Verve ("Big Screen" clone/replica) skin in progress

Predictions when its "beta-able"?

HarshReality Wrote:Predictions when its "beta-able"?

Soon.. very very soon... but when...??

MacGyver said :

I could get it done alot quick with some icons to use, and dirction from someone with artistic talent. So if you want it done quicker, post transparent icons for the home and settings screens, and make picture of how you think the settings and home screens layout should look, I will code it to look that way. It don't have to be a great picture, even a pensil drawing is fine, just describe the way you envison it working.

So don't hesitate to find, create free icons etc..
I you don't want (or can't), no problem, we'll do it.. but in free time...

Ok, I got to work on it a little this weekend, so here is the updates.
Completed:
home 60%
settings 85%
video 85%
music 70%
pictures 50%
settings-categories 90%
all others 0%

Since a pictures is worth a thousand words, here you go.



I have some problems I need some input on though.
First, why doesn't this work?
<onup>XBMC.ActivateWindow(Settings)</onup>

Second, why doesn't the skin have access to the variables related to the SystemInfo.xml file in other windows.
I'm trying to merge that windows information into the settings window, see above.

Is there a way to tell the skin to display the use a different view if you are in the first menu dictated by the sources.xml file, .ie, the top level of video, music, photos, programs, to be displayed in a listview, and sub menus in a wrapview.

Also has Jmarshall considered the 4-point icons yet, ie. TL=0,TR=50,BL=50,BR=100, so that icons can be skewed at angles like parallelograms?

I still need graphics to replace ChokeManiac's. (to know how badly I am at graphics just look at the filling cabinet and xbox in the home screen)

Let me know what you think, sorry it's so slow going, but I'm new to skinning and can only work on it in my spare time.

Also, all the colors above are supported.

I welcome any suggestions.

I believe it was tslayer that said, "42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot"

1. <onup>, <ondown>, <onleft> and <onright> are for navigation to other controls, they require an id. So make a blank button and use <onfocus>

2. They do some info in the form of infolabels. check the wiki

3. views can be kept on a user basis. Do you want to force a view?

Looking good

And no, skewed images have not been implemented as yet.

As for the differing view modes - they're saved per user. Nothing you can do to default them otherwise I'm afraid.

Cheers,
Jonathan

MacGyver Wrote:Also has Jmarshall considered the 4-point icons yet, ie. TL=0,TR=50,BL=50,BR=100, so that icons can be skewed at angles like parallelograms?

I looked into the animation code and just skewing would be very easy to add as it is an affine transformation (in that parallel lines are preserved), this makes it just another matrix transform along with the others (rotate, zoom, translate).

The problem is that the general case "4 point" behavior is not affine in that it allows trapezoids instead of parallelograms and so a matrix will not work with it... at least not a current 2-d matrix (really its a 2.5d matrix since its 2x3 to allow for translation).

I was thinking we could just bump this matrix up a dimension and add a simple projection matrix to get a desired 3Dish effect. After this you need to make sure you render all 4 points transformed instead of just the top-left and bottom-right. I need to give the interface to the skinner more thought though.

The bogus button onfocus worked great, thanks Nuka1195.

Jmarshal is there a list of ALL variables that the skin has access to?
I looked in the wiki, but it can't be complete, I'm trying to populate some screens with info from the systeminfo.xml, but that xml is just like a settings sub cat window, ie. xbmc uses the skin to display rather then the skin displays varibles. look at the top left image above to see what kind of info I'm talking about.

GUIInfoManager.cpp/h is what handles all info labels.

Not all of them are there obviously. The System Info area is GeminiServer's work. I don't know which ones are really necessary to be allowed to be movable - to be quite honest I find 95% of them completely useless.

Cheers,
Jonathan

When browsing the media files u think u can make the background customizable, another words let the user cchoose a custom wallpaper/background for each folder or section?

One suggestion....

Kill the tabs. Make the options scroll and the current selection enlarged... this conforms more to the look & feel of the rest of the skin.