[Jayz2K]

yup, if you think our skinning manual isn't detailed enough, i find that quite hilarious :-)

I'm pretty sure that the skinning manual is very clear and easy to understand for a 6 years hardcore skinner, but for a beginner, it's another business!

I'm reading for a few days the doc - which is split between unlinked wiki pages and threads on this forum - and I think there's absolutely no guideline. On the pinned thread, beginners are broadly invited to play with Notepad++ and Confluence files, just before talking about submitting process... The wiki is a little bit more clear about files and folders naming and functionnalities but the only tutorial I found on this site is a very basic keymap. The rest is a bunch of "how to edit", not a word about creation.

That's why I'm asking something more detailed and more guided, not a set of descriptions scattered here and there. Sorry for those who wrote it, I know it's a lot of work and I thank them for all they did, but I think, as Toben said, that skinning is much like a "tour de force". I'm not surprised that it takes from 6 months to 1 year to do something mostly if the answer a beginner had when he asked for help from experienced skinners is a "lol"

I would say I started my first skin a little more than one year now and took me a week to achieve quick mods of conq, 1 month to get the basics and about 2 more to start using more advanced features. I started from scratch without any coding skills and learned everything by my own with help from people there. And still on it but almost done.

I agree anyone wants to start skinning can be a bit lost and ... right ... it's complex and somehow a challenge. But it's doable. Now I got the code and still use the wiki everyday, I can say it's pretty well done. As an old active skinner for other softwares years ago and skin creators user (not coder), I also was a bit frustrated there was not such a tool to edit mine and I understand you can also be.

BUT ... now I know how the skinning engine works, how it evolves, how the awesome KODI team reactivity is for all skinners requests ... I see no decent way to provide a 'WYSIWYG tool' without rebuilding the whole skinning engine or slowing down the development of the KODI main program and / or skinning engine for it to be compatible with MANY new features developped for users / skinners to get / build always better skins / KODI experience. Moreover, even if a skinning engine refactor was / (is ?) discussed, this could sign the end of all great existing skins easier to upgrade than to rebuild.

I understand Ronie's "LOL" like a "How do you want us to provide you something better since we already tried to give the best" ... and they did.
There's a gap between what you would like (as I did, I admit) to start and what can be provided.
All skinners started from there with more or less coding skills, it's just how much you want to invest in it ...