2021-08-18, 16:28
(2021-08-12, 19:50)bsoriano Wrote: 1. Are there any menu items you wish were included by default in Xonfluence which are not today?
Finally, are there any of you that prefer the menu/submenu/widget system in Xonfluence to remain as is?
We should thank Mr Soriano for asking the users of his skin to assert their preferences.
1.-- It is my opinion that Xonfluence's 15-menu item structure is methodically wrong. You may need considerably less main items than 15, or you may need many-many more. It seems to me that he correct approach is (i) to make it as easy as possible for the customizing user to add/delete as many main items as he sees fit; a fixed 15-main item structure impedes that and must be rejected. (ii) And after inputting the items, he must be able to reorder them by a simple click on the up/down cursor so as to achieve the methodically best order. A skin which does all this, and does it in my view much better than Xonfluencer, is Unity - which is Confluence in all but name. So I believe Xonfluence should take a leaf out of Unity and aim for an infinite number of main items, infinitely customizable.
2.-- It is also my opinion that some of Xonfluence's existing main items are redundant, even silly, and must disappear. (i) Nobody needs a DVD menu. If there is a need for it it should be integrated into Music, but Kodi's disc-ripping capabilities are second rate compared to those of a full desktop, so nobody serious about ripping (and getting the metadata correct) shall use Kodi. (ii) A Streaming menu whose content points to nothing. (iii) A Radio menu. Yes, we all listen to radio. But the radio we can capture on our Kodi hardware per our modern tuners is DAB radio, and this sort of radio is stillborn and shall never ever take off.
3.-- If you are of the opinion that Xonfluence should offer 15 main items as stock, I would, based on those of my own preferences I believe to be universal among users, propose the following structure:
01 Settings (incl. Programs as sub-menu or custom widget, as most Programs are executables offering system configuration).
02 Addons & Installers. Most of us install/configure/remove addons all the time, and having to dig under Settings makes this job tedious.
03 Weather.
04. News.
(On many of my installations I have merged 03 and 04 into a single item named "Today" or "W&N". Weather is just a button activating a window, and the weather widget is not very informative on some skins (incl Xonfluence) and can thus be left out. A single "Weather" button inside "W&N" saves space.
05. TV (live DVB-T/T2 with PVR capability; DAB Radio is just 2 items which can be integrated here).
06. IPTV/VOD aka Streaming.
Alternatively, a single main itme dedicated to Netflix.
07. YouTube. YouTube is a world into itself, so it stands to reason that the number of bookmarks/shortcuts needed for one's convenience is enough to saturate a single main item.
08. Videos (local video library configuration, incl. all Settings pertaining to Video, Audio, Library).
09. Cinefilms (aka Movies) (local files/files on NAS + select online sources).
10. Series (aka TvShows) (local files/files on NAS + select online sources).
11. Anime.
12. Documentaries (local files/files on NAS + select online sources).
13. Musicvideos.
14. Music.
15. Pictures.
All other I would redirect to the bin.
As you notice I have in some cases indicated the desirable submenu/widget sub-structure. More on that on a follow-up post.
4.-- As another participant in this thread has noticed, some main items (e.g Settings, Addons) make much better sense as floor buttons than they do as main items. Truly, there is a glaring open space under even the lowest-placed main menu bar which is presently occupied by just 3 buttons whereas there seems to be place for up to 20. However this is not within the stated aims of Mr Soriano.
5.-- One thing I have never succeeding in doing is mastering the art of bookmarking media items I want to revisit among Favourites, SuperFavourites, MyLists, SimplePlaylists... I just use Favourites, and though the method is fast and failsafe it produces a long and convoluted menu, audio and video and plugins and executables all mixed up in a flat (no folders) order. I know it is not skin related. But solving this nightmare would offer more benefits than revising a skin.
1.-- It is my opinion that Xonfluence's 15-menu item structure is methodically wrong. You may need considerably less main items than 15, or you may need many-many more. It seems to me that he correct approach is (i) to make it as easy as possible for the customizing user to add/delete as many main items as he sees fit; a fixed 15-main item structure impedes that and must be rejected. (ii) And after inputting the items, he must be able to reorder them by a simple click on the up/down cursor so as to achieve the methodically best order. A skin which does all this, and does it in my view much better than Xonfluencer, is Unity - which is Confluence in all but name. So I believe Xonfluence should take a leaf out of Unity and aim for an infinite number of main items, infinitely customizable.
2.-- It is also my opinion that some of Xonfluence's existing main items are redundant, even silly, and must disappear. (i) Nobody needs a DVD menu. If there is a need for it it should be integrated into Music, but Kodi's disc-ripping capabilities are second rate compared to those of a full desktop, so nobody serious about ripping (and getting the metadata correct) shall use Kodi. (ii) A Streaming menu whose content points to nothing. (iii) A Radio menu. Yes, we all listen to radio. But the radio we can capture on our Kodi hardware per our modern tuners is DAB radio, and this sort of radio is stillborn and shall never ever take off.
3.-- If you are of the opinion that Xonfluence should offer 15 main items as stock, I would, based on those of my own preferences I believe to be universal among users, propose the following structure:
01 Settings (incl. Programs as sub-menu or custom widget, as most Programs are executables offering system configuration).
02 Addons & Installers. Most of us install/configure/remove addons all the time, and having to dig under Settings makes this job tedious.
03 Weather.
04. News.
(On many of my installations I have merged 03 and 04 into a single item named "Today" or "W&N". Weather is just a button activating a window, and the weather widget is not very informative on some skins (incl Xonfluence) and can thus be left out. A single "Weather" button inside "W&N" saves space.
05. TV (live DVB-T/T2 with PVR capability; DAB Radio is just 2 items which can be integrated here).
06. IPTV/VOD aka Streaming.
Alternatively, a single main itme dedicated to Netflix.
07. YouTube. YouTube is a world into itself, so it stands to reason that the number of bookmarks/shortcuts needed for one's convenience is enough to saturate a single main item.
08. Videos (local video library configuration, incl. all Settings pertaining to Video, Audio, Library).
09. Cinefilms (aka Movies) (local files/files on NAS + select online sources).
10. Series (aka TvShows) (local files/files on NAS + select online sources).
11. Anime.
12. Documentaries (local files/files on NAS + select online sources).
13. Musicvideos.
14. Music.
15. Pictures.
All other I would redirect to the bin.
As you notice I have in some cases indicated the desirable submenu/widget sub-structure. More on that on a follow-up post.
4.-- As another participant in this thread has noticed, some main items (e.g Settings, Addons) make much better sense as floor buttons than they do as main items. Truly, there is a glaring open space under even the lowest-placed main menu bar which is presently occupied by just 3 buttons whereas there seems to be place for up to 20. However this is not within the stated aims of Mr Soriano.
5.-- One thing I have never succeeding in doing is mastering the art of bookmarking media items I want to revisit among Favourites, SuperFavourites, MyLists, SimplePlaylists... I just use Favourites, and though the method is fast and failsafe it produces a long and convoluted menu, audio and video and plugins and executables all mixed up in a flat (no folders) order. I know it is not skin related. But solving this nightmare would offer more benefits than revising a skin.
