[R.O.H.3000]

@"QuizKid" 

hi, sorry it took me a while to respond. Thank you for the explanation regarding the order. That did the trick!   Now I have no discoloring. HOWEVER, because each logo is different and has a different shape and size it's kinda not an option. I will leave it as it is without a shadow and simply go for fanart that is not too bright at that spot. Or I can do some layer on the fanart itself if I really like it. I think that works better for me. 

I have uploaded two pics. One where the shadow works nicely and one fail. As you can see I have everything placed on the left side. I still don't want to dark everything on the left but only the plot and a bit above where I have date, duration, language, ...
Maybe you can help me with that. 

And regarding 2) with the different textboxes here is my current code for the textbox:

xml:
<control type="image"> 

    <left>30</left> 

    <top>480</top> 

    <width>950</width> 

    <height>300</height> 

    <texture border="100" colordiffuse="88000000">plot_background.png</texture> 

    <aspectratio>stretch</aspectratio> 

</control> 



<control type="textbox"> 

    <left>100</left> <top>600</top> 

    <width>810</width>

    <height>150</height> 

    <align>justify</align> 

    <font>font_plot</font>

    <label>$INFO[ListItem.Plot]</label> 

</control>

Thank you very much for your help!!

[realcopacetic]

@3000 

Nice view you've got there! I see what you mean now about the texture to dark the background. It's way to dark and needs to be much bigger with a larger spread.

I have a similar view in my skin and I chose to have a gradient of 50% across the whole fanart because I don't like gradients with darker bits personally:



You could do it a few different ways though, just depends what look you want to go for:





These are all with black. You could also use a colour but it might be hard to find a colour that works well across all fanarts apart from black or grey. There are plugins that can blur images to give you a unique colour for each item, but these can be a bit slow sometimes 



With a bigger gradient, it also wouldn't matter about how many lines your textbox goes onto. But if you want the gap between the plot and btutons underneath to always be the same, you can give the textbox an auto height and then put all of the details in a grouplist, which will keep everything spaced out.

Here's one of mine that does a similar layout:

xml:


<control type="grouplist">

            <visible>!$EXP[TransparentDialog_IsVisible] + !Window.IsVisible(playerprocessinfo)</visible>

            <include>Delayed_Content_Fade_Animation</include>

            <width>1560</width>

            <centerleft>50%</centerleft>

            <height>100%</height>

            <orientation>vertical</orientation>

            <align>center</align>

            <itemgap>0</itemgap>

            <usecontrolcoords>true</usecontrolcoords>

            <!-- Logo -->

            <control type="image">

                <visible>![String.IsEmpty(VideoPlayer.Art(clearlogo-aligned)) + String.IsEmpty(VideoPlayer.Art(clearlogo))]</visible>

                <width>560</width>

                <height>237</height>

                <aspectratio>keep</aspectratio>

                <texture background="true">$VAR[Logo_Path]</texture>

            </control>

            <!-- Title -->

            <control type="textbox">

                <visible>String.IsEmpty(VideoPlayer.Art(clearlogo-aligned)) + String.IsEmpty(VideoPlayer.Art(clearlogo))</visible>

                <height max="146">auto</height>

                <font>Billboard_Title</font>

                <textcolor>$VAR[Light_Color]</textcolor>

                <label>$VAR[Title_Label]</label>

            </control>

            <!-- Info -->

            <control type="label">

                <top>0</top>

                <height max="35">auto</height>

                <font>Billboard_Info</font>

                <textcolor>$VAR[Light_Color]</textcolor>

                <label>$VAR[Info_Label]</label>

            </control>

            <!-- Plot -->

            <control type="textbox">

                <top>60</top>

                <height max="103">auto</height>

                <font>Body</font>

                <textcolor>$VAR[Light_Color]</textcolor>

                <label>$VAR[Plot_Label]</label>

                <autoscroll delay="5000" time="1500" repeat="2000">true</autoscroll>

            </control>

            <!-- Flags -->

            <control type="grouplist">

                <top>60</top>

                <width>100%</width>

                <height>180</height>

                <orientation>horizontal</orientation>

                <align>center</align>

                <!-- Studio -->

                <include content="FlagLayout">

                    <param name="id" value="920"/>

                    <param name="content" value="$VAR[Studio_Flag]"/>

                </include>

                <!-- Rating -->

                <include content="FlagLayout">

                    <param name="id" value="921"/>

                    <param name="content" value="$VAR[MPAA_Flag]"/>

                </include>

                <!-- Video Source -->

                <include content="FlagLayout">

                    <param name="id" value="922"/>

                    <param name="content" value="$VAR[VideoSource_Flag]"/>

                </include>

                <!-- Video Codec -->

                <include content="FlagLayout">

                    <param name="id" value="923"/>

                    <param name="content" value="$VAR[VideoCodec_Flag]"/>

                </include>

                <!-- Audio Source -->

                <include content="FlagLayout">

                    <param name="id" value="924"/>

                    <param name="content" value="$VAR[AudioCodec_Flag]"/>

                </include>

            </control>

        </control>

[R.O.H.3000]

@"QuizKid" 

Thank you I am going for a "less is more" approach. That's why I'm also trying to keep the background as bright as possible. Thank you for sharing your examples. I will play around with all those different solutions.

Regarding the xml you posted, I couldn't make it work. I pasted it into my DialogVideoInfo.xml but it's not doing anything.

Any idea why? Thank you!!

[realcopacetic]

you'd need to replace a lot of bits with your own code, was just an example to show you the structure you can do.

xml:


<control type="grouplist">

    <orientation>vertical</orientation>

    <itemgap>10</itemgap> <!-- number of pixels between the items in the group -->

    <align>left</align> <!-- as the grouplist is vertical, align left actually means align to the top -->

    <!-- put your controls here e.g. your clearlogo image and your plot -->

</control>

​​​​​​​

[R.O.H.3000]

you'd need to replace a lot of bits with your own code, was just an example to show you the structure you can do.

xml:


<control type="grouplist">

    <orientation>vertical</orientation>

    <itemgap>10</itemgap> <!-- number of pixels between the items in the group -->

    <align>left</align> <!-- as the grouplist is vertical, align left actually means align to the top -->

    <!-- put your controls here e.g. your clearlogo image and your plot -->

</control>

Alright, thank you very much. You have helped me a lot.