Login at Kodi Home

null_pointer · 2014-06-20, 10:36

Is it possible to set the active skin via an addon?

I have an addon that requires a particular skin to be usable and want to give the user the option to auto enable the skin when the addon is installed.

**Martijn** · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-20, 10:56 by Martijn.)

I would be pertinent against such a thing. Get other skins to support it as well. Switching to a completely different skin for using an addon is just silly.

A user has chosen a skin for a reason.

null_pointer · 2014-06-20, 11:21

So is the answer is no, it cant be done?
or
Yes it can be done but not recommended?

jmarshall · 2014-06-21, 00:33

It's probably possible. Whether it would work or not is a completely different question. And yeah, it definitely should not be the way things go. Instead, the add-on should just supply what it needs (and we should fix stuff so that that works!)

**pkscout** · 2014-06-21, 02:14

An addon should definitely provide a skin neutral default GUI. It's a pain to do and won't look as nice as you'd like, but it is the right thing to do. You can also provide skin specific GUIs. If you're using WindowXML you can create a window (or dialog box) and there is a skin folder in YOUR-ADDON/resources/skins whose folder name matches the string ID of the active skin (e.g. for Confluence it would be skin.confluence) then that skin specific GUI will be used by default.

**xnappo** · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-22, 03:04 by xnappo.)

Our users would never go for that. They love the idea of replacing the XBMC database and metadata scripts with the MB3 engine, but they also love their XBMC skins. Our add-on replaces so much of the native XBMC back-end that it is not simply a matter of a few dialog boxes. MB3 is all about the pretty display of art and metadata.

We have asked skin devs about supporting our additions, but have not gotten much traction.

Please come check us out and see what we have done:
http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.p...99-xbmb3c/

So - modded skins greatly enhance our addon - thought they are not strictly necessary - and since we can't submit modded skins to the official repo we are seeking an easy way for users to get them.

xnappo

jmarshall · 2014-06-22, 02:40

Aren't you just supplying a plugin and a service? If so, there's not really anything skinners should need to do other than make sure that the views normally available to movies et. al. are available to the plugin.

I'd recommend you change some of your service stuff though so that instead of supplying a bunch of properties, you instead provide a plugin that can be used as a directory service, so that skins can connect to it by just specifying the URL in <content>

**xnappo** · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-22, 02:47 by xnappo.)

It is a lot more than that. Just for one example, when we are in the root of a skin we provide rotating artwork for the selected item - replacing extra-fanart. I don't think that is possible without skin modifications.

Now that there is a Linux version of the MB3 server available, we would REALLY like you guys to give it a shot to see what we are up to:
http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.p...ux-server/

The MB3 server team would be very interested in working with the core XBMC team.

xnappo

jmarshall · 2014-06-22, 03:14

Rotating artwork can work just fine for XBMC's own stuff as well via extra fanart. Nothing MB3-specific there necessarily. i.e. skins that support it will support it for MB3 sourced items or XBMC sourced items (or other plugin sourced items).

The point is, if you use the standard approaches (extended as necessary, ofcourse - there's likely bits missing to the puzzle), skins will need less MB3-specific stuff. It may take longer to achieve the result you want, but everyone ends up benefitting.

**xnappo** · 2014-06-22, 03:26

Can you explain what you mean? To use extra fanart you have to have use the XBMC database, and you have to have files sitting in your media directories right?

MB3 removes the need to have art in media directories, and the XBMC database is no longer used with our plugin.

xnappo

jmarshall · 2014-06-22, 05:01

Not at all. The item itself can hold the artwork (via ListItem.Art(foo)). This might be filled by the database on fetch, or it might be set by the directory service. i.e. a plugin could provide similar art should they wish, presuming they have the facility to set art in this way.

I'm not sure exactly what the status of extra art via the database at this point (i.e. whether it's handled as a directory that a multiimage control fetches from, or whether you can set a bunch of potential art sources), so there may be some further work on the XBMC side required, but you get the idea?

How are you providing the images at the moment that are meant to rotate?

null_pointer · 2014-06-22, 05:34

Bah it is what it is, the original question was can an addon set the active skin, it looks like the answer is no and even if it is possible which has been alluded to it would be frowned upon and the addon repo gate keeps would probably block the addon from being added to the official repo.

Not really as open as I expected, I can respect a simple "you should not do that" but a "you shall not do that" is a very rigid approach.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your input.

Karnagious · (This post was last modified: 2014-06-22, 05:56 by Karnagious.)

What is the addon and what is the skin?

Dont worry. Through a combination of awesome detective work and telepathy, I figured out the addon part.

jmarshall · 2014-06-22, 06:49

Quote:Bah it is what it is, the original question was can an addon set the active skin, it looks like the answer is no and even if it is possible which has been alluded to it would be frowned upon and the addon repo gate keeps would probably block the addon from being added to the official repo.

Not really as open as I expected, I can respect a simple "you should not do that" but a "you shall not do that" is a very rigid approach.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your input.

There's no suggestion that this wouldn't be allowed in the repository at all, assuming it was done using the facilities available to you, and is at the users discretion (pretty sure it's doable over JSON-RPC).

MassIV · 2014-06-22, 14:10

xnappo Wrote:So - modded skins greatly enhance our addon - thought they are not strictly necessary - and since we can't submit modded skins to the official repo we are seeking an easy way for users to get them.

Why not submit the modifications to skin repos instead? If all you do is add functionality without braking anything i can't really see what the argument against it would be. Specially not if you save them the time of figuring out how to add functionality for addons they don't use themselves.

null_pointer Wrote:Not really as open as I expected

What does that have to do with anything? Don't you think users would get fed up if every addon would change the skin to what they prefer?