[ponkotsu]

Still saving some love for those of us stuck on 16.1 I see. Thanks Gade!

I think the movie counts below the category text is much better! Easier to read with the white font than in the widget with the grey font. I'm assuming this will apply to TV shows also?

I appreciate the additional item in Recently Added, since I always have such a backlog of new media to watch (not enough free hours in the day).

Rapier has always been fast enough for me that I've never had any complaints with performance, but if you say this will be even faster, I'm all for it!

Thanks as always. Looking forward to the update!

[Gade]

Yeah, some of the additions to Krypton and Leia makes it into Jarvis.

I also thought it would be nice to get rid of the custom category images thread altogether, which means I have to add this feature to all 3 releases (Jarvis, Krypton and Leia).

I totally agree with you about the info text below the categories and the extra item in the widgets.

The info below the categories will be added for TV, Radio (not in Jarvis), Add-ons (not in Jarvis), Games (Leia only), Programs, Movies, TV shows and Music. If you add a widget to a custom category, info will also be applied here, when it makes sense.

[Gade]

Help needed!


I just pushed the latest development update to my repo.

This update includes the new home screen categories, some widget refactoring and widget navigation changes.

All custom categories now use a regular text label instead of custom category images.
This means that all custom category names are reverted to "Custom 1", "Custom 2" etc.
Go to Skin Settings > Home > Category Menu > Add more categories / 2 / 3 / 4
Click the "Name" button to set the category name.

This new name is used throughout the skin and also in the skin settings.


Heavy testing is needed and any feedback is extremely appreciated!
I coded this update completely in blind as I don't have Jarvis on any system - and the skin code has changed a lot between Jarvis, Krypton and Leia.
So be sure to test all functions, features etc.
I'm also interested in any ideas and thoughts on appearance and looks.


Read here how to install my development repository.

[ponkotsu]

Hi Gade!

Going to do some testing / playing around with the new version tonight.
Just a heads-up, the addons.xml file for Jarvis still has version 9.5.22 (instead of 9.6.0) at line 125.

[Gade]

Hi Gade!

Going to do some testing / playing around with the new version tonight.
Just a heads-up, the addons.xml file for Jarvis still has version 9.5.22 (instead of 9.6.0) at line 125.

Thanks so much for getting back on that.

That was a copy/paste error, but it's fixed now.

Did you get the latest update with the new categories?


Can't wait to hear how you find the update.

[ponkotsu]

Updated!

I haven't played around with adding categories yet (believe it or not, I've gone through all these years just using the default ones). But the skin does seem noticeably faster. Navigating down the movie / TV series lists, posters and fanart appear with little to no lag. And this is on 8 year old hardware running on top of MacOS (as opposed to LibreELEC which I would imagine is even faster). The widgets on the home screen also load up faster, and look cleaner now without the counts attached.

To be honest, I thought I'd miss the wide font from before, but after a few minutes of using the updated skin, I think the new version is much better. You might be able to get rid of the reflection below the category labels -- with the counts below them, it sometimes looks a little busy. But this is only after 3-4 minutes of use.

Also, did you move "Search YouTube" into the "Extra Info" menu in the information panel? I like it much better this way, since I never use it. For me, it cleans up the row of buttons at the top quite nicely.

One last thing (I promise). Maybe I never noticed before, but now when I navigate into a TV show that has multiple seasons, the top bar will show the season number in the trail of breadcrumbs, even when I'm scrolling through "All Seasons", it will show the season of the currently highlighted episode. Very nice!

Whew. Thanks again Gade. I'll try to play with adding custom categories later tonight after I've caught up on some TV!

[Gade]

Updated!

I haven't played around with adding categories yet (believe it or not, I've gone through all these years just using the default ones). But the skin does seem noticeably faster. Navigating down the movie / TV series lists, posters and fanart appear with little to no lag. And this is on 8 year old hardware running on top of MacOS (as opposed to LibreELEC which I would imagine is even faster). The widgets on the home screen also load up faster, and look cleaner now without the counts attached.

Hi runningnaked.

Thanks a lot for testing and the feedback.

Really glad to hear that everything's working well and that you experience increased performance.

I actually don't use the custom categories at all on any system either. The main categories are more than enough for me, and when using custom library nodes with them (a feature from Kodi 17 and forward), it's possible to make them do whatever you want.

To be honest, I thought I'd miss the wide font from before, but after a few minutes of using the updated skin, I think the new version is much better. You might be able to get rid of the reflection below the category labels -- with the counts below them, it sometimes looks a little busy. But this is only after 3-4 minutes of use.

Yeah, I 'm not sure about that reflection either.
Maybe I'll change it a bit or remove it in the future.

Also, did you move "Search YouTube" into the "Extra Info" menu in the information panel? I like it much better this way, since I never use it. For me, it cleans up the row of buttons at the top quite nicely.

Not that I recall.

Perhaps you use the Movies or TV Shows library, where the "Search Youtube" button is in the "Extra Info" menu.
In the Episodes library, the button is at the main top menu.

One last thing (I promise). Maybe I never noticed before, but now when I navigate into a TV show that has multiple seasons, the top bar will show the season number in the trail of breadcrumbs, even when I'm scrolling through "All Seasons", it will show the season of the currently highlighted episode. Very nice!

I really like that as well. That was changed in a recent update (don't remember which one).

Whew. Thanks again Gade. I'll try to play with adding custom categories later tonight after I've caught up on some TV!

Thanks for all feedback - I really appreciate it.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts.
And please let me know what you find out testing the custom categories.

[skybird1980]

@runningnaked
if you browse your library (movies, tvshows) you need only to go right 2 times and a trailer will start just as idea.

[ponkotsu]

Sorry Gade, I didn't have a chance to try out custom categories last night. Hopefully I'll have time to poke around with it tonight.
You are right about the "Search Youtube" button in the episodes view. Somehow I missed seeing that there as I was flipping through lol.

@runningnaked
if you browse your library (movies, tvshows) you need only to go right 2 times and a trailer will start just as idea.

Good point, skybird! I've never actually tried watching a trailer through all the years I've been using XBMC/Kodi. But now my movie collection has grown to the point where I forget whether or not I had much interest in watching some of them. Watching a quick trailer to refresh my memory would be more efficient than sitting through 2 hours of a (bad) movie and regretting it!

Man, there's so much I have yet to take advantage of in Kodi -- custom categories, trailers, cinema experience, etc. Crazy to think this started out as something so that I could use my Xbox to play music videos from my PC on my TV.

[Gade]

I coded the function to press right or down from the scrollbar to see the trailer out of laziness. But both my wife and I actually use that function a lot (instead of opening the context menu and pressing the trailer button).
I also have a huuuuuuuuuge movie library, so the trailers help a lot.

Let me know about your thoughts when you have time to try the custom categories.

[Gade]

UPDATE: Rapier 9.6.0 is available through the official Kodi repository!

This update is installed automatically.
If this is not the case, you can download it here.



The home screen categories are changed and updated. Screenshots below.
This allows for a more modern look, faster load times, smoother animations and reduced skin size.
The categories now use a regular text label instead of images, which makes it far more flexible.
All home screen widgets top right has been changed slightly and an extra visible item has been added (now 5 items).

All custom categories have been RESET to "Custom 1", "Custom 2" etc.
Go to Skin Settings > Home > Category Menu > Add more categories / 2 / 3 / 4 >
Click the "Name" button to set the category name (this new name is used throughout the skin and also in the skin settings).
If home screen navigation buttons are disabled, 11 characters maximum are recommended.
If home screen navigation buttons are enabled, 10 characters maximum are recommended.



FULL CHANGELOG

Code:

9.6.0 (21-April-17)
- Redesign of home screen categories.
- Slightly redesign of home screen widgets.
- Updated navigation for all widgets.
- Custom categories now use a regular text label instead of images.
- Custom category names are now used in the skin settings instead of "Custom 1", "Custom 2" etc.
- Removed all custom category images from skin.rapier/extras/ folder.
- Removed all category images from skin.rapier/media/homecategories/ folder.
- Updated screenshots.
- Fix missing Icon View for picture and program add-ons.

Redesign of home screen categories
Slightly redesign of home screen widgets
Movies category


Redesign of home screen categories
Slightly redesign of home screen widgets
TV Shows category


Redesign of home screen categories
Videos category


Redesign of home screen categories
Custom "3D Movies" category


Redesign of home screen categories
Skin Settings > Home > Category Menu > Add more categories / 2 / 3 / 4 > Name




ENJOY!

[wannabegt4]

Where is the setting to disable the watched/unwatched info that is now under the menu items on the home screen? I can't seem to find it.

[wannabegt4]

Where is the setting to disable the watched/unwatched info that is now under the menu items on the home screen? I can't seem to find it.

Consider this a feature request. I checked includes_home.xml and I see that these aren't conditionally included. Thanks!

[Gade]

Where is the setting to disable the watched/unwatched info that is now under the menu items on the home screen? I can't seem to find it.

Consider this a feature request. I checked includes_home.xml and I see that these aren't conditionally included. Thanks!

These labels were always a part of the home screen placed at top right widgets.

I have no plans adding a skin setting to disable them.
Maybe if the demand gets high enough, but it seems people are generally pleased.

But you can manually remove them from the xml files: includes_Home.xml.
Remove the entire control with ListItem.Label2 from the focused layout of the include "HomeMenu".

[wannabegt4]

I had already made the change to remove them. I really don't want to manage my own fork of this. If I submit a pull request to add a skin setting do you think you'll approve it?