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Focus - Alpha 6c released
#31
Very great skin! Thanks for your hard work!
The only complaint I have is the font sizes.
Please, make them at least 5 points bigger, or make it as a part of skin setting.
The other one is the CPU usage, it jumps to 50% when browsing movies, music and pictures (I assume it just because of Beta stage yet)
But drops to normal when in Home screen.
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#32
igsolt Wrote:Very great skin! Thanks for your hard work!
The only complaint I have is the font sizes.
Please, make them at least 5 points bigger, or make it as a part of skin setting.
The other one is the CPU usage, it jumps to 50% when browsing movies, music and pictures (I assume it just because of Beta stage yet)
But drops to normal when in Home screen.

Thank you Smile
What kind of display are you using? And do you mean all the fonts or in particular places? Because for instance the uppercase font that is used mostly for titles and dialog headings is already quite large. 5 points is quite a lot. Adjusting font sizes is easy but increasing them by a lot would also mean resizing of buttons, lists and much more to keep the fonts within their controls and fit in windows.
Is the CPU usage high in every type of view or mainly in for instance fanart view? I have done some optimizing for that, but if you experience this in let's say list view as well... I don't really know any ways I could improve there. What kind of system are you using?
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#33
Jeroen, so it's safe to say that the reason my text is all bunched together is because the resolution is 1280x720 and thus not being displayed at 'true hd'?
If that is the reason... is there anyway to fix it? Sad
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#34
Well, I don't really see why it should be a problem. Can you make a screenshot of the "screen" section in the appearance settings?
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#35
I too have the issue with high CPU.
And its only the fileview that is affected. In fileview my cpu hovers @ 100% but in video library, tvshows for instance, it hovers at 2%.

running Ubuntu 8.04 with atlantis

EDIT: forgot to say, LOOOVE the HD version, great work!

Chers,
Tobias
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#36
Jeroen Wrote:Thank you Smile
What kind of display are you using? And do you mean all the fonts or in particular places? Because for instance the uppercase font that is used mostly for titles and dialog headings is already quite large. 5 points is quite a lot. Adjusting font sizes is easy but increasing them by a lot would also mean resizing of buttons, lists and much more to keep the fonts within their controls and fit in windows.
Is the CPU usage high in every type of view or mainly in for instance fan art view? I have done some optimizing for that, but if you experience this in let's say list view as well... I don't really know any ways I could improve there. What kind of system are you using?

I have Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz with MSI K9AGM2-FIH onboard gpu(ATI X1250) connected via hdmi to panny plazma 37" at 720P.
All fonts look really tiny, I can hardly see anything from 5m away. See screenshot, looks like a lot unused space.
(In PM3HD I increased all fonts by 5pnt and it looks really awesome)
CPU jumps only when Video, Music or Pictures are selected.
In all modes, it even jumps to 90% in thumb and icon views.
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#37
Thanks both. I must say I'm quite puzzled by the high CPU usage. If anything I would expect the usage to be slightly higher in Library view as the views are more complex. Some time ago though I reported slow performance usage in filemode, but in the end I concluded it had to do something with one of my harddrives as it seems to be nearing it's lifecycle. But maybe this is somehow related. The weird thing is there's really not that much going on in filemode. Strange, but I will investigate. My CPU usage is around the 30% mark, in any mode or view (Core 2 Duo). It stays about the same when I use PM3.HD.

Igsolt, I quite like the "spacey-ness", but I will look into providing an alternate font size option at a later stage.
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#38
Been working on the alternate homescreen some more. So far I haven't really gotten it the way I want to. I wanted the menu to look different and make sure the readibility is always good. And no matter what I tried, it just seemed to look out of place to the rest of the skin. So I decided to see what would happen if I adapted the rest of the skin to the menu.

Note that this is just something I'm trying, and I am not sure if I'm going to get throught with it. And if I do, this is still a very early version and not the final look. The space at the top would appear in all other screens, replacing the transparent bar that is there currently.
This would also mean the original homescreen would not work anymore. Well, it would work but it would look bad and out of place. Unless I can come up with something for that that is.

Anyway, just wondering if there are any thoughts about it, as I am undecided about it.

btw, cycling backgrounds are implemented for each of the homescreen menu items, so that's showing here too.

Image
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#39
Hi Jeroen

Interesting concept..Does the Menu bar slide like in er...hem Aeon?!??!? or does it just highlight when say Movies is highlighted? Looks very nice so far, and am keen to see where this is going, Please keep up this good work.Big Grin
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#40
Yes you slide through the menu while the most centered item has focus, just your basic wraplist. I would really like to find a way to keep the old menu though, as imo it works so intuitively. Yesterday I have been going through at least 6 menu concepts to try and approach that but nothing works as good. With this concept though I am able to take care of some other usability issues that would look bad with the current design. So it will be a trade off in any case. Not showing in the above picture though is a submenu that appears when pressing up on for instance movies or tvshows with further options.
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#41
Ahhh ok, will the bar become transparent once an item on it is highlighted? i ask this because i am really loving the transparent bar in the current Focus as it just doesnt interfere with the background image. imho by the way, as i think you are doing great work.Nod
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#42
No, the bar doesn't become transparent. The idea is to kind of have the main part of the screen, so the area where the backgrounds and file lists are, to be elevated a bit so to speak and have the page indicators and other info (like scanning dialogs and player controls) inside the top and bottom bars (although the bottom bar would be smaller in the other screens).
I know it sounds a bit vague, but then again I'm only experimenting really. I just have to see where this leads to. The main problem with the transparency is readability, and this takes care of it a bit.
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#43
Just installed this skin and my first impression is great work,
Much more responsive than most other skins i will switch to this skin when i replace my rather old 4/3 tv in the mean time i am using it on my pcBig Grin
Keep up the good work
XBMC Frodo 12 - Windows 7 - Asrock Ion 330HT - Aeon Nox
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#44
Thanks Paul Smile

The possible changes I posted about earlier will remain what they were, concepts. I'm not going to go through with those.

Instead however, Focus will be getting an overhaul as I want to take it in a different direction. The structure and thoughts behind it will remain as they have been but the general look and feel will be getting quite a lot of changes.

These changes will be done because of issues with the current design that have been bugging me for a while. They are mostly usability issues like readability. As I, ultimately, put function over form something needed to be done about these issues. As a result the look will be changing quite a lot but readability will be greatly improved.
So far I'm really liking the new direction I am taking Focus in, but I suspect it won't be for everyone. I know this is pretty vague again, but it should become clear over the coming period.
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#45
Jeroen Wrote:These changes will be done because of issues with the current design that have been bugging me for a while. They are mostly usability issues like readability.

I always thought FOCUS had excellent readability when compared to some of the more popular skins, like aeon or mediastream.

Ah well, I'll always look forward to your work as Focus is a great skin that I use all the time
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