[Faceless King]

I would like to skin a dashboard to create a similar appearance to this mocked screenshot.



Note, I figure, no dash will allow me to do all of this, but here are the things I'd like to be able to do:
- Have images rather than text on the menu choices.
- Load Cover Art in the top area
- Load Gameplay video on the bottom area
- When you select the image, it will launch an emulator with the rom, so as not to see the emulator menu!

As best I can tell, UnleashX should allow me to do most of these things, but I can't get any of those funcitons to work, and the documentation I have found has been crappy at best. Now, I know I can do some of these things in XBMC, mostly the wide icons and the shortcutting, but I am not sure if I can startup to that screen, and if I can hide enough of the unneeded functions to be worth it.

I essentially want to mod an Xbox to be a Mana Series console as this is my favorite series, now of course it'll have other games on it, but this will be the primary usage.

If you can help, I'd appreciate it, I can do some minor skinning and such, but nothing over the top complex, I have already made a skin with most of the features, and all the images and WMV previews are located on the console already, but I can't get the detail stuff to work, and that is what is killing me.

Thanks,
Lotus

[Gamester17]

The only thing of those that XBMC's skinning-engine does not yet feature support for is Game and Video preview/intro (as thumbnail), feel free to bump the request though. Although you could do all of them in a python script if you wanted, you could use emuLauncer as the base to build on, (and python scripts can be launched in XBMC on boot via autoexec.py).

PS! If you want help with UnleashX or any other non-XBMC software then you need to visit xbox-scene.com and their forums.

[Faceless King]

I appreciate the help. I have been tinkering with modifying a skin and let me tell you, I have no idea what I am doing, but, I'll keep playing with it and make sure all my resources are in order, perhaps someday I'll at least make it partially functional.

[Nuka1195]

i'm contemplating using xbmc as a frontend for mame and a jukebox also. the video previews are not currently supported as gamester pointed out. what could be done now is export your videos into individual frames and use a multiimage. though the harddrive space required, would maybe make that impossible.

video previews on a time delay would be nice, similar to mala or mamewah. but neither of those can compete with xbmc as a media player(jukebox).

a plugin would/could be used to parse all the game info from the dat files. that's where i'm starting at. the skinning will come later, maybe we can combine efforts.

[Gamester17]

i'm contemplating using xbmc as a frontend for mame and a jukebox also...

...a plugin would/could be used to parse all the game info from the dat files. that's where i'm starting at. the skinning will come later, maybe we can combine efforts.

@Nuka1195, is this what you are refering to? => Retro-X or EmuLauncher (Emulator Launcher) Plugin
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=32186

If so then I think that would be simply awsome!!! It is also something that could be made to work with not only the Xbox but XBMC for Linux, Mac, and Windows as well.

...then IMHO other video previews we will only have one other feature missing to make it complete, and that would be to extend the scraper interpeter/engine in XBMC to include games which would make XBMC the ultimate emulator ROM launcher as well as the best media center, the perfect software for casual-gaming and livingroom entertainment.
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=28953

[Nuka1195]

Yes gamester, exactly. the plugin can be done now. it's just getting the skinning to support a view.

it should definately be cross platform compatable.

[Faceless King]

Actually, I'd love to be able to use XBMC in place of things like Mamewah. I would like to build an arcade machine in the future (No space right now)

Now, I am going to dig into skinning and see what I can learn, so therefore I have two simple questions.

Can anyone point me to a very simple skin to start working with? Preferably something that has some of the features I have shown.
And, can I add "notes" to a skins XML file without altering the file? Like by using ";"

[Wir3d]

This is about as simple as a skin gets

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...empty+skin

[Faceless King]

Thanks Wir3d. I have been tinkering around trying to learn as much as I can, but boy this is far more complex then UnleashX skinning. Unfortunately, UnleashX can't do the things I want.

I'd pretty much kill for a good solid tutorial taking you from blank skin, to one around the level of a standard UnleashX skin. Not nearly as nice as the ones many of you do, but a decent start. Right now, all I have been doing is comparing PMIII to the Blank skin, and trying to figure out the differences and what they do.