[calibos]

My father is a part-time musician who uses backing tracks. I moved him from tracks on a minidisc player a few years ago to an iPad2 running backing track software. His memory isn't what it was, and it seems he's maxed out his storage capacity (in his brain, not the iPad!) at about 600 song lyrics. The iPad app has lyric functionality which is great but his eyesight isn't the best now either and the text is a bit too small.

I thought I had a brainwave. Maybe I could put together a 20" touchscreen with raspberryPi running XBMC and customise the music section of a given skin to suit his needs.

I'd envisage him just touching home menu music and being presented with a screen split 4 ways. Permanently displayed player control OSD along the bottom in a frame (like in the old HTML days). A main frame taking up the bulk of the screen real-estate containing the lyrics for the currently selected/playing song. Two thin column frames on the left displaying folder/playlist (his set lists of which he has several) and in the adjacent frame the track list for the currently selected folder/playlist/set list.

He needs the next track whether highlighted or not, not to auto play and he needs to be able to highlight/preselect the next track without interfering with the currently playing track. Basically a track should only play when it's selected and the OSD play button is pressed. Basically he needs to be able to Queue on the fly just by pressing a track once.

Is all that possible. Which would be the best base skin to start off with. Where can I start learning about xbmc skinning? A tutorial perhaps? I did a bit of HTML coding a decade ago. Will this help me. i.e. Will it be as simple as starting with a base skin and moving around/deleting parts of the appropriate XML file and adding the required tags/code in in the appropriate places etc etc

Thanks in advance for any help in pointing me in the right direction on where to start with this personal custom skin mod project. As I'm likely one of very few people who would use it, I don't expect anyone to do it for me.

[Jeroen]

I'm afraid some things will not be possible.

The control OSD is possible, the lyrics display too probably.

The left column with folders and playlist basically is possible, but only if those never change / can be hardcoded in the skin. The problem here (and with your other plans) is that XBMC can only display one dynamic list at one time. So you can't have a list browsing artists and a second list showing albums by the artist selected in the first list for example.

As you have very specific goals I would advice modding the default skin Confluence as it's probably easiest to understand. The skinning manual on the wiki provides an excellent glossary of the basics of skinning: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBM...ing_Manual

Although there's no real overlap in terms of actual coding, having experience with HTML will probably help you get the basic structure of the coding easier/faster, especially when coupled with CSS. It certainly helped me.

[calibos]

Cool. Thanks for that.

Does it make any difference that I don't necessarily need library view unless that's required for the lyrics plugin to work. The tracks won't/don't need to be sorted into album or artist lists. Ideally I'd use simple file view with the tracks pre-sorted into folders. For example, on the iPad he has a Christmas playlist where he keeps the holiday songs exclusively. He has another few playlists with a mix of musical genres but with a predominant genre. One for example with more jazzy old school backing tracks with a few more modern tracks in the mix too. Another playlist/folder might lean more towards modern pop and r&b. He'd choose which playlist/set list he's going to use based on the age profile of the crowd on a given night or particular place. artist or album doesn't come into it at all really.

Ideally I'd try and set it up like the app on the iPad where he taps on the set list he wants to use in the left most frame. Track contents of that folder/set list/playlist are then displayed in the adjacent frame. He scrolls up/down the track list with a swipe of his finger, taps the track he wants. It's highlighted but doesn't start playing until he presses play. The lyrics for that track appear in the main frame when he presses play. While it's playing he can swipe up/down the list to highlight/pre-select the next track. The first track ends. The next track he has pre-selected does not auto play until he actually presses the play button. Rinse and Repeat.

That's the behaviour/UI I need to try to replicate.

[Jeroen]

Not really. You could just leave the library stuff untouched and remove the entries to them from the home menu as your dad wouldn't use them anyway.

It seems like creating a custom window / home screen with a list of hardcoded links to the various folders is the way to go for you.

[calibos]

Thanks again Jeroen.

I'm of to start some wiki/tutorial readin' !