[seedleech]

Every time I try out a new skin, I look for specific features that determine whether or not I will commit to using it. Sometimes I find myself absolutely loving every aspect of a skin.... Until I choose to play a video! My opinion of a skin can be so negatively impacted by the new skin's video player layout that I usually decide to trash the whole setup at that point!

It's like there's a scale or balance where almost all the features of skin are on side (A, pros) and the video player layout ends up almost always on side (B, cons) and when everything is weighed, side (B) clinks against the ground and sends side (A) rocketing into the abyss like an uneven teeter totter being used as a gravity powered launcher; in this case it's the complete list of a skin's features minus the video player that gets tossed due to how important the video player layout is to me.

I would greatly appreciate a more customizable way of using skins, possibly by separating the video player layout as the second part of a new two part skin implementation.

In this new skin implementation, you would have the selection of skins and these can still modify the video player layout. However, just like the GUI Sounds, one can install separately the video player skin and just like the sounds, be able to easily change them from the appearance settings.

Would this concept be terribly hard to implement? I suspect it would require minimal changes to some menus with the addition of just a very few new menus for browsing, installing and modifying the new video player skins.

Am I alone or would this be helpful to anyone else? I imagine it would be generally accepted as a positive new addition to the next major version of Kodi. I would like to hear other people's opinions and suggestions about this topic. Thank you team kodi and all supporters!

[Martijn]

I would never like this. A skin is a total package including player controls. Plugging in something else would break skin concept.

[seedleech]

I like kodi because of its customization ability. I never keep a skin the way it is when I install it. How is having an option to change the video player layout breaking skin concept? I said they should keep the ability for a skin to come with its own video player layout, but have the option to change it just like anything else.

Skinners suffer because almost every feature is good but not the video player layout, so they lose a user over one feature? Or I, t he user suffers because you think I shouldn't be able to customize MY kodi because it's breaking YOUR skin concept?

Your argument doesn't even apply to what I'm saying...

[Ned Scott]

I would never like this. A skin is a total package including player controls. Plugging in something else would break skin concept.

Really? In a way it's similar to skin sound add-ons. Being able, at least as an option, to easily mix skin elements sounds awesome to me. Assuming such an option can be created, I don't see why it would be bad.

[Sjors125]

I can understand both views on this matter. But, if the user can choose what he wants to use, it is up to him to choose the complete skin package, or mix and match.

[da-anda]

I doubt this is possible in a sane way with our current skinning architecture. There would have to be icon packs so that the playback controls match the style of the skin etc...

[seedleech]

That's my point though. The existing skins would still have their custom icons for their specific video player layout, but it'd be nice to have for example the Aeon Nox skin with the ability to keep the Aeon Nox video player layout that comes with that skin AND have the ability to change the player layout to that of one of the other skins.

Obviously you can't see the video player AND the UI at the same time so how can matching be an issue? Maybe if there was a more in depth color theme architecture then one could at least match the scheme of the rest of the skin with the video player.

Either way, some existing skins don't really even match their accompanying video player anyway. If the video player layouts already exist and the skins already exist, is it such a leap to just store them separately and redesign some system menus to allow kodi to manage the video player layouts in a similar way to the GUI sounds?

Obviously this would take some work, I'm not saying that the kodi developers just need to flip a switch to implement this idea. I'm sure there have been many other ideas that started as suggestions and didn't seem worth the work, but in the end we have kodi the way it is now, really awesome. Just saying, if kodi were to be even more awesome, the developers should take this idea seriously instead of dismissing it in one or two sentences; just seems lazy...

When kodi developers realize this idea is an inevitability, I just hope they do it right. I seriously want to see this change because I would like to make kodi exactly the way I like it, not just 90% the way I like it.

If this idea is really sooo farfetched, can someone please enlighten me in specific terms why it would be so hard? Like it better be damn impossible otherwise it'll still be worth it no matter what anyone says. I really think if developers put their minds together and really think this out, kodi can achieve a whole new level of customizability. Otherwise ill continue to pass on quality skins because of literally one drawback: The video player layout doesn't match the damn skin it came with or didn't suit the users needs. I'm already getting sick of hearing how this idea somehow takes away from the skins. The lack of customization in this area is the only thing holding skins back from making kodi the ultimate home theater media platform.

Bottom line: If this is too hard, then just make the same skin multiple times with variations of the video player layout. Then the only change would be multiples of the same skin in the skins list and maybe just maybe one of them will actually suit this users needs.

I hope there's a developer with ambition who accepts a challenge. So far all I'm hearing is "that's too hard" or "insert irrelevant-to-topic comment here".

[da-anda]

one issue is that skins can define whatever variable names they like to use and also use different font names and what not. So there is no strict standard on how to name things and this is one issue you'll be facing when you try to mix skin parts. (missing colors, missing fonts, missing whatever)

Next thing are includes and gui element default. One skin might define defaults for the origin or layout of buttons while the other doesn't. Now if you include a skin component with buttons from a different skin, the layout might break drastically.

Then, skins can make use of includes, which is a way to configure commonly used parts of the skin in a central way and "import" this configuration wherever needed. Again, one skin might use certain includes that the other doesn't have.

There are also animations that would not match, so while the main skin might use fade transitions, the player could use slides or something entirely different. Again you won't have a consistend UI experience.

Which part (main skin or player skin) is defining how the OSD settings dialogs will look like? Should they look like everything else from the main skin or totally different? What about the EPG and channels OSDs - should these really differ?

So you'd have to come up with a strict definition on how skins have to be coded in order to make anything interchangeable, and I don't see this happen.

[da-anda]

Bottom line: If this is too hard, then just make the same skin multiple times with variations of the video player layout. Then the only change would be multiples of the same skin in the skins list and maybe just maybe one of them will actually suit this users needs.

And that's the beauty of opensource - if you don't like something, change it to your personal liking. Also, one skin could contain multiple layouts for certain areas and have them configurable in the skin specific settings, but that's up to the skinner and not Kodi.

[Rantanplan-1]

lol. looks someone choose acidentaly the "right" title.

lol.

[Hitcher]

As a skinner I have to disagree. Have a look at how skins are made and you'll see why it can't be done.