2016-12-15, 16:27
To Estuary skinners:
Hi, I've been using Kodi less than one year, mostly because customizations and addons support and always sticked with Arctic Zephyr skin because of it's simple and tasteful design (unlike 95% of other Kodi skins). Unfortunatelly Arctic Zephyr is ruined by other developer with heavy and untasteful design and original one is not beeing developed anymore. But I was stubborn and I used AZ until last week until I got really frustrated with constant crashing and buggy performance. Anyway I decided to go with what seemed to be most simple and stable solution so I gave Estuary a try. Taste of speed, reliability and simplicity won me over from the start but was very unhappy when I realized I can't customize home menu or widgets like in other skins. But then I realized those "limits" (nodes instead skin shortcuts) where actually doing something for stability and I still found the ways to organize the library within it so Estuary really started to grow on me. It's far from perfect but for me it is far best from other options at the moment, I stick with it from now on and will see where it goes! Anyway, good job, I really appreciate your work!
At the moment I am looking forward to these features:
1. Search that includes Tags - I'm not good at coding but it seems it shouldn't be a problem but maybe I'm wrong..
2. Fanart View - I am missing Wall View with fanart thumbnails, original AZ skin had really nice fanart thumbnail view, something like on Mubi.com would really kick in another level of experience through browsing. Only posters are boring. I know there is Fanart View in Estuary but fanarts are really nice to browse either in wall view or full screen view. I vote for both! Idea: in addition to Fanart Wall View, Preplay(Info) screen, which has option to view fanart, could be used to browse next/previous title when toggled.
I know that for most users these features would not be of much importance or interest. I have, and maintain, a pretty huge film library with Plex Media Server (and using Plexkodiconnect to sync with Kodi) and in the first place it asks for reliable and customizable end client. But with over 10,000 titles you have to have the way to find, browse and discover film through many categories and collections within library. I felt relief to find that search by title, actors AND directors works, it is essential tool and it doesn't work in so many skins and clients. Fanarts adds more story through browsing and just looks nicer than browsing posters. I don't really care for PVR, Live TV or addons such as Exodus, which is great stuff, but just saying I am not that kind of user (and I believe I'm not the only one).
Good luck!
Hi, I've been using Kodi less than one year, mostly because customizations and addons support and always sticked with Arctic Zephyr skin because of it's simple and tasteful design (unlike 95% of other Kodi skins). Unfortunatelly Arctic Zephyr is ruined by other developer with heavy and untasteful design and original one is not beeing developed anymore. But I was stubborn and I used AZ until last week until I got really frustrated with constant crashing and buggy performance. Anyway I decided to go with what seemed to be most simple and stable solution so I gave Estuary a try. Taste of speed, reliability and simplicity won me over from the start but was very unhappy when I realized I can't customize home menu or widgets like in other skins. But then I realized those "limits" (nodes instead skin shortcuts) where actually doing something for stability and I still found the ways to organize the library within it so Estuary really started to grow on me. It's far from perfect but for me it is far best from other options at the moment, I stick with it from now on and will see where it goes! Anyway, good job, I really appreciate your work!
At the moment I am looking forward to these features:
1. Search that includes Tags - I'm not good at coding but it seems it shouldn't be a problem but maybe I'm wrong..
2. Fanart View - I am missing Wall View with fanart thumbnails, original AZ skin had really nice fanart thumbnail view, something like on Mubi.com would really kick in another level of experience through browsing. Only posters are boring. I know there is Fanart View in Estuary but fanarts are really nice to browse either in wall view or full screen view. I vote for both! Idea: in addition to Fanart Wall View, Preplay(Info) screen, which has option to view fanart, could be used to browse next/previous title when toggled.
I know that for most users these features would not be of much importance or interest. I have, and maintain, a pretty huge film library with Plex Media Server (and using Plexkodiconnect to sync with Kodi) and in the first place it asks for reliable and customizable end client. But with over 10,000 titles you have to have the way to find, browse and discover film through many categories and collections within library. I felt relief to find that search by title, actors AND directors works, it is essential tool and it doesn't work in so many skins and clients. Fanarts adds more story through browsing and just looks nicer than browsing posters. I don't really care for PVR, Live TV or addons such as Exodus, which is great stuff, but just saying I am not that kind of user (and I believe I'm not the only one).
Good luck!
