Piers Wrote:Would any skinners be kind enough to help me get started with the skin, give some pointers etc? I have picked apart the Dharma foundation skin but still got stuk. I have also looked over the wiki.
Some pointers from my experience starting out skinning...
Grab yourself Notepad++. Makes it real easy to work with the xml's.
Create a custom keymap.xml in ...\profile\userdata\keymaps\ with the following in it...
PHP Code:
<keymap>
<global>
<keyboard>
<F5>XBMC.ReloadSkin()</F5>
<F6>Skin.ToggleSetting(DebugGrid)</F6>
<F7>Skin.ToggleSetting(HideDebugInfo)</F7>
<F8>Notification(Testing 123,Hello world)</F8>
</keyboard>
</global>
</keymap>
F5 is very handy for refeshing the skin to see changes without having to restart xbmc. Be aware however that on some rare occasions refreshing doesn't show changes. I've been cought out by that once or twice!
Main xml's (what i call base xml's) that sort of sit as a base to everything else are...
...\XBMC\language\English\strings.xml
...\addons\skin.folder\language\English\strings.xml
...\addons\skin.folder\colors\defaults.xml
...\addons\skin.folder\720p\Startup.xml
...\addons\skin.folder\720p\Defauts.xml
...\addons\skin.folder\720p\Font.xml
...\addons\skin.folder\720p\Includes.xml
Start with a skin like Foundation. Open up Includes.xml and Home.xml. Then start editing/adding to Home.xml. It's the first screen you see so a sensible starting point.
Try removing some parts and deconstruct Foundations home page. Then start adding small sections of your own design. As you go on, hopefully you'll pick up more and more understanding of how the skinning works.
An important point to keep in mind... watch the formating of the xml's. Becareful not to lose important characters like < > / and phrases like </control>, etc. If any are missing from the formating you'll most likely get a black screen!
Hope that helps!
Cheers