[RELEASE] Rapier 2.0

Yeah, I am really liking it!

I was so close to having this as my default theme, but I found a little bug that I hope you can fix:
1. Go into music
2. Open context menu over a folder/playlist
3. Select play (music starts playing)
4. Open context menu again
5. Select now playing...
The now playing... will be shown, BUT the music restarts!
When I use the Aeon Hitched skin it does not restart. To me it is very weird how a skin can affect something like this.

I know this has been an issue before but has been fixed: http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/5888

Any ideas, Scarfa?

Very, very, very nice work.

I love the clean design - reminds me a bit of focus in that respect.

Navigation is good for the most part, and I think with a few tweaks could become very good.

I love the small touches, such as the shifting letter that pops out at different positions depending on whether you're scrolling up or down. The anims work nicely, though I'd tend to skip the fading in/out of similar text (eg the info view fades the labels in and out between items, which may be unnecessary?)

A couple of things that you may wish to think about:

1. Perhaps tighten up the thumb view slightly - similar to how it's handled in MS_Redux perhaps? Allowing differing aspect ratios would work there as well (as in Redux).

2. The main navigation problem I found was that in many views having a horizontal bar at the top makes it hard to get to (it's non intuitive to move left to get to it). Not really sure how to fix it - the bar does work nicely with the mouse though!

3. The highlights on the eject and power were a little too subtle to me - I found myself lost there.

4. The scrollbar positioned above the thumbs in fanart seemed out of place in the navigation?

5. I don't particularly like the name either

Very nice work

Cheers,
Jonathan

Looks very nice! Love it!

Can't wait to try it out tonight when i'm at home.
Keep up the great work!

Wow, really nice work indeed.

Love the fact that you don't show movies or tv shows until it's scanned into the library. No clutter of the home unless the data is there, nice, easy and intuitive behaviour IMHO.
This skin sounds like it could be a great touch screen skin aswell since most is really easy to use with the mouse, the only part which is "hard" is the home view. Perhaps adding a < and > button on each side of the list? (default to off perhaps as it wouldn't look nearly as good as it does now, just thought it might be a quick fix)

Some stuff I've noticed, If you scroll fast through a list the fanart fades are abit irratic, probably because you specify fade in start = 0 and end = 100 && fade out start = 100 and end = 0. IIRC if you just specify end on fade out and only start on fade in it won't go to 100% before starting to fade out, making fast scrolls end in dark. But I'm merely guessing

Keep up the good work, this is a really good skin!

Cheers,
Tobias

jmarshall Wrote:1. Perhaps tighten up the thumb view slightly - similar to how it's handled in MS_Redux perhaps? Allowing differing aspect ratios would work there as well (as in Redux).

Big Icon view does something similiar. Although I plan on tweaking it a little bit to add an extra column of icons. Thumbnail view was meant to have strict aspect ratio. Perhaps I should've named it DVD Thumbnails.

jmarshall Wrote:2. The main navigation problem I found was that in many views having a horizontal bar at the top makes it hard to get to (it's non intuitive to move left to get to it). Not really sure how to fix it - the bar does work nicely with the mouse though!

I don't think its necessary any harder to use. Most skin designs employ a vertical options menu that pops up on the left or right side. I think muscle memory tends to take over and people expect this behaviour. Using a horizontal nav system is radically differen't frome most skins so it takes some getting used to. I've been using it so much its second nature to me.

jmarshall Wrote:3. The highlights on the eject and power were a little too subtle to me - I found myself lost there.

I agree.

jmarshall Wrote:4. The scrollbar positioned above the thumbs in fanart seemed out of place in the navigation?

Do you mean wrap info view? I will probably do something about that.

jmarshall Wrote:5. I don't particularly like the name either

Dammit I knew I should have named it Extasy

jmarshall Wrote:Very nice work

Thx, I appreciate your feedback.

the one thing that bugged me the most was that after selecting a view mode i expect to be ready to go - not focused on the button menu.

spiff Wrote:the one thing that bugged me the most was that after selecting a view mode i expect to be ready to go - not focused on the button menu.

Good point. I will change the behaviour.

Looking forward to getting home from work to test this it looks super slick.

High scarfa i love what you have done with this so far, and i find the menu system very easy to use so no problem there my only dislike is when your in the movies fanart view the focused item is to the far left of the screen and does not feel or look right for me could you give me some pointers on how to make the middle on the focused one, if you understand what i mean, nice work and thanks

Cool man !

Def gonna give this a spin, looks clean and professional. I really hope
you continue improving this !

Maybe talk to forum admins about getting your skin into the "official" skinning subforum with your own thread ?