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[MOD] xTV SAF (Spouse Acceptance Factor) - Printable Version

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- wyrm - 2011-01-16

zebraitis Wrote:Found it.

System /Settings / Skin / Bckground /

... and either "use visuals as background" or "Use fanart as background".


(... I always find it AFTER I post. D'oh! )



Still, great skin!

Laugh
zebraitis,

You can use both at the same time, that is "use visuals..." and "use Fanart..." . Having said that there is a small bug in how the fanart is handled that I have just fixed and will appear in the Non Xbox release of the skin in a day or two.

For those of you that are interested, the repo guardians have just said that my skin will not be accepted with the two scripts that I have included in the skin. I'm not able to get the scripts up to their standards for including the scripts in the repo any-time soon, so I will have to keep the skin as an unofficial skin for the time being. I will package up the skin and upload the zip file to my googlecode page in the next day or so.

Wyrm


- zebraitis - 2011-01-16

Quote:... there is a small bug in how the fanart is handled

Wyrm,

Is the small fanart bug the way that memory is used?

I think that I may have found a memory challenge in the XBMC4XBOX application. This may or may not be related to your skin:

http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1620


As I have your ear, may I make a request or two?

1) Color - Since black is very stark, and the Blue is very bright, are there some colors that you could add to the skin that would make the menu a bit more muted? Think bedroom use... Maybe a tan or a darker yellow or brown with the Tango effect. The blue is cool but it is VERY bright at night.

2) In the Library "coverflow" view, is there a way to tab down to the scrollbar to move a page of view at a time? If I use the XBOX DVD IR, the up and down arrow both take me to the pop-up menu.

3) Fanart seems to eat a lot of my memory on any XBOX skin, however, movie info is great... Could it be possible to have a NEW VIEW showing A) a list of movies with B) a big DVD Graphic (A+B= like your "list" view), but then find a way to C) add the smaller fanart and D) a synopsys (C+D = like your "Banner" view)... I think that a blend of both of those would be really great for the movie junkies like myself. Please keep it as large as possible as it is likely being viewed from across a room.

I hope that you do not mind that I asked / provided this feedback.


BTW, what is the best location to find your skin, once it is updated?


Again, thanks for a great, detailed yet simple skin!

v.


- wyrm - 2011-01-17

zebraitis Wrote:Wyrm,

Is the small fanart bug the way that memory is used?
zebraitis, not exactly, but a side effect of the fix will be to turn off fanart while a video is playing. If you have not already tried the posted fix for fanart see my last post of this thread http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1561 . If this helps, please let me know so that I can push out a new release of the skin.
Quote:I think that I may have found a memory challenge in the XBMC4XBOX application. This may or may not be related to your skin:

http://www.xbmc4xbox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1620
Yes and No, Yes as far as my skin uses Fanart, but otherwise No. That said I have not seen anything about sizing of fanart. Remember the bigger the fanart, the more memory you will use. One other thing that maybe an issue is the use of background loading of images. Just about every skin uses background loading to bring images in before they are needed (makes scrolling thru the views one hell of a lot quicker, but it probably uses quite a bit more memory as well).
Quote:As I have your ear, may I make a request or two?

1) Color - Since black is very stark, and the Blue is very bright, are there some colors that you could add to the skin that would make the menu a bit more muted? Think bedroom use... Maybe a tan or a darker yellow or brown with the Tango effect. The blue is cool but it is VERY bright at night.

2) In the Library "coverflow" view, is there a way to tab down to the scrollbar to move a page of view at a time? If I use the XBOX DVD IR, the up and down arrow both take me to the pop-up menu.

3) Fanart seems to eat a lot of my memory on any XBOX skin, however, movie info is great... Could it be possible to have a NEW VIEW showing A) a list of movies with B) a big DVD Graphic (A+B= like your "list" view), but then find a way to C) add the smaller fanart and D) a synopsys (C+D = like your "Banner" view)... I think that a blend of both of those would be really great for the movie junkies like myself. Please keep it as large as possible as it is likely being viewed from across a room.
Very busy at the moment, but other themes will follow. In the coverflow view down should take you to the scrollbar, so I'm not sure what is going on. Maybe you did not update the skin cleanly so you are running parts of the old and new skin. As to the view suggestions I'm not a big fan of lots of different views, so I really don't think I will add any other. But there is no reason why I can't fine tune things a bit. As a further note, it does not really matter if I use a fanart in fullscreen or as an icon, the whole fanart file is pulled into memory before being scaled down (or Up), so you will not get a great saving in memory use by showing the file as a thumb. Or at least that's the way I believe it works
Quote:I hope that you do not mind that I asked / provided this feedback.

BTW, what is the best location to find your skin, once it is updated?

Again, thanks for a great, detailed yet simple skin!

v.
Provide all the feedback you can. Sometime it seems I'm sucking vacuum. Don't need the praise, but it's damn hard to fix things I don't know about. My googlecode page is updated with the latest release of the skin (or if you want a ride on the wild side try the SVN).

Wyrm


- zebraitis - 2011-01-17

wyrm Wrote:...My googlecode page is updated with the latest release of the skin...Wyrm

OK, I'll do the suggested re-load (change skins, delete old, FTP new, reselect xTV skin) of 1.0.0 from http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-repo-wyrm/downloads/list

(I assume your includes.xml need to go into the PAL subdirectory.)

I'll let'cha know how it goes.


- wyrm - 2011-01-17

zebraitis Wrote:OK, I'll do the suggested re-load (change skins, delete old, FTP new, reselect xTV skin) of 1.0.0 from http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-repo-wyrm/downloads/list

(I assume your includes.xml need to go into the PAL subdirectory.)

I'll let'cha know how it goes.
zebraitis,
Really very sorry, fault mine not yours. Just gone over the coverflow views and have in fact found a small error on line 12 of View-VideoCoverflow.xml in both the PAL and PAL16x9 directories.

Currently line reads
PHP Code:
<ondown>2</ondown
Should read
PHP Code:
<ondown>23</ondown
will probably post a new xTV-SAF version 1.0.1 in a couple of days

Wyrm


- zebraitis - 2011-01-17

wyrm Wrote:zebraitis,
Really very sorry, fault mine not yours. Just gone over the coverflow views and have in fact found a small error on line 12 of View-VideoCoverflow.xml in both the PAL and PAL16x9 directories.

Currently line reads
PHP Code:
<ondown>2</ondown
Should read
PHP Code:
<ondown>23</ondown
will probably post a new xTV-SAF version 1.0.1 in a couple of days

Wyrm


Wow. Cool. Nod

On the other hand, this has been a great refresher... Going back to an EvoX dashboard, deleting all the files, doing a fresh reload of EVERYTHING, pulling all the library info from my NAS... (still pulling the library files... s l o w ly )

The "spouse acceptance factor" of spending all that time doing this is would be VERY low... but as she's out of town, this is "allowed". Cool


So, having found THAT one, please also check the following:


Why no "Videos on Main Menu" option?

I mean, sure, I can do Settings / Skin / Startup Window / Videos and set up Videos as my start screen, reboot, and then I get a nice menu with my files sources ("Movies" "TV") and "Video Plugins" and "Add source" (and it used to have RECENTLY ADDED stuff... but I can't seem to see it after this full re-load), but wouldn't it be easier just to have that option there?

Why? Lemme tell ya: I have 1200+ movies in my library. I would like, please, easy access to update the library, AND be able to quickly see the recently added flicks without scrolling through the whole darned library.

And a "Videos on Main Menu" option may do that.


...OR...


Now, please, help me understand this one...

On your main menu, all your items have a name, and to the right of each name is a ">" symbol.

Now, if I see a ">" symbol in XBMC, that says to me: "Hey! If you hit the right-arrow-over button, you'll be rewarded with some sort of menu!"

Whether that menu is a drop-down on the page you are on, or a new page generated with options, you expect some sort of menu.

Sadly, not true in xTV SAF. I can press right-arrow-over ( ">" ) all I want and nada.

Sure, hitting the select menu will take me to the Library for that item, or maybe the files (depending what I chose in the configuration), BUT there is something lost in all that.

What is lost, you may well ask. Well, let me tell you...

For instance, looking at "Confluence" as an example, On the main menu, if you arrow-up or arrow-down to "TV SHOWS" or "MOVIES" and then hit right-arrow-over, you get a menu that lists the following options:

* Title
* Genres
* Years
* Actors
* Studios
* Recently Added

Other skins (like NIGHT) will show you the library if you select the item, but if you use right-arrow-over it will take you to a second screen and show you those options above.

And, just like I said in the first part of this post, having those options are really important to a large library.

Maybe I just scanned for new content, and have a movie in the middle of my library... without "Recently Added", I have to scan the whole thing.

Or, maybe I just want a nice Horror movie... without that menu I have no easy option to choose.

I think that others have tried to communicate this question / concern as well in this thread: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=62681



Finally, the options for weather seem to be a mess, but I think that is related to the plug-in, and not your skin. Sadly, I don't know enough about that, but I do know that on start-up i get a nice ERROR! Script: weather.com failure message. Just mentioning it in case you know a quick fix.



I hope I am not asking for something too much, or that it is something that you, from your skin's design perspective, do not wish to do.

One thing that I learned from a trip to Japan... "If you don't like the sushi, don't try to change the chef's way of preparation... just try another resturant".

I'm not trying to change your skin... just trying to understand your cooking.

v.


- pecinko - 2011-01-17

zebraitis Wrote:Now, please, help me understand this one...

On your main menu, all your items have a name, and to the right of each name is a ">" symbol.

Now, if I see a ">" symbol in XBMC, that says to me: "Hey! If you hit the right-arrow-over button, you'll be rewarded with some sort of menu!"

Whether that menu is a drop-down on the page you are on, or a new page generated with options, you expect some sort of menu.

Sadly, not true in xTV SAF. I can press right-arrow-over ( ">" ) all I want and nada.

Well that's standard Apple marking of "there is more to come". It should say that item with > will take you to another set of items. It shouldn't be present on movie or songs level suggesting you are about to make action on THAT item if you press enter or ok on your remote. Just like on iPhone or iPad. And this is Apple-ish skin after all.

But I do understand it's confusing you. It was confusing to my wife and she is an iPhone user.. Smile


- zebraitis - 2011-01-17

pecinko Wrote:Well that's standard Apple marking of "there is more to come". It should say that item with > will take you to another set of items. It shouldn't be present on movie or songs level suggesting you are about to make action on THAT item if you press enter or ok on your remote. Just like on iPhone or iPad. And this is Apple-ish skin after all.

But I do understand it's confusing you. It was confusing to my wife and she is an iPhone user.. Smile


Ok, cool, understood, got it, and I can live with that.

But... What about those menu options /submenu of:

* Title
* Genres
* Years
* Actors
* Studios
* Recently Added
Is there some easy accessible way to get to those? Huh


- wyrm - 2011-01-18

pecinko Wrote:Well that's standard Apple marking of "there is more to come". It should say that item with > will take you to another set of items. It shouldn't be present on movie or songs level suggesting you are about to make action on THAT item if you press enter or ok on your remote. Just like on iPhone or iPad. And this is Apple-ish skin after all.

But I do understand it's confusing you. It was confusing to my wife and she is an iPhone user.. Smile
zebraitis Wrote:Ok, cool, understood, got it, and I can live with that.

But... What about those menu options /submenu of:
* Title
* Genres
* Years
* Actors
* Studios
* Recently Added
Is there some easy accessible way to get to those? Huh
zebraitis,

Yep what he said. I basically inherited the skin (and all of it's assumptions), but the way the skin worked was what attracked me to it anyway. To get to what you are after above, while in Library mode just select the back thumb ( ".." ) at the start of the library list. But I can see that this probably would not really help for a very large library. As to the link to the old thread, thank you I had forgot about that (I really need to tackle that). Part of the problem is that there are a number of points that you can enter the library, so I need to provide the user with a list of options (which when the original request came thru I was not able to do, pretty sure I know how to do so now). I will have a look and see what I can manage.

Again part of the reason why I need people to provide feedback (and not only when I make a new release). If real life gets in the way (as it has over the last year) I tend to forget things that are requested. I will post details of my SVN so people can watch over my shoulder soon. I have a little on my plate just at the moment (repo stuff, and two new builds, XBox and Non XBox).

Wyrm


- zebraitis - 2011-01-18

wyrm Wrote:I will have a look and see what I can manage.
Thanks! I would appreciate it very much.

... and I'll look forward to it being done, when it gets done.

Laugh

Seriously though, as you said:
wyrm Wrote:To get to what you are after above, while in Library mode just select the back thumb ( ".." ) at the start of the library list. But I can see that this probably would not really help for a very large library.

Yeah... to load the whole library just to leave it, kinda like going shopping for a month of groceries, just because you want a bag of chips... It works, but what a drag!

OK, enough from me. I'll keep an eye out on your googlecode page for updates.

v.


- pecinko - 2011-01-18

zebraitis Wrote:
* Title
* Genres
* Years
* Actors
* Studios
* Recently Added
Is there some easy accessible way to get to those? Huh

That's not very WAFy/SAFy? :-)

Without intention to interfere with wyrms cooking, I would suggest using xTV2 home page as an option. This could default to false and may be activated via skin settings by those who wish.


- zebraitis - 2011-01-19

wyrm Wrote:I will have a look and see what I can manage.

Speaking of your 1.0.1 release

I found another minor item which you could address (I think) easily...

1) Your library view for "list" and 2) the icon for the souce files on your non-library view seem to have a reflective value of 100%.

As a result the pictures for the DVD poster are very strange, as the flip view below it is kind of distracting. I think the reflective value should be set lower.

Let me know if you see what I mean, or you need a screenshot.

v.


- wyrm - 2011-01-19

pecinko Wrote:That's not very WAFy/SAFy? :-)

Without intention to interfere with wyrms cooking, I would suggest using xTV2 home page as an option. This could default to false and may be activated via skin settings by those who wish.
pecinko,
Funny enough I have been thinking along this line since someone gave me a AppleTV2 just before Xmas. Other than the home screen, there does not appear to be any other major differences between a Gen1 and Gen2. The Original Gen1 AppleTV UI is basically what xTV is based on.

That said, the reason I like the original UI and not the current UI so much, is that it is much, much easier to navigate if you can't read (like my 4 year old ). Don't believe me, try changing the language used on a Gen2 AppleTV and see how easy it is remember what each menu item is.

Now to zebraitis in particular I have delayed the release of the skin for a couple of days while I make a change to allow you to select where in the library you enter the library. What I need from you guys is a way to describe that action. For example "Library entry point..........Root ^v". What we have at the moment would be "Title", but there appears to be no reason why you can't also select from "Genre", "Year", "Actors" ...

What do you want to see and how should I describe the setting? And more importantly is this of any use ?

Wyrm


- wyrm - 2011-01-19

zebraitis Wrote:Speaking of your 1.0.1 release

I found another minor item which you could address (I think) easily...

1) Your library view for "list" and 2) the icon for the souce files on your non-library view seem to have a reflective value of 100%.

As a result the pictures for the DVD poster are very strange, as the flip view below it is kind of distracting. I think the reflective value should be set lower.

Let me know if you see what I mean, or you need a screenshot.

v.
zebraitis,

While I think I know what you are talking about a picture would be helpful. Also It is a better jog of my memory to include a picture in your post (a nice tastefully semi-clad blond should do fine Big Grin).

Wyrm


- zebraitis - 2011-01-19

wyrm Wrote:... I have delayed the release of the skin for a couple of days while I make a change to allow you to select where in the library you enter the library. What I need from you guys is a way to describe that action.... What do you want to see and how should I describe the setting? And more importantly is this of any use ?

Wyrm

OK, what I would REALLY like is this:


1) IF I have library view selected in System / Settings / Skin/ Media Sources for a specific main menu item (Movies, TV. Music)...

THEN by pressing select it should take me to the library view.
2) IF I DO NOT have library view selected in System / Settings / Skin/ Media Sources for a specific main menu item (Movies, TV. Music)...

THEN by pressing select it should take me to the source view.
3) [b]FINALLY[/b] On the main menu item I would like the "right-arrow-over" screen to take me to a second screen for that item that lists that complete library options view (Title, artist, genere, etc)



What I found was that in xTV SAF, music is very close to that now.


I noticed that there was no "Music Button links to library" in the System / Settings / Skin/ Media Sources.

Kind of surprised me and that may (?) be an oversight.

However, the action in music is different than in Movies or TV.

If, from the main menu, you hit select "Music", it takes you to the Source view.... which is like item #2 in my wish list above.

If I select the source (in my case "My MP3s"), then it takes me to a list view of the subdirectories in that souce, and also displays a list view of the artist graphics (which, BTW, has that same relective issue discussed earlier, and also a picture sizing issue.).

HOWEVER, what is unique on that page is that if you right-arrow-over to bring up the pop-up menu, THAT menu gives you the radio-button-option to select Library.

Select library there, and you are rewarded with the screen that gives that that great library options view (tilte, artists, recently added, etc).


So...

1) Add a "Music Button links to library" in in System / Settings / Skin/ Media Sources (for consistancy)

2) From the main menu, have the menu item have the option of going straight into "Library List by title" or "source", based on that setting in System / Settings / Skin/ Media Sources

3) Have the ">" of a main menu item bring up the menu for library options (that you may be able to copy from Music, the same menu which would appear if you select ".." after loading a complete library).

4) Have ">" be a toggle option (on/off) in your skin setting page.


Would it be of benefit, yes, I think so.

Would it be "SAF"ey... Yes, as you still can get the basic library view to come up, AND IF for some you wanted to prevent the possibility of confusion, you add that toggle on /off option in your skin menu that would control the use of ">".

OFF, and there is no right-arrow-over library options page, ON and there is.

The "off" setting can still keep it simple in a kids environment. On, and you make the large library geeks like me happy.

Cool?

v.


P.S. Final suggestion: If you 1) put your Tango Blue theme in the main skin download and 2) had that as the main color when the skin starts, you would likely have more folks download and keep the skin, as it does appear a lot more "friendly... but that's just one guy's opinion.