnt look good. If those sections were also presented here those users who love and use the music capabilities of xbmc (I am one), could give feedback.

So it would be great if you could also at the appropiate time display your ideas for the music sections.

Cheers

Thanx mate, well the music section won't look different than the movie section, you'll have 4 custom playlists on the bottom and info on top.
Once i get some time i'll post some screens of the music section

1. No i just start to code and see what happens ...

I do the same, rarely ever do mockups, find it quicker and more flexible to just code because I don't need to mess around with rescaling and position posters etc.

Nowall, i like the 3th one but don't think it's possible let a textbox scroll horizontally

For horizontal scrolling plot all you need to do is use a label control (rather than textbox) with scroll enabled and place it outside the list container.

PHP Code:

<control type="label">
     <width>1920</width>
     <scroll>true</scroll>
     <label>$INFO[Container(id).ListItem.Plot]</label>
</control> 


Ok, wow ... didn't knew this was possible Thanx for the hint !

[Jayz2K]

While the supper is cooking I just tried 3 quick mockups with poster on and plot autoscrolling ... this could appear automatically after some idle time on a title , like after 2 or 3 seconds.

I told myself not to comment anymore because the main menu won't be centered u.u (JOKING !!! )

N.O.W.A.L.L First mockup looks great. Your info popup is a great idea with the little summary (what I tried to do in one of mine), but. I prefer a transparent and or black fade background more than the last popup picture. Just and only my taste but ... When I saw your first concept, I said WOw this one rocks. This was beacause of the whole skin design / color balance, this wide fanart on top, this orange band splitting the NAV / art.
With the popup colors recall (white / orange) it's like it breaks this balance. Would like to try a mockup but : contribution is nice but, this is yours. As another age Skinner, I know that being to much intrusive breaks creativity.

Anyway and still, this skin is amazing. Keep it up. Want to see more

[butchabay]

I told myself not to comment anymore because the main menu won't be centered u.u (JOKING !!! )

N.O.W.A.L.L First mockup looks great. Your info popup is a great idea with the little summary (what I tried to do in one of mine), but. I prefer a transparent and or black fade background more than the last popup picture. Just and only my taste but ... When I saw your first concept, I said WOw this one rocks. This was beacause of the whole skin design / color balance, this wide fanart on top, this orange band splitting the NAV / art.
With the popup colors recall (white / orange) it's like it breaks this balance. Would like to try a mockup but : contribution is nice but, this is yours. As another age Skinner, I know that being to much intrusive breaks creativity.

Anyway and still, this skin is amazing. Keep it up. Want to see more

Not at all, if you wish to post a mockup, please ... i'm open for new ideas

Worked again on it, darked the fanart and put all the infos in the pop up window.

[jurialmunkey]

The pop-up looks good with all the info in it. However, I hope there will be an option to have it show only after a delay. I really like the simplicity of just the fanart with the movie title underneath. I remember Black saying something about how in Helix we might get the ability to control what the info key does (much in the same way as you can for <back> ) - that would be perfect because it will allow for the info to only show if the user presses "i" on the remote.

[N.O.W.A.L.L]

Like Jay2K I find it a bit bulky now, and totally with all infos in the plain popup, it breaks the classy linear simmetry you had in the begining

Not sure about the 2nd triangle.

Anyway I won't comment too much, because this is just the homescreen. Choices made here will have to be ported in other views, including settings etc, so lets wait and see general Butcha's vision hor his skin

[jdoo]

2nd triangle makes it confusing to me as to what part of the screen has focus. It could be easy to mistake the title of movie below info as the selected item.

[da-anda]

I wonder how this popup will look like if one enabled the setting to not show the plot of unwatched movies - which could be troublesome especially for the "recently added" column.
And while the popup itself is looking good, it destroys the clean look of this view as N.O.W.A.L.L. already mentioned. So if you want to show the info with a certain delay, I'd do it in the way N.O.W.A.L.L. suggested in his mockups (no popup but rather display the plot etc directly on top of the fanart - propably with only partially darkened fanart or completely darkened)

edit:


I'd probably use the same colour for darkening than for the shadow - because this will give you a nice second colour in general to be used in the skin.

[butchabay]

Just trying different options, playing araound ... so nothing is definitely set. I appreciate your help and hope at least i can find a satisfying solution for the majority.
I Have another idea, ... this evening

Thanx guys for all your comments.

[Ramash]

Wow, looking better each time, can't wait to get my hands on it

[wex101]

To piggy back off of what everyone else is saying. This is a truly beautiful skin. The wide fan art concept is stunning. I love a skin that features fan art in some unique way. I think it is important to be very careful about doing too much. You don't want things to become too "cutesy." If you do plan to have popups cover up the art and what not, I would definitely consider having an option that disables those popups for users like me that want to keep the fan art visible.

Edit: Just a couple more thoughts. I wish I had photo editing software so I could contribute to my thinking with mockups. Again in my opinion, what makes your skin mockups so great is how it features the fan art, and I think a goal should be to cover it as little as possible. Maybe instead of using the orange bar, when you are navigating down below the fan art could fade slightly and the title could go in the upper left hand corner of the fan art in white text? Or possibly an overlay could cover the main menu at the top? The very best screen is definitely the first one when you open this thread.

One more idea, I am currently on Refocus, because I like skins that feature fan art and Refocus does that beautifully. When activating a widget in that skin, the main menu slides out of the way completely and slides back in when you navigate away from the widgets and back to the main menu. This would allow you to keep the orange bar to show title and selection while not covering any of the fanart. Everything in the screen wouldn't have to shift necessarily either. Just have the fanart be the correct size that it is out of frame on the top and bottom so when the top menu slides away or when the orange bar slides away that bit of art becomes visible.

[thegreaterikku]

butchabay, this is simply gorgeous.
I was always a bit meh about all those dark skinned theme but I just can't wait to test this one out. It's fresh, it's amazing and at every updated screenshot, it's always better.

Kudos also to all those who are showing pictured ideas here and there.

[deletedpenguin]

Wow, stumbled across this and I'm impressed. This is very different to all the visual skins out there - I love the fact that this is an "information driven skin", allowing us access to our library in a very structured way. Lots of great feedback thus far by the community and I'm excited to see this being driven forward by one of the most skilled skinners out there who is very receptive and communicative to the community. A very selfless approach.

Can't wait to see where this goes.