Idea for combining thumbs/list controls etc.

hi all,

it's your favourite destroyer of all skins again.

we've recently been discussing the idea of combining the thumb + list controls together into 1 "composite" control that has the list + thumb controls etc. as subcontrols. the advantage with this is we can have 2 (or more! separate thumb controls with differing sizes etc. instead of having all the various options defined (ie 2 different itemheights etc. etc. as there is currently).

the "view as" button would then interact with this new control (possibly being a part of it??) - filling up with the number of views that it contains etc. obviously xbmc would have control over exactly which views are allowed in some cases (just as it does now).

now, i haven't nutted out the details, but as this would ofcourse break all the skins, i thought i'd let you guys have some input on the issue.

the advantage of it would be that you could have 2 list views (as is in mymusicalbums) and 2 thumb views on top of that. or, we could define a new view that can't be layed out with the current list + thumb views to handle a different type of view (eg details view, or a large right-left scrolling thumbs view for instance.)

please let me know what you think about this. obviously it'll only go ahead with you guys' agreement.

cheers,
jonathan

i think this is a good idea.

could you also allow for user defined views?

this would allow the skinner to creatively come up with custom views.

@jonathan

all skin-things you made in the past were great.

maybe a little offtopic, but a view with the use of imdb-info would be great.

like this

bobrooney: thanks for the support.

that is the long-term goal - to be able to have alternative views available. for this, however, we need a more general framework in place to handle the different views - thus the idea of the "view" control that then contains all the different types. naturally, it also makes sense from the code side of things.

naturally i'll hold off till i get other opinions - it may well be that i'm barking up the wrong tree and there is a better way to achieve this type of thing.

well if choke and other skinners hold to pattern.... a short time after you do it it'll be resolved in a current skin... could even tie choke into it for his pm3 skin since its still on the drawing board.

bottom line, if you get started on the concept by the time its reasonably perfected skinners should/could be current. if you want go ahead i am all for it, but i will be waiting obviously on my local until a skin is setup for it then its time for another upgrade .


sorry jm i just read things a bit more closely.. as i am not a skinner i should not have even offered my 2 cents in the matter.

i think the idea is good and the benefits should be worth the hassle.

any change that gives the skinner more options is good. do you think this is something that will be available soon? we are just now working on those screens and could hold off if it is.

it won't be available for at least a couple of weeks. i probably won't even start working on it for at least a week or so.

the change will be fully planned out and will be fully detailed here before it goes in to cvs by at least a few days, and hopefully a week or so.

it will involve an increase in version number, and we'll likely define/change a couple of things at the same time (to reduce code overhead in xbmc that is there atm)

cheers,
jonathan

hi jmarshall, i don't understand exactly what you are going to implement, but all kind of improvements are always wellcome, doesn't matter if i'll have to rewrite the skin.
btw something like this will be nice too:

two lists (one is enought too) and a thumb for the focused folder with the album info.

(kotix @ feb. 21 2005,14:09 Wrote:two lists (one is enought too) and a thumb for the focused folder with the album info.

and in my programs we could display a preview video for the focused game... :saint: