HOW-TO create/make a skin for XBMC
#16
ok ta, i shall try to persevere with it
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#17
Sad 
hi!

how do people make these skins? i'm anxiously waiting to start making my own, but i'm still wondering which is the best way to get my hands dirty.

i dont seem to find any comprehensive skinning tool anywhere. this skin editor seems like a nice project but is still in it's early stages.

are there any tutorials for making a custom skin? i didnt find any.

or is the only way to go to start educating oneself from other people's skins?

thanks
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#18
ooops!  :d

right after posting the above, i found this thread which more or less answers my questions.

any further ideas or comments or most welcome however.

maybe a pinned thread introducing newbie-skinners the present situation would be in order?

thanks
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#19
looking through the forums and the web page of the xbmc project i found no help on how to make a skin for the xbmc.

all i got was to look through the project mayhem and self figure out how to do things.
i find this methode waste of time, is just like everybody should invent the wheel again just if they want to use it.

there must be description lying around at the xbmc guys, how the skin scripting should be configured and what they should contain, and which files should be made.
i don't thing the mayhem guys just figured out this by them self, what to include where and how.

i'm pretty sure this description exists, the program (xbmc) have to be programmed to read the skin files in certain manner, well!

so, why just publish this document. i'm not afraid to dig into the .xml files, with the doc. in my hand. i don't need fancy skin editor to work with, sure it would be nice, but not necessary.
in my daily i make programs that uses .xml and other setup files.

regards,
the iceman.
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#20
check skinning.txt in the xbmc homedir. this, along with the skin files in cvs, and the source code, is the only documentation we have.

basically, each window has it's own .xml file which is read in. each window has it's own id, described in guilib/key.h in the source code (see cvs). each control within a window will have a unique id as well, and these are described in the source code for that particular window (not a particularly good system, i know).

the xml files contain the descriptions of each control on that particular window. there is a global file (references.xml) that contains the default settings to use for each control, to save you having to fill in each and every tag for each control.

anything else you want to know?

basically, everyone (including chokeman who maintains the project mayhem skin) learnt by following the available skin files.

cheers,
jonathan
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#21
thank you for your answer,
this is a good start, to get me going.

i think i will just get the xbmc source code from the cvs and the mayhem source from their cvs as well and just go through the code and see how the things are done.

this is the hardway of doing things.

maybe, if i have the time, i will make a document about the process so others don't have to dig again.

why is this made so hard to do?
i have never understand why it should be so hard to contribute to the world of software, why shall everyone who want to get involved have to dig through source codes etc. and have to figure the things out on their own.
whouldn't be easier just to tell how the things work?

i'm not saying that i'm not willing to make the effort, i love to dig into things and find out how they work.  but, i also love to tell others what i have found out. i and cases when writing software tell others how i made it.

there is one question, how is the media compiled?  e.g. all the graphic files (.png) compiled into one big file placed in the media folder of the mayhem project?

regards,
iceman
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#22
basically, stuff has not been documented well, as a lot of coders don't enjoy documenting stuff Smile

if you, or someone else could do so, that would be a fantastic contribution to the xbmc project.

basically, the loading of the skin files can be looked into in guilib/guiwindow.cpp and guilib/guicontrolfactory.cpp

that is where the loading etc. is performed, so will give you all the info you need to know regarding which controls use which tags etc.

as for the actual media files, the fonts are simply placed in the font subdir of the skin folder (they can be .xpr or .ttf fonts).

the rest of the media files are placed in the media subdir. that will work fine. to increase performance, however, we convert the texture files to an xbox native format and compress it into a single file (textures.xpr) so that it loads much quicker. there is an application available (xbmctex.exe - needs building) in the tools subdir of the xbmc source.

for testing purposes, though, just dump the pngs etc. in the media subdir and xbmc will load them just fine.

i'm more than happy to help with any other questions you may have.

also, if you find things that you think would simplify/enhance the skinning process and/or the gui environment that you'd like implemented, let me know and we'll see what we can do.

cheers,
jonathan
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#23
i know i'm a coder my self, but i force me to make document as i see it helps later on and also helps with the thinking / developing process.

i think i will start with getting the xbmc source from the cvs and go from there.
as the winter is coming and the nights are getting longer i'm sure i will find some time to dig into the gui code.

i'm sure i will have some more question when i start, then i will sumit them to this forum.

greetings,
iceman
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#24
i'd like to look into skinning xbmc and agree that the best way to learn is to dig! that's always worked for me when learning to skin smartphones! (ok, big difference between a smartphone and xbmc, but the principle's the same)

my questions is; is there any way to expand the textures.xpr file into it's individual files? the reason for this is that i would find it extremely helpful to be able to bring up a screen on the xbox, reference with it's corresponding xml file on my laptop and reference that with the individual graphic elements.

tia
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#25
no way to decompress the xpr file, you need to find some skin with uncompressed textures or find the source code of xbmc "somewhere...."
XBMC Italian translator, Movieplayer.it scrapers developer and the old "The Orbs" skin creator.
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#26
(kotix @ nov. 03 2004,10:02 Wrote:no way to decompress the xpr file, you need to find some skin with uncompressed textures or find the source code of xbmc "somewhere...."
somewhere? its not a secret where to find the skin sources.they are in the cvs. Wink

--> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs....dirlist
read the xbmc online-manual, faq and search the forums before posting! do not e-mail the xbmc-team asking for support!
read/follow the forum rules! note! team-xbmc never have and never will host or distribute ms-xdk binaries/executables!
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#27
ok. one can have a look at the existing images an make new ones...
but what about the new skins for xbmc 1.1 Huh i can only see a "textures.xpr" no images. any way to extract those images?

forgot to say . please...

please help me. :nuts:
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#28
no way.
XBMC Italian translator, Movieplayer.it scrapers developer and the old "The Orbs" skin creator.
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#29
(alfisti @ nov. 05 2004,20:55 Wrote:but what about the new skins for xbmc 1.1 Huh i
you can find uncompressed files in the visor 1.1 - skin at www.allxboxskins.com
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#30
does this visor 1.1 skin work with 16:9 tv's it seems that it has a 4:3 background image. what are the background dimensions for 16:9 tv's do they need to be in a different folder from the standard images?
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HOW-TO create/make a skin for XBMC0