[Gade]

First off, thanks Gade for this excellent skin! Of all the ones I've seen, this one is my favorite by far. And after using it for 3 years straight I'm very thankful to find you are still working on moving it forward...thanks so much for all the hard work!

I just upgraded from Kodi 15 to 17 on my Win 10 PC. It went pretty smoothly, but after manually re configuring Rapier I am having a strange behavior I can't seem to resolve. On the home screens, I have selected fanart for TV, Movies, and Music, but I still only get the default background appearing. If on the home screen I select a movie or show, it immediately displays the fanart background, and if I enable fanart background in the library view that works too for selected media. Also for one of the other homescreens I set it to a specific background image and that works fine too. I've triple checked my settings, and I believe they are the same as I had in v15 when this all worked fine. Everything else seems fine too...what am I missing?

Hi Grendil and welcome to the forums.

Thanks so much for all the kind words.

You are doing everything correctly.
The add-on for fanart backgrounds were changed recently, but I will push an update to the official Kodi repository asap.

In the meanwhile, you can install my development repository to get the update immediately.
Read here how to t´do that.


The wiki also has many other tips and detailed descriptions of the skin settings.


Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Grendil]

Ah great, thanks for the follow up! I'll happily await for whenever the official repo gets patched. I'm just glad to know it's not a quirk on my end nor a big hassle on yours.

New question: I wanted to export a backup of my Rapier settings in case I have to rebuild my installation. I see a convenient option along these lines in the skin settings. Do you intend for this to support migrating between major Kodi versions, or is it just best to manually restore settings instead?

[Gade]

Ah great, thanks for the follow up! I'll happily await for whenever the official repo gets patched. I'm just glad to know it's not a quirk on my end nor a big hassle on yours.

I just pushed a new update to the official Kodi repo, so you should get it within the next day or so - when it hits the mirrors.

Let me know if it causes any issues.

New question: I wanted to export a backup of my Rapier settings in case I have to rebuild my installation. I see a convenient option along these lines in the skin settings. Do you intend for this to support migrating between major Kodi versions, or is it just best to manually restore settings instead?

You can easily use them between different installations and even versions to restore your skin settings.
The skin settings can vary from one major version to another - but I would definately give it a go.
You can run through the skin settings after import to see if everything seems correct.

Note, that from 10.4.5 (the next official update) a new add-on is required to export/import your skin settings. But you will be automatically prompted to install.

[Gade]

UPDATE: Rapier 10.4.5 is available through the official Kodi repository!

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


This update improves and changes a lot of of code.

2 add-ons will be automatically installed with this update:

• Skin Helper Backgrounds (script.skin.helper.backgrounds): This add-on is now used for all slideshow backgrounds for music, movies, videos, tv shows, music videos and pvr.
  
• Skin Helper Widgets (script.skin.helper.widgets): This add-on is now used for some widgets
  

The reason for this is a major refactor of the Skin Helper add-on (script.skin.helper.service).
The new add-ons replaces and improves functions previously handled by script.skin.helper.service.


Some other hightlights are:

• List Info / List Info 2 / Thumbs Info Views has been added for video content. Screenshots below.
  This is useful when using the Youtube add-on.
  
• Several fixes and improvements for views.
  
• Player Process Info dialog has been updated.
  
• A "Download Extrafanart" button has been added to the video information window..
  

FULL CHANGELOG

Code:

10.4.5 (6-March-17)
- Added "Download Extrafanart" button to video information window.
- Updated script.skin.helper.service infolabels for v1.1.3
- Added List Info / List Info 2 / Thumbs Info Views for video content.
- Fixes for episode views.
- Several fixed for views.
- Removed sort letter notification for some sort methods.
- Improvements of extra fanart.
- Added support for script.skin.helper.skinbackup
- Added support for script.skin.helper.backgrounds
- Added support for script.skin.helper.widgets
- Decreased the size of home screen category icons.
- Added Fullscreen button to Player Controls dialog.
- Fix for PVR subchannel numbers.
- Updated Player Process Info dialog.

Added List Info / List Info 2 / Thumbs Info Views for video content
List Info


Added List Info / List Info 2 / Thumbs Info Views for video content
List Info 2


Added List Info / List Info 2 / Thumbs Info Views for video content
Thumbs Info



ENJOY!

[Grendil]

I just pushed a new update to the official Kodi repo, so you should get it within the next day or so - when it hits the mirrors.

Let me know if it causes any issues.

I got the update, and like magic, my fanart background were back for movies and TV shows! You're a wizard, Thanks! They didn't return for Music, but it's possible I have more work to there to supply the source fanart. I had that working in Kodi 15, but to be honest I'm not sure which add in was supplying that art. I will fiddle.

Note, that from 10.4.5 (the next official update) a new add-on is required to export/import your skin settings. But you will be automatically prompted to install.

I did that, and I was able to export just fine. But when I go to import, the dialog that appears is pointing me at fusion. I'm a bit confused about where to find the backup files to import. (This may just mean I need to go research that add-in more; I just ran out of time earlier.)

[Gade]

I got the update, and like magic, my fanart background were back for movies and TV shows! You're a wizard, Thanks! They didn't return for Music, but it's possible I have more work to there to supply the source fanart. I had that working in Kodi 15, but to be honest I'm not sure which add in was supplying that art. I will fiddle.

Great it's working.

Music fanart is working perfectly for me on all systems after the update.

If you updated from Kodi 15 to 17, some music artwork rescanning is required. Also regarding fanart, as far as I remember (some were missing for me too).
If you have any issues after this, let me know or ask in the add-on thread if it's still not working.

Note, that from 10.4.5 (the next official update) a new add-on is required to export/import your skin settings. But you will be automatically prompted to install.

I did that, and I was able to export just fine. But when I go to import, the dialog that appears is pointing me at fusion. I'm a bit confused about where to find the backup files to import. (This may just mean I need to go research that add-in more; I just ran out of time earlier.)

After export, the skin settings are stored in the home folder.

Home folder/userdata/addon_data/script.skin.helper.skinbackup
They're named "Rapier Skinbackup (date).zip".

[Grendil]

Thanks for the tips, I'm sure that will set me up in good shape. I really appreciate all your hard work and helpful support.

[Gade]

Glad everything's working!

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Gade]

Would anyone miss the Wide List View and Fanart View?

I'm considering getting rid of some views to speed up performance.

Based on this poll, not many people are using them.

[Ruschi]

Hello.. I use the skin since a couple oft days On my rpi 3 and i like it.. I got a question. I use the skygo Plugin. Is it possible to add the information of the current Programm On the channel.. At the Moment the skin only shows the channels. Here is an example of amber..

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[Gade]

Hello.. I use the skin since a couple oft days On my rpi 3 and i like it.. I got a question. I use the skygo Plugin. Is it possible to add the information of the current Programm On the channel.. At the Moment the skin only shows the channels. Here is an example of amber..

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The info depends which view type you use.

Go to the top options menu bar (in most views press left or up).
Click the "View" button to change view.
You can use the "View Options" button to customize the view afterwards.

[Ruschi]

@Gade :

I found this.. In livetv section if i pause TV the (maybe channellogo) is missing..

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[Gade]

@Gade :

I found this.. In livetv section if i pause TV the (maybe channellogo) is missing..

Hi Ruschi.

That background is for a movie or tv show poster, but it's a bug that it's displaying empty.


FULL EDIT OF POST:

I see what you mean now. It was diffucult seeing the empty background to the right.

I'll fix it for the next update.

Thanks a lot for reporting the issue.

[Ruschi]

I have a next question.. I use Rapier on my rpi3 (libreelec 8.0.1) with an 90MB/s SD card.. It takes 10 sec to access some categories like movies.. Is the RPi still too slow for the skin or is there a Chance to speed it up?!

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[Gade]

I have a next question.. I use Rapier on my rpi3 (libreelec 8.0.1) with an 90MB/s SD card.. It takes 10 sec to access some categories like movies.. Is the RPi still too slow for the skin or is there a Chance to speed it up?!

Rapier is not the most light weight skin and some systems might experience some lagging from time to time.

This is why I have made several skin settings to increase performance.



From the next update, you can disable all view types you don't use in your libraries. This will indeed speed up performance.
You can get this update right now by installing my development repository.

After automatically getting the latest update (10.4.8), go to Skin Settings > Views
Disable view types you don't use. Eg. if you only use List Info 3 View for movies, disable ALL other view types.



If you want to further speed up performance:
Skin Settings > General > Enable low CPU power mode
Choose to either disable selected animations OR to both disable selected animations + CPU demanding skin settings.