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+--- Forum: Feature Suggestions (/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: FanArt and Thumbnails Naming-Standard and File-Structure Convension Rationalisation? (/showthread.php?tid=49801)
Skin issues - AnalogKid - 2009-07-02 13:46
I don't know a great deal about skinning at the moment, but I know DigitalHigh does...
I'm curious if my understanding is correct here:
To BEST utilise this proposed scheme... changes in the skinning engine would be required to get the extra art. BUT, it should be possible to use the new scheme without needing to change any skin code... but then skins could only display the thumb and fanart as normal.
The skinning engine would simply transpose 'thumb' to mean frontcover (portrait) and fanart would remain as fanart (landscape). In the case of multiple instances of frontcover or fanart, the engine would only ever user the first instance.
Would this assumption be correct?
I am hoping that this would ease the worry that 'EVERYTHING' will be broken by moving to this new artwork scheme.
- tetsuo55 - 2009-07-02 19:12
If anyone interested in this knows how to code a patch could be written, which would make acceptation that much easier.
Also (at least for now), the current method should still be available as a fallback (and then gradually get phased out)
I think the 2 tier approach is a very good idea.
- digitalhigh - 2009-07-02 22:50
AnalogKid Wrote:I don't know a great deal about skinning at the moment, but I know DigitalHigh does...
I'm curious if my understanding is correct here:
To BEST utilise this proposed scheme... changes in the skinning engine would be required to get the extra art. BUT, it should be possible to use the new scheme without needing to change any skin code... but then skins could only display the thumb and fanart as normal.
The skinning engine would simply transpose 'thumb' to mean frontcover (portrait) and fanart would remain as fanart (landscape). In the case of multiple instances of frontcover or fanart, the engine would only ever user the first instance.
Would this assumption be correct?
I am hoping that this would ease the worry that 'EVERYTHING' will be broken by moving to this new artwork scheme.
It really depends on how the person coding it decides to implement the newly available images. Like I laid out in a previous post, I think it would be best to call everything (something along the lines of) listitem.image(IMAGENAME,variable) where IMAGENAME is the type, and variable would be the orientation, or imagenumber, or whatnot.
However, like tetsuo55 said, it would be really stupid to remove the current listitem.thumb/listitem.fanart/etc infolabels, as it would break every other skin out there.
The best approach would be to allow for either infolabel to produce the image, and then slowly ask the devs to depreciate the old methods as the new ones are used. This is what was done when new features like grouplists and such were added.
So, no. If a coder were to approach it correctly, it wouldn't break anything.
- Gangsta - 2009-07-03 00:15
Id still love to see an option added for this in the settings, a simple yes/no asking if your using the new schema. the 'improved' skinning engine looks at this, if its 'yes' then it totally jumps all the old code, and breaks old-style skins. BUT. we get a nice speed improvement due to our optimized filenaming if we use a skin the supports the new schema. if its 'off' then it runs the existing code.
I would absolutly hate to see both bits of code running side by side. Even during a changeover period - it would be horrible.
EG. the user makes a concious decision to upgrade to the new schema, and get its all its benefits.
- xexe - 2009-07-03 09:43
I think it is time to take a pause and petition for a dev to sponsor your idea.
Without one of them you could be wasting your time.
I would recommend putting the whole scheme on a wiki page somewhere nicely formatted and link to it here... no dev is going to read all this thread and you dont want them bailing out of boredom.
- AnalogKid - 2009-07-03 15:17
I've created an online wiki that helps keep the spec easy to read and understand the rationale:
http://xbmc-media-art-proposal.wikidot.com/
I'm new to wiki's but it seems to work well enough!
I have also submitted a formal feature request within XBMC's trac system, with Trac Ticket #6849
- digitalhigh - 2009-07-03 17:55
Howabout you give me wiki access, and I'll throw up my proposal for the related infolabels...after I sober up a little.
- AnalogKid - 2009-07-03 18:05
digitalhigh Wrote:Howabout you give me wiki access, and I'll throw up my proposal for the related infolabels...after I sober up a little.
Done....
I will create a page called "skin considerations" and you can toss your ideas there!
- Gangsta - 2009-07-04 00:44
The wiki is looking gooooood. Very easy to read and navigate.
just one tiny (and probably unimportant thing)
the . (dot) is missing in some of the options (or in the wrong place), assuming () means available choices, and green is optional.
<moviename>.movie.fanart(.landscape/portrait).<n>
<moviename>.movie.cover(.front/back/inner/sleeve/disc)(.landscape/portrait).<n>
<moviename>.movie.poster[color="SeaGreen](.landscape/portrait).<n>[/color]
<moviename>.movie.banner(.landscape/portrait).<n>
<moviename>.movie.framegrab.<n>
<moviename>.movie.logo.<n>
I think it should be <moviename>.movie.fanart.(landscape/portrait).<n>
Note the dot has moved outside the brackets to the left, but is still optional OR add dots to all choices eg. (.portrait/.landscape) but i think the first way is clearer.
- AnalogKid - 2009-07-04 01:29
Gangsta Wrote:The wiki is looking gooooood. Very easy to read and navigate.
just one tiny (and probably unimportant thing)
the . (dot) is missing in some of the options (or in the wrong place), assuming () means available choices, and green is optional.
<moviename>.movie.fanart(.landscape/portrait).<n>
<moviename>.movie.cover(.front/back/inner/sleeve/disc)(.landscape/portrait).<n>
<moviename>.movie.poster[color="SeaGreen](.landscape/portrait).<n>[/color]
<moviename>.movie.banner(.landscape/portrait).<n>
<moviename>.movie.framegrab.<n>
<moviename>.movie.logo.<n>
I think it should be <moviename>.movie.fanart.(landscape/portrait).<n>
Note the dot has moved outside the brackets to the left, but is still optional OR add dots to all choices eg. (.portrait/.landscape) but i think the first way is clearer.
I'll fix that up asap!