[bsoriano]

Some bugs I found:

In Progress TV Shows isn't sortable in the widget. It's sorted alphabetically in each setting.
I had to deactivate the Low List View, because all windows switched to Low List by themselves.
The widgets are very very slow, especially the Music Videos and the Addon Widgets.
I think the Title View for the Addon Widgets is the wrong format, because Movies and TV Shows from Netflix and Amazon are better shown in the Movie View.

LibreELEC 9.0.2. Rpi2.arm

Nethertheless a big big THANK YOU for keeping this skin alive!

@SHartwig, thank you for your feedback.

You are correct about the widget sort issue.  Thanks for pointing this out, I found the issue was there for all widgets, not just In Progress TV Shows.  Please try the latest from Git, I just fixed that issue.  You will, unfortunately, have to re-select the sort by and sort order for all your widgets.

I am not sure what is going on with Low List, I cannot reproduce this issue here.

In regards to music video widgets, are you using the Default Widgets? I provide 4 default music video widgets (recently added, in progress, random and unwatched) which are all based on playlists and show up instantly for me.  Please try one of those and let me know how it goes.  

In general, all of the Default Widgets are based either on playlists or the libraries themselves, so they should show up very quickly if not instantly, unless your library is extremely large.  

When you mention Addon widgets, you mean widgets based on addons, like skin helper service widgets or extendedinfo or video/music addons? If so, then I understand performance will be all over the place, since some addons are slower than others.

Thank you also for pointing out the issue with video addon widgets and the format being shown. I fixed this as well so that widgets for addons like Netflix or Amazon that sometimes report "mixed" as the content type, show posters and not icons.  This is also already on Git.

Regards,

Bart 

Many thanks for the fixes. I am using now a Default Widget for Music Videos. It's much faster now. My Addon Widgets are Netflix Exported and Amazon Watchlist. Those both take a long time to appear. I think this is because of the login in the background. They didn't change very often, so for me it were OK, if they will be loaded only first time at the startup and after that showing a cached version. Perhaps it's possible to do so. It's OK, if not.

@SHartwig, thanks for confirming the fixes. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know how to go about caching the content of a widget. I am sorry I could not be more help in that regard.

Bart

[timmins]

@treboR2Robert , @edjalmo, thank you both for providing your ideas and suggestions to improve the info dialog for episodes.  I know it might not be what you expected, but I am just going to provide an option to show the thumbnail, centered on the left, or to show the season poster if available (or the tv show poster if not).  Feel free to mod the skin if you'd like!

I want to merge this version with the current Amber soon, so my focus now will be to complete the following (apart from what I mentioned above):

- Sort out the Votes when that info is not in the db
- Sort out the set my ratings issue
- Include some more certification flags for other countries
- Complete the "taller" List View and options

After that, I will merge the 3.2 version with the current one and upload to the Amber repo, and submit the new version to the Kodi repo.  Once that is done, I will close this thread and move back to the main thread for Amber for Leia.

I really appreciate your time and patience! Please keep providing your feedback and keep testing!

Regards,

Bart  

Yes its looking good, just one thing, the refresh between menu options needs to be increased. Sometime it takes 10 to 15 seconds to renew. This is on my shield box.  

@timmins, what exactly do you mean by the refresh between menu options? Please let me know so I know where to look.  Thanks.

Regards,

Bart 

what I mean in the main menu when I which between say movies and tv it takes along time to refresh. In kodi 17, it had no delay at all. Is this a lssue or will be fixed in the final release.


thanks

[bsoriano]

Yes its looking good, just one thing, the refresh between menu options needs to be increased. Sometime it takes 10 to 15 seconds to renew. This is on my shield box.  

@timmins, what exactly do you mean by the refresh between menu options? Please let me know so I know where to look.  Thanks.

Regards,

Bart  

what I mean in the main menu when I which between say movies and tv it takes along time to refresh. In kodi 17, it had no delay at all. Is this a lssue or will be fixed in the final release.


thanks 

@timmins, do you mean that when you move between options the background takes a lot of time to appear, or the shelf, or both? What are you using as background? shelf?

[bsoriano]

Hello all,

I have added a Tall List view type.  This view covers most of the screen, and shows 12 items at a time.  If you also enable "Show More Items in List Views" in Amber Settings, General, it shows 18 items at a time.  As with the other view types, it can be disabled in Amber Settings, Media Views.  Please test and let me know your thoughts.  Thank you.

Regards,

Bart

[treboR2Robert]

@bsoriano 

Thanks for centering the cert and media flags
Looks much better i think.

Everyone seems to have this widget delay/lag in some way or another, @Croneter  done a good job speeding up the movie on deck widgets, they load instantly for me now on the pc (havn't checked on my s912 yet)

However he mentioned somewhere that he can't do the same for the tv on deck widget because of a limitation of kodi.

The fact that all widgets in aeon nox silvo and aura load instantly does suggest something can be done though.
What that is I have no idea lol, @timmins mentioned that the widgets were faster in kodi 17 so maybe it has, got something to do with the "Texture Packer" thing we talked about before.

It says on the kodi wiki,

""Kodi uses a tool named TexturePacker to compile all images used in a skin into a single file. The benefit of it is that images inside the Textures.xbt will load faster in the skin. This is done by converting all images into a format that take less processing by Kodi when they need to be rendered onto the screen.
A common misconception is that TexturPacker will just compress the images into a single file. This if far from the truth, so don't be surprised if the Textures.xbt file is much larger than the total size of all the individual images.""

Hopefully it is a simple as this, because the lag/delay does make navigating the home page annoying.

I noticed in settings / advanced settings, there is an option for movie country icons but these don't show up anywhere on the skin do they ?
Also the movie genre icons ?

Could you add an option there to select what media flags to use ?



As always, thanks for getting things done ! Amber is great

[treboR2Robert]

Hello all,

I have added a Tall List view type.  This view covers most of the screen, and shows 12 items at a time.  If you also enable "Show More Items in List Views" in Amber Settings, General, it shows 18 items at a time.  As with the other view types, it can be disabled in Amber Settings, Media Views.  Please test and let me know your thoughts.  Thank you.

Regards,

Bart

I don't use list view personally but I will check it out none the less.

[treboR2Robert]

@bsoriano 

Is there a way that you can make the recently added TV widget use the season posters instead of show posters ?

Also is there a way you can add the season number at the bottom of the poster ? Like the picture on the left here;



Thanks
Rob

[bsoriano]

@bsoriano 

Thanks for centering the cert and media flags
Looks much better i think.

Everyone seems to have this widget delay/lag in some way or another, @Croneter  done a good job speeding up the movie on deck widgets, they load instantly for me now on the pc (havn't checked on my s912 yet)

However he mentioned somewhere that he can't do the same for the tv on deck widget because of a limitation of kodi.

The fact that all widgets in aeon nox silvo and aura load instantly does suggest something can be done though.
What that is I have no idea lol, @timmins mentioned that the widgets were faster in kodi 17 so maybe it has, got something to do with the "Texture Packer" thing we talked about before.

It says on the kodi wiki,

""Kodi uses a tool named TexturePacker to compile all images used in a skin into a single file. The benefit of it is that images inside the Textures.xbt will load faster in the skin. This is done by converting all images into a format that take less processing by Kodi when they need to be rendered onto the screen.
A common misconception is that TexturPacker will just compress the images into a single file. This if far from the truth, so don't be surprised if the Textures.xbt file is much larger than the total size of all the individual images.""

Hopefully it is a simple as this, because the lag/delay does make navigating the home page annoying.

I noticed in settings / advanced settings, there is an option for movie country icons but these don't show up anywhere on the skin do they ?
Also the movie genre icons ?

Could you add an option there to select what media flags to use ?



As always, thanks for getting things done ! Amber is great

@treboR2Robert , I think there should be a difference when the textures are packed.  I don't know how much, though, or if that is the only thing that is different between other skins and Amber right now.  I have not done any tests with PKC yet; tomorrow I will get to that.

As for the movie genre and country icons, yes, if you select an image resource addon for those in Amber Settings, Advanced, you should be able to see them whenever you browse movies by Genre or by Country, and you will see them in widgets as well.

I won't add an image resource addon for the media flags at this time.  It would mean a lot of changes and rearranging of screens to account for different flag formats and sizes.  I am not saying I will not do this in the future, just not at this time.

Thanks again for your kind words and for continuing to use Amber.

Regards,

Bart

[jusjoken]

Hello all,

I have added a Tall List view type.  This view covers most of the screen, and shows 12 items at a time.  If you also enable "Show More Items in List Views" in Amber Settings, General, it shows 18 items at a time.  As with the other view types, it can be disabled in Amber Settings, Media Views.  Please test and let me know your thoughts.  Thank you.

Regards,

Bart

This is exactly what i was looking for.  thanks for adding it.  I will continue to test and use this great skin.

k

[bsoriano]

@bsoriano 

Is there a way that you can make the recently added TV widget use the season posters instead of show posters ?

Also is there a way you can add the season number at the bottom of the poster ? Like the picture on the left here;



Thanks
Rob

@treboR2Robert, you are using a PKC node widget for recently added, correct? I need to try this for myself and see what PKC returns to Kodi in order to see if I can change the poster to be the Season poster (and the correct season for the recently added episodes).  I need to do some tests before I can say if this is feasible or not.

It looks like tomorrow will be PKC day for me

Regards,

Bart

[bsoriano]

Hello all,

I have added a Tall List view type.  This view covers most of the screen, and shows 12 items at a time.  If you also enable "Show More Items in List Views" in Amber Settings, General, it shows 18 items at a time.  As with the other view types, it can be disabled in Amber Settings, Media Views.  Please test and let me know your thoughts.  Thank you.

Regards,

Bart

This is exactly what i was looking for.  thanks for adding it.  I will continue to test and use this great skin.

k 

@jusjoken , great! Thank you.

Regards,

Bart

[treboR2Robert]

@treboR2Robert , I think there should be a difference when the textures are packed.  I don't know how much, though, or if that is the only thing that is different between other skins and Amber right now.  I have not done any tests with PKC yet; tomorrow I will get to that.

As for the movie genre and country icons, yes, if you select an image resource addon for those in Amber Settings, Advanced, you should be able to see them whenever you browse movies by Genre or by Country, and you will see them in widgets as well.

I won't add an image resource addon for the media flags at this time.  It would mean a lot of changes and rearranging of screens to account for different flag formats and sizes.  I am not saying I will not do this in the future, just not at this time.

Thanks again for your kind words and for continuing to use Amber.

Regards,

Bart 

OK Bart no worries, it will be good to see how you get on with PKC.

I will give the movie genre icons and country flag icons another try.

I get why you don't want to do the media flags yet, plenty of more important stuff to do for the moment, I'm not sure i would even use the coloured icons as the current ones do look good.
Would be nice to try them out at some point in the future though.



The Widget I am using for recently added tv is not a PKC widget no.

I don't use the PKC widget for recently added TV because it cannot stack episodes into seasons, but the "default" or "additional" widgets do show recently added as grouped/stacked. ( There is an option for this in skin helper )



Both the PKC widgets "on deck" and "recently added" show the writing at the bottom of each poster (SxxExx) so maybe you could copy the code from them and just change it to Season 1, Season 2 etc..

Sounds easy to me lol

Thanks Bart, Appreciate you considering it.

[edjalmo]

@edjalmo , both things done in Git (text ratings moved to the end of the list, ratings bar starts where plot text starts).  Please test and let me know.  Thanks.

Regards,

Bart

Thank you very much! You're great!
I like the tall list and new position/align of ratings/certificates and media flags and option to enabler thumbnail if user like.
(maybe this is too much from my part, but I think the top and bottom of Brazil certificate is not the same (I can't notice this on PC, but in my TV, that's have a more large screen, I can))

The only new thing I haves to suggest in video info is show movie tagline too in plot when it is clicked, and make the info menu (director, writers...) have a infinite scrolling (maybe an option to enable/disaber too) (look how you in and out this section, how you navegate in it and I think you will agree with me).

The "bugs" I found:

• In some Tv show like Black Mirror, which are anthologies, and there's no character fixed, this space be empty. Suggestion, put banner;
  

 

• When I change the view type of a season or episodes they don't change for the others Tv shows (just change a few). This also happend in add-ons, and I think in all view type;
  
• Sometimes this text with next episode show, look
  

I don't know but this don't show all the time and not with all TV show. What I suggest is show next episode text (if have) after having passed 3 seconds in a Tv show selected (or maybe, again, an option to enabler/disabler this).

Thanks!

[edjalmo]

@treboR2Robert how can I separate two widgets this way?

[bsoriano]

@treboR2Robert how can I separate two widgets this way?

@edjalmo, that screenshot is not from Amber. You can have two widgets show at the same time enabling the option "Show two shelves together" in Amber Settings.

Regards,

Bart