[fantasticn]

Anyone else having problems with the weather section?[/i] If I try access the 10 day forecast I get horrible overlapping. Something broken there.

Yep, I am having same problems. Already reported.

Hi All,

Been very busy so not much time to do any updates...I made some quick fixes for the showing of the flags with the darker background selected, also the popup messages should now be readable. Finally I updated the programs list view for the darker panels.

I aim to have a look at all the reports in the next few days.

Thanks again. Take your time.

Brgds,

FantasticN

Edit: I recently played a little bit with different backgrounds/wallpapers. The melt with arctic skin caused a significant alteration of the transitions and colors compared to the other mods I had used before (Xperience1080+, Rainbow.mod, etc.) and so my wallpaper somehow did not seem to harmonize with this design anymore. I had a hard time to find a suitable one, because the colorful backgrounds did not seem to adjust to the clean layout of the skin and the colors of the tiles whereas the less colorful ones did not go with the all too bright or all too dark menus, or they just felt boring. The problem was intensified by the levels of transition that new skin is offering: If you let the background shine through too much (with show "darker background") the screen seems "overloaded" on the one side, and on the other side too dark for also using dark menus. If you use the regular transition instead (or even "show lighter background") then it seems a littel bit too pale and whitish and therefore turning on the dark menus delivers an all too strong contrast wheras the white menus feels boring (and all too white then).

Well, I now found a proper background that - for me - perfectly fits in with the regular transition and "dark menus" enabled. And since it is installed I have to admit that I am not as unsattisfied with your color-structure anymore as I might have sounded before. However, I still think It needs some minor adjustments and harmonizations (kind of "standardization" of the colors in use).

Btw.: I noticed kind of a bug (or is it a feature?): I use different colors for the tiles, among them "grey" for the Settings-Menu and "black" for Programs-Menu. But the black tiles do not really look "black" but more like a slightly darker grey. And they are the only ones(!) who become even darker (but also not "black") when selected. All other tiles (grey, red, blue, green, cyan etc.) do not change their color when selected. So if the darkening of the "black"-tiles is supposed to be a feature then you should implement that effect for all the other colors as well :-)

Edit 2: Just upgraded to OpenElec 3.1.0 and realized that some fields (like Device-Name etc.) in the OpenElec settings have now black background with black fonts - meaning text is unreadable then. Haven't checked if this also applies to other sections of the XBMC settings menu.

Edit 3: Another bug: When trying to enter a network folder which is protected (e.g. to add a new network source for movies or music) the popup window to enter username and password does not appear. Somehow it seems that it is blocked in the background.

[im85288]

Added Option to change many of the panel background colours - available on Github

watch gallery

-- Plus some bug fixes including the weather problem mentioned earlier, font colours, movie widget, new solid black colour for tiles, panels etc and some others I cannot recall at the minute!

@fantasticn - maybe I might be able to add user configurable transition levels to the background..one for the future possibly. I'm hoping most of the bugs have been ironed out but please report any you find.

[fantasticn]

Added Option to change many of the panel background colours - available on Github

-- Plus some bug fixes including the weather problem mentioned earlier, font colours, movie widget, new solid black colour for tiles, panels etc and some others I cannot recall at the minute!

@fantasticn - maybe I might be able to add user configurable transition levels to the background..one for the future possibly. I'm hoping most of the bugs have been ironed out but please report any you find.

That looks great! It's a cool idea to have the menu background customizable. That makes it much easier to adjust to any certain background. However, I am very much looking forward to the option to adjust the level of transition as well. Does it also concern the level of darkness then? Currently I still feel that the regular level (without "show whiter background" or "show darker background" enabled) is rather bright, very close to "show whiter background enabled", whereas "show darker background" gives us a very dark background. I think the biggest problem with these adjustments or even having them customizable for the user will be to always have the font colors correctly adjusted to any level of transition or darkness so that text is readable just fine under all circumstances. That is the main reason why full transparency of the background is no option for me (you cannot read text that is displayed on the background or fanart then, e.g. the movie infos). Therefore I need a medium level of "intransparency" to have sort of "milky background" with the background image or fanart only shing through (but still recognizable). I liked the way with rainbow mod where the transparency did not seem to be the same level all over the screen.

Btw.: I think the font color of the RSS-feed should be slightly brighter when dark background is selected.

Brgds,

FantasticN

Edit: I am using OpenElec (currently build 3.1.0) on my four media PCs and I started experiencing a lot of crashes during the last months. When entering a menu or submenu (no specific one) XBMC suddenly starts to freeze. Sometimes it recovers after a few seconds or even a minute, but most of the times it does not, so I have to restart the system then. I do not know if it is related to the skin or to OpenElec/XBMC itself. However, what definitly helped was to deactivate "Settings / Video / File Lists / Extract thumbnail and video information". The only problem is that browsing through files I am not getting any thumbnails anymore.

[im85288]

Added IMDB Top 250 Info List - available on Github

-- Also fixed font colour for rss feed
-- showing of clearlogo now working on Info-List and Top 250 Info List
-- Color panels now added for the Quicknav guide
-- Uppercase labels (spotlight, ongoing movies etc) changed to normal on homescreen



@fantasticn - I am also using OpenElec and recently moved to the 3.1.0 release. I used to have quite a lot of crashing viewing Live TV but this seems to be fixed in the latest release. Other than that no crashing from me...I was thinking of going for XbmcBuntu or maybe something else after the reports by black on the performance..but I think it only effects the startup time so not a big issue as the htpcs stay on all the time.

[pseudoheld]

this mod adds so much awesome stuff to an already superb skin.
sadly it also took away two viewtypes i really liked in the original skin.
in tv shows the banner view and the episode banner view.
both were a little simpler without the cover or extra info being displayed.
these are the ones i mean:
http://i.imgur.com/hYC71hn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ge5cqSB.jpg

is there any chance to add these back in as an extra option? i like my setup minimal and this would be really awesome!

also can weather on the homescreen be disabled?
keep up the great work!

[fantasticn]

Added IMDB Top 250 Info List - available on Github

-- Also fixed font colour for rss feed
-- showing of clearlogo now working on Info-List and Top 250 Info List
-- Color panels now added for the Quicknav guide
-- Uppercase labels (spotlight, ongoing movies etc) changed to normal on homescreen

@fantasticn - I am also using OpenElec and recently moved to the 3.1.0 release. I used to have quite a lot of crashing viewing Live TV but this seems to be fixed in the latest release. Other than that no crashing from me...I was thinking of going for XbmcBuntu or maybe something else after the reports by black on the performance..but I think it only effects the startup time so not a big issue as the htpcs stay on all the time.

Another great update. Thank you very much for your hard work! I will have a closer look into it tonight.

As to the Info-List: With respect to movies and music I very much prefer the Cover-Wall-View, since it offers a very stylish and quick way to scroll through my massive library. The additional information displayed in other view-types are dispensable for me because I have set "Settings / Video / File Lists" to not start the movie, but show information-screen first. So I get those infos each time I select a movie anymway. That's why fast browsing is my priority for the libraries.

For Music-Artist-View and for Music-Videos I use the Banner-List which is nice and quick as well. Only for TV-Series I am still not satisfied with the options. I very much like to see the banners of the tv-shows, but Panel(Banners)-View seems to be overloaded and not enough focused on the selection of the specific series. That's why currently I am back on List(Default)-View. I have the seasons displayed in Poster(Classic)-View and the episodes in Landscape-View then. What I maybe would like to see is cleararts and logos on those views to make them a little fancier.

Now as to OpenElec: I have four media PCs with different kinds of hardware (AMD-CPUs, AMD-Graphic-cards) and I recall XBMCbuntu to not support everything. Also I remember that in former times you had to add LiveTV-support manually whereas as OpenElec used to offer versions that were already pre-equipped with that feature. I am very satisfied with OpenElec and its support of the hardware. It is quiet comfortable as you do not need to mess around with Linux (I am a Windows guys and not quiet familiar with Linux). So currently I do not see the need or advantage to change the platform. I just recently experienced those crashes which I was able to solve but deactivating thumbnail-extraction. The only question that remaind for me was whether this issue with the thumbnail extraction is caused by OpenElec or by the skin.

Brgds,

FantasticN

[Slipx]

Thanks for the great update. Im not getting the yellow bar over the selected movie in the top 250 view. Its just black and i cant see any text.

[im85288]

Thanks for the great update. Im not getting the yellow bar over the selected movie in the top 250 view. Its just black and i cant see any text.

I missed a file on the update, thanks for reporting it. Please retry with the latest from Github

[Slipx]

Thanks for the great update. Im not getting the yellow bar over the selected movie in the top 250 view. Its just black and i cant see any text.

I missed a file on the update, thanks for reporting it. Please retry with the latest from Github

Thanks. Fixed now

[Airwolfuk]

Hi,

Could someone please post the full path to copy the skin folder to?

I copied to home/pi/userdata/addons/skin folder and it is not showing up

Thanks

[im85288]

Hi,

Could someone please post the full path to copy the skin folder to?

I copied to home/pi/userdata/addons/skin folder and it is not showing up

Thanks

Hi, I do not have a PI but I would expect you need to install it in /home/pi/.xbmc/addons

[Airwolfuk]

Hi,

Could someone please post the full path to copy the skin folder to?

I copied to home/pi/userdata/addons/skin folder and it is not showing up

Thanks

Hi, I do not have a PI but I would expect you need to install it in /home/pi/.xbmc/addons

that did it - thank you for your help

now just need to figure out how to get the most out of this great skin. got lots of wait circles going on in movies and music. says loading spotlight..

[im85288]

Hi,

Could someone please post the full path to copy the skin folder to?

I copied to home/pi/userdata/addons/skin folder and it is not showing up

Thanks

Hi, I do not have a PI but I would expect you need to install it in /home/pi/.xbmc/addons

that did it - thank you for your help

now just need to figure out how to get the most out of this great skin. got lots of wait circles going on in movies and music. says loading spotlight..

Normally that occurs when you do not have movies etc in your library. Also you need to make sure you have at least one ongoing tv show.

@All - Changes are again at a bear minimum at the moment, any major bugs reported will get priority though.

[fantasticn]

As to the "bug-report": Up to now I just came acroos three minor issues:

1. Some Windows (like "Systeminformation" and "Configuration" of Apps) do still have the arctic-look (bright white background) and do not adjust to the color settings of the skin.
2. With "File-Manager" it is the other way round: It only shows a black-background regardless of the color selection.
3. Some form-fields (like in "OpenElec-Settings" - Device-Name and manual IP4-Adress) do have dark background and dark fonts, so the text in the field is almost unreadable.

And I could not try out yet if the bug reported in Post #106 (Edit 3) has been fixed.

So it seems we are close to having the perfect mod of the amazing Xperience1080 skin!

Following your post I assume you did not have the chance to work on the transition/brightness selection?

Brgds,

FantasticN

[im85288]

Background changes - available on Github

-- changes have been made to the overlays
-- option to use black or white text on any background
-- option to tint the default and show less backgrounds with a colour
-- slight change to osd to use solid black background in place of the older dark greyish colour
-- added option to hide weather from home screen

watch gallery

@fantasticn - Hopefully these changes are getting closer to providing the correct transition levels, as suggested these are the ones used in the rainbow mod (with the exception of the show more...which is my favourite as I like a dark setting for night time viewing!). I have your bug reports from your previous post on my todo list.

@All - I will look to add the views that have been requested and come back to the suggestions for fancier views in a future update.