2017-04-02, 10:37
(2017-03-31, 09:51)xbmosx Wrote: I'd like to add a few minor feature requests for this very nice MOD of an already beautiful skin:
1.) Option to disable/hide the spinning CD (Music OSD)
2.) Change the order in which title information is displayed (Music OSD). Now it's Artist (very big and bold) - Album (blue and italic) - Title. If it was possible to have an option for Title (big and bold) - Artist (blue) - Album that would be perfect.
3.) A way to display additional information (album info, artist bio) from 'Artist Slideshow' add-on.
4.) With the original skin there was an option to display a transparent gradient below the Home Header to make it easier to read on bright backgrounds. I thought that was a useful feature.
Thank you for sharing your work with us!!!
1. I'll probably add it in soon enough.
2. I can't move the entries, because the Artist uses the Artist Logo if available, so it has to stay on top and be the largest.
3. I'll need more info as to what you mean?
4. That still exists, it's a skin setting called Dim Home.
(2017-03-31, 17:40)pinguy Wrote: Widget reloading is really doing a number on Linux (system grinds to a halt). Unsure what it is like on other systems as I only use Kodi in Linux and LibreELEC. This wasn't always the case but can't remember what version this started to happen (it might even be a bug in Kodi for Linux and has nothing to do with the skin).
EDIT#
Also not a big fan of how the hub images load. They used to load instantly. Now you get a blank screen for about half a seconded while the image loads. This is probably done for performance, but if anything it makes the hub slower as it seems to only get one image at a time. If you don't want it to download the hub images in batches you might be able to make it grab the next 2 or 3 images so it doesn't keep starting with a blank hub when it scrolls.
Would also be nice if the hub widgets also reload as I have content in them that does update. I normally have a few item menus in the hub so I can switch between them to force the hub to reload. That doesn't seem to work any more.
I did a rework of the Hub widgets in order to boost performance, this is probably a consequence of that. Really, the widgets should now work as any widget in Kodi. In order for the widgets to actually be faster, they all have to be loaded and kept in memory. This is achieved by giving every hub widget its own identifier. Previously, they all occupied the same space, which caused the reloads, and really wasn't the proper way of making widgets. The new implementation causes slightly longer load times, but only for the very first time you open the Hub. The whole point of the affair is that after the initial load, all other switches between the widgets ought to be instant, just like in the Home menu. That's the main benefit of the whole overhaul. I don't understand why Linux seems to have so much problems with such Kodi operations.
As far as widgets updating, there is already a hard-coded cycle of (I think) four hours that performs these updates. Generally speaking, aside from reloading the skin (that also reloads the widgets), there's no other way of forcing widgets to update before that cycle is complete. It's just the way Kodi was built. I presume that I can unload the widgets when you leave the hub. That should force a reload when you re-enter, and update your stuff. However, that will dampen the performance achieved with the new code.
In my experience, the images all load instantly as before, regardless of the widgets? The widgets, if set, take a few seconds to load on my old PC, and during that time there is a blank space instead of the widget content, but if I switch to a menu item with an image, it loads instantly. I can fill this blank widget space with one of the fall-back images, to stay until the widget loads. Though, if the images aren't loading for you, then it wouldn't make a difference. The only occasion in which nothing works is when my PC has low free memory even before starting Kodi. In that case, no widgets will load, since that's the price paid for the good performance everywhere else. Usually, restarting the computer and then Kodi will fix this.