fonts are too small in most skins !!!
#61
Hitcher Wrote:And as the above example shows it can also kill a view.

Ouch, Take it that view's not up in your favourite top 3 Big Grin
Noli illegitimi carborundum


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#62
pecinko Wrote:I find it _much_ easier to place her on chair in front of TV. I go take a smoke and return after she has read everything she needs.

I guess women needs to be well informed before watching.

kyotocafe Wrote:ah, yeah, true, well it is is under development so it might well include the option on a near future Smile

Rofl

Well it was more like a half joke really but I can give you more elaborate answer that probably most of you will not agree with Smile

It's actually more like this:

- we were watching more movies/episodes when I was not skinning. Now it's kinda rare sport in our house Smile

- I don't care reading synopses at all as I do that before I buy movie and if I get one as a gift I like being surprised with it rather then read a plot that reveals almost all that is there to be seen

- we don't really have problems reading in Quartz on 40" from 3,5m away

- my wife would definitely NOT like visually impaired or I_have_32"_TV_and_sit_5m_from it_and_wearing_glasses skin MOD

- I would definitely NOT like to skin something that acts as a web page because it's nightmare to skin without this already Smile I am seriously amazed what other skinners are doing in more advanced skins, supporting all kinds of extra stuff. They must sleep like 2h a day.


Finally, to explain that second half that's not a joke in my previous post - we definitely know who's wearing a trousers in our family, no joke about that Smile
My skins:

Amber
Quartz

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#63
pecinko Wrote:- I don't care reading synopses at all as I do that before I buy movie and if I get one as a gift I like being surprised with it rather then read a plot that reveals almost all that is there to be seen

oh, I definitely agree with you on that, it's like movie trailers lately, they are revealing too much about the story, it's like removing suspense from the movie. And I specially like being surprised.
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#64
For my part, I'm outputting to a not-particularly-large-by-today's-standards CRT telly, and the font sizes for all skins I've tried so far (not that many admittedly) are barely readable at 1ft away :( I guess such screens are rare now, so it's not that surprising but still a shame.

Glad to read the tip about Back Row, must try that next.

It is a bit surprising to read that font sizing is such a hellish business for skinners - CSS has been able to provide consistent and low-effort control of such things for web pages for a long time. Obviously this scenario presents a slightly different set of challenges, but where text is too big for a fixed UI element surely it should just be auto-scrollable? This works for single lines of text (eg menu items) too: just marquee the text when it receives focus.

XBMC is a great piece of work with massively diverse applications, but I daresay a high-viz skin for the visually impaired would be very welcome and extend the potential audience quite a bit.

@skinners, sorry this probably all sounds a bit patronizing, and there may well be skins like this that I've not come across yet. Just an extreme noob's perspective. Keep up the good work :)
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#65
(2013-01-28, 15:17)Havin_it Wrote: It is a bit surprising to read that font sizing is such a hellish business for skinners - CSS has been able to provide consistent and low-effort control of such things for web pages for a long time.

That's because XBMCs skinning engine doesn't provide the necessary auto-sizing features yet. If it does, it wouldn't be such a problem to let the user easily increase the font size.

(2013-01-28, 15:17)Havin_it Wrote: Obviously this scenario presents a slightly different set of challenges, but where text is too big for a fixed UI element surely it should just be auto-scrollable? This works for single lines of text (eg menu items) too: just marquee the text when it receives focus.

It's never good to have multiple scrolling labels because it distracts the users focus.


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#66
Agreed. It's the first thing I notice on a lot of the mockups currently floating around WIP Skins here.

Based on a lot of testing, the following font sizes work well (based on readability from six feet on a 24" tv set (1080p)):

Large: 60
Medium: 48
Regular / body: 36
Small: 30

Any body copy smaller than 30 is really pushing it.



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#67
Perhaps I'm missing something but it should be very easy to change font size on the fly using conditions ? (well at least for plots)

Most obvious way is to have two textbox each with own font size then and simply set visibility based on some condition...

e.g.
Just for testing purpose I added invisible button under text (but could work with text scrollbar also) and set textbox font to 30 when not focused
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going right from the menu set focus to button and change font to 40
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this gives illusion that text is enlarged when 'focused' (also one could throw in some nice animation for full effect)
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#68
Yeah, no extra at all for skinners! Wink

Just imagine doing that on hundreds of controls and at the same time making sure they all align properly and don't get cut-off!
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#69
(2013-01-28, 20:04)Hitcher Wrote: Yeah, no extra at all for skinners! Wink

Just imagine doing that on hundreds of controls and at the same time making sure they all align properly and don't get cut-off!

yes sure extra work is included but main gripe is for plots and there should be far less of those then hundreds... also you start design with larger font so going down in size is much easier to align... but anyway this was just an idea.
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#70
The problem is not only the plot.. lists, buttons etc. have the same importance but currently there is no way to do it without a silly amount of work and include conditions. Pieh is working on auto-sizing and I believe also on integer variables. If that's available, scalable skins could and will become reality.
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#71
Thanks all, interesting info. Sounds like things can only get better for skinners!

@`Black, you probably inferred this already but I meant "focus" in the HTML/UI jargon sense, i.e. when the cursor is on the element. I agree that a whole menu full of constantly marqueeing entries would be horrid O_o

@crni, well Hitcher has already voiced what I feel on this idea: doing this over the entirety of a skin would be a considerable added burden, and in itself it's a pretty inelegant way to have to do things (no offence, it is an ingenious workaround but one can't help feeling it just shouldn't be necessary).

Without wanting to offend even more people, it really sounds like the skinning engine's design is a bit questionable if it failed to take factors like this into consideration from the get-go. But before I spout any more uninformed criticism I'm off to investigate said engine a little, I'm intrigued now...
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fonts are too small in most skins !!!2