[MOD] Touch! My selfmade skin for touchscreen displays - Mod based on PM3

Hi all,

I have managed to loose my music/video control buttons yet again......and I can't seem to get them back....

I think I was streaming the radio using the Iplayer plugin and now I cannot see the music/video control buttons anymore...

The Volume buttons still appear, but nothing inbetween them... as before, I can click the space where the pause button should be and the music/video pauses.... so the functionality is there.... just not the visible buttons...

Is this a skin issue ??

Cheers,

Adam

P.S. Am on beta 6 on Linux

Virtualhours - This is a great. I have been a long time user of xlobby due to its touchscreen support but now b/c of this skin have converted over. I am still learning the nuances of XBMC however.

Couple of thoughts.

I am guessing that this skin is designed for 720p resolution? I have some overlapping graphics running (weather display and time on homepage) on my 15' planar touchscreen monitor which max resolution is 1024x768. Is there any plans to support this resolution?

Also I have a difficult time using the side scroll bar with my music catalog, it moves too fast and its difficult to stop where you want it. I like the thumbnails view particularly, could you incorporate some arrows to mimic a up and down arrow or pgup and pgdn?

Re:

Can you think about implementing a VIEW similar to this for media files:

Check out how the "Play" "Queue" and "Playlist" buttons are by each track/file
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?q...fm&thumb=4

and a VIEW like this for the playlist:

Check out how the "Up" Down" and "Delete" buttons are by each track/file in the playlist
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?q...no&thumb=6

VH, first of all - a big thankyou, this skin is a) brilliant and b) fun to play with!!

I have just got my 1280x1024 touchscreen and this skin plus xbmc on my xp htpc is untouchable, makes xlobby look a poor relative.

I have been modding your 720p skin so it fits my screen better but obviously there are quite a few changes, however, I suspect there could be quite a few of us with touchscreens that are 4:3 or 5:4 (I am the latter).

I tried renaming 720p to PAL (the nearest I believ xbmc has to 5:4), and although everything then appears correct ratio, you only see about 2/3 of the screen the rest is off the screen. I tried finding some overiding settings to fix this, I am not asking for any new mods, just a pointer in the right direction, I can work the rest out and maybe even post back results!!

Ex

ex_directory Wrote:I tried renaming 720p to PAL (the nearest I believ xbmc has to 5:4), and although everything then appears correct ratio, you only see about 2/3 of the screen the rest is off the screen. I tried finding some overiding settings to fix this, I am not asking for any new mods, just a pointer in the right direction, I can work the rest out and maybe even post back results!!

OK, no replies for a while?? VH - Are you still working on this skin - obviously it is holiday season and everyone deserves a break!

I have been quite busy modding this skin for 5:4 purposes. First of all the obvious reason (to some of you but not to me at the time ) the PAL folder does not work is because it will rescale everything to 720 x 576 hence you only see part of the page.

However, i then found the aspect ratio setting on fonts and within seconds I had a skin that looked a 100% better on my 5:4 screen (still using the 720p folder). TBH, this is almost enough in itself and I am happy to post how I did this for anyone who wants to have a go or any budding new skinners, it is quite a simple skin change.

So I set to work learning about skinning and since then have made quite a few enhancements to this skin but mostly visual and for my own preferences. What I started out by doing was writing a vb script that would auto mod VH's 720p folder and create my version. If anyone is interested in this I am quite happy to post the script or parts of it that are interesting to use for modding skins to your preference automatically but still being able to always get the latest version when the original author updates it.

Anyway, I found it too much fun playing with the skin and so after a while left the script for another day. It of course depends if VH is still working on this as to whether the script is relevant (and of course for me personally whether I want to upgrade if VH does release another version).

I still have a couple of problems to iron out, for example I have now nicely added a previous/next buttons on the music cover flow page either side of the scroll bar but as to now can't work out the code required to actually move the scrollbar left and right - any skinners out there who can help?

Other mods I have made: Added now playing buttons to the home screen when playing stuff (with animation), added links to now playing by clicking on the cd in top left, added a link to fire up a browser with an on screen keyboard, tweaked a few of the control positions and animation as I found I had overlapping and some inconsistencies in VH's version (I suspect though caused by my 5:4 screen). Ex

First off, the changes you made to the skin look fantastic! I love the colors, style, icons ect ect.....

Now, I have to ask, what makes this skin actually touchscreen friendly? I am not trying to be sarcastic or anything, but won't just about any of the skins work on a touchscreen?

Looking at this image:



The list is pretty small, to make it touchscreen friendly, shouldn't the list text/font size be larger to make it easier to select things in the list?

Also in this screen:



The radio buttons seem a bit small and really close together to me as well.

As most touchscreens are going to mainly be 7" to around 14" in size (Not including the new HP's of course), I would think that making everything a bit larger would work better.

Again, I love the look and all, was just curious to what makes it a Touchscreen skin.

JohnWPB Wrote:Now, I have to ask, what makes this skin actually touchscreen friendly? I am not trying to be sarcastic or anything, but won't just about any of the skins work on a touchscreen?

The list is pretty small, to make it touchscreen friendly, shouldn't the list text/font size be larger to make it easier to select things in the list?

The radio buttons seem a bit small and really close together to me as well.

As most touchscreens are going to mainly be 7" to around 14" in size (Not including the new HP's of course), I would think that making everything a bit larger would work better.

Hi JohnWPB, VH should answer this but will give you my opinions.

What makes it a touchscreen skin is that all the mouse move tricks are gone and the buttons are now on screen, the obvious ones being where you need to move the mouse (or use left/right on the kb) on the home screen and the different sections slide in to view. The menus on each screen that often slide in from the left when you move the mouse to the left of the screen are gone. Good example is cover flow where a transparent menu is still displayed. Also, on the home screen the usual rollovers, weather etc are permanently displayed.

Further, the use of right click is minimised, this is a bit of a pain on a touch screen, usually involving holding down your finger for 3 seconds. This is done with the use of new buttons (Back).

I am using a 17" touch screen and I am yet to click on the wrong thing, this skin can work for any size screen but obviously if it does get down to 7" then you may need a stylus instead! As to the radio buttons, you can just click on the text for that line and it will change the radio.

This skin is awesome, taking some great stuff from other skins, I have used it as a playground for learning skinning. I hope VH continues on it and adds some more features that are coming along.

Ex

Ahhh that all makes perfect sense now! I was not thinking of the pop-up menu's, slide in menu's and such being inaccessible without a mouse/remote.

As for the size of the text and radio buttons and such, I guess I was correct on that one. I have a 10" screen in the wall, and would think that some of the stuff would be hard to click on, and unfortunately, a stylus can not be used with that screen. It it s glass screen, with emitters around the edge of the screen that "watch" for where the screen is touched, a stylus is not large enough for it to "see".

This is the touchscreen I have mounted in the wall. It would be nice to be able to use it for XBMC as well, as that screen faces the dining room table

I am soo pleased to have found this excelent topic on the forum. Recently I bought a touchscreen and found it not to be great with XBMC. So, this seems something that might solve my problem.

=> the question I had is answered!

Thanks for the effort of making this skin!


Eternity

ex_directory Wrote:Hi JohnWPB, VH should answer this but will give you my opinions.

What makes it a touchscreen skin is that all the mouse move tricks are gone and the buttons are now on screen, the obvious ones being where you need to move the mouse (or use left/right on the kb) on the home screen and the different sections slide in to view. The menus on each screen that often slide in from the left when you move the mouse to the left of the screen are gone. Good example is cover flow where a transparent menu is still displayed. Also, on the home screen the usual rollovers, weather etc are permanently displayed.

Further, the use of right click is minimised, this is a bit of a pain on a touch screen, usually involving holding down your finger for 3 seconds. This is done with the use of new buttons (Back).

I am using a 17" touch screen and I am yet to click on the wrong thing, this skin can work for any size screen but obviously if it does get down to 7" then you may need a stylus instead! As to the radio buttons, you can just click on the text for that line and it will change the radio.

This skin is awesome, taking some great stuff from other skins, I have used it as a playground for learning skinning. I hope VH continues on it and adds some more features that are coming along.

Ex

I do not think VH will shout after me if I answer too !

If you look carefully, you will notice also :
#1 : When you touch the screen when visualisation is ON, you pause the music (or video) ! With this skin, you call a menu !
#2 : You can change the volume directly with a set of buttons (in my installation everything is inside a cabinet and just the touchscreen is outside)
#3 : Vertical scrollbars has been enlarged for small displays!
#4 : I can't remember exactly the name of the view but, in some of the last original PM3-HD skin, there was a view which was completely impossible to use. I removed it ! And VH also
#5 : There is an option to hide the mouse (quite ugly to see it!)
#6 : I can't remember if VH made it also but there should be an option to hide the "onclik" valued buttons

Regards,