Serenity

paul Wrote:Sorry last post came across wrong i meant i hope you do code the skin and not do you know how as i know you do know how to do it

Oh no, I didn't take it as such. I was just saying...

I'm rarely too excited by mockups even when most others seem ecstatic, but I have to admit this does look nice. Would likely be very easy to skin assuming you stick with the simplistic approach you have right now.

guaranteed, this will remain very simplistic. Myself and digitalhigh are aiming for simplicity in execution. We are both relatively new to the xbmc skinning process. I have never done anything before with skinning xbmc. We are aiming for simple to code and simple design.

We want to showcase fanart. There is so much high quality fanart out there and we want to show that off. We are aiming for small menus that have a level of transparency so that fanart is still visible through the menus. Stay tuned to this thread.

I can't guarantee that this will come to life over night, but hopefully we will see these mockups or at least something similar to these mockups working in xbmc some time in the near future. Stay tuned and hopefully we can get it working soon. We hope to have the main menu working soon. Nothing else but the main menu but we are taking baby steps here. Wish us luck

Since you're new to skinning, if you haven't discovered it yet, I'd like to suggest checking this out: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=2...post227893

It's a grid that displays on screen and allows you to easily figure out exactly what coordinates to input to locate the control where you want it. There's a 4:3 and a 720p version available, but it would be easy enough to extend it to 1080p if desired

Also, the "Empty" skin is a very simple skin that makes it easy to see what's going codewise and compliments pm3 well in that regard. It was designed for this very purpose. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=29743

timdog82001 Wrote:Since you're new to skinning, if you haven't discovered it yet, I'd like to suggest checking this out: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=2...post227893

It's a grid that displays on screen and allows you to easily figure out exactly what coordinates to input to locate the control where you want it. There's a 4:3 and a 720p version available, but it would be easy enough to extend it to 1080p if desired

Also, the "Empty" skin is a very simple skin that makes it easy to see what's going codewise and compliments pm3 well in that regard. It was designed for this very purpose. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=29743

Thanks for the info. I had planned on using an old program called PSD2Wal...you mock everything up in photoshop at the size you want, create seperate layers for every screen element, then save as PSD. PSD2Wal extracts the layers and then spits the coords and dimensions out into an XML file, making elements based on the name of the layer in PSD.

Regardless, I will check it out. It's never too late to learn new tricks.

And same for the empty skin. I saw mention of it, but had basically planned on just using PMIII as my example.

Take your time no point in rushing it and if you keep it looking like the mockups and keep it simple it's a sure fire winner. just one question would you consider makeing this cmpatible with 16/9 pal thanks

paul Wrote:Take your time no point in rushing it and if you keep it looking like the mockups and keep it simple it's a sure fire winner. just one question would you consider makeing this cmpatible with 16/9 pal thanks

I'll def. be taking my time, as 3/7 days this week I'll not even have access to MY computer(s) until late in the evening.

And yes, I intend on keeping it like the mockups. I'm hoping for something as elegant as Aeon (I can dream, right), but also focus on keeping with the "minimal" idea. Less stuff on screen means less memory usage, right?

16:9 is the default resolution I use...dunno about PAL. Let me see if I can make a working skin first, then go from there.

Although you might be better off starting from scratch, be sure to take a look at the skin Focus, which uses a similar horizontal bar/submenu system.

rwparris2 Wrote:Although you might be better off starting from scratch, be sure to take a look at the skin Focus, which uses a similar horizontal bar/submenu system.

I'd planned on using the blank skin to kind of get my bearings.

I also looked at how the menus in Mediastream work...I think I understand the concept of one main focusmenu, which then controls another submenu's visibility based on which one has focus. That submenu in turn controls the visibility of the different windows.

But to be honest, focus is the skin I've been using as of late. I love Aeon, but Focus is much faster.

Thanks for the info.

Edit: You skin guys...check this program out, tell me what you think about the possibility for usage in regards to XBMC skinning. Personally, I think it'll be pretty dang sweet. The output is xml based, it automatically converts every layer in a PSD into it's own PNG and names it based on the layer name, then references that layer in the resultant XML file.

Edit 2: It also allows for setting the tag info by just typing the tag into the layer name...wow. Would require a little modification afterwards, but I think makes photoshop into a pretty nice gfx editor for skinning...

digitalhigh Wrote:I'll def. be taking my time, as 3/7 days this week I'll not even have access to MY computer(s) until late in the evening.

And yes, I intend on keeping it like the mockups. I'm hoping for something as elegant as Aeon (I can dream, right), but also focus on keeping with the "minimal" idea. Less stuff on screen means less memory usage, right?

16:9 is the default resolution I use...dunno about PAL. Let me see if I can make a working skin first, then go from there.

yeh no problem