[MOD] xTV SAF (Spouse Acceptance Factor)

Announcing a new mod of xTV - xTV SAF

Aim:

xTV-SAF is a 'Front Row' like skin for XBMC. It provides a number of updated features not available in the original AppleTV interface and builds on CHI3f's xTV skin to include new features of XBMC Eden. All this in a simple, Spouse Acceptable form (Factor) that is easy for kids and adults to find what they are looking for.

Skin now available thru the XBMC Eden repo(1.2.2) and Main XBMC Frodo repo (1.3.1) , skin wiki page is located here.

Download links

Google Code - xTV-SAF v1.2.0 XBox (Xbox only version of the skin)

To install on xbmc4xbox, unzip the contents of the zip file into the skin directory.

Development version of skin is available on the Passion Repo (Frodo and on only). See this post by ppic (thank you for adding the skin to the repo) for details on how to add the repo to your repo list. Once you have the repo installed on your system, navigate to the passion repo and then navigate to skin addons thru the settings/addons menu. Skin is listed as xTV-SAF (SVN). Hint this is the very latest version of the skin (skin updated each night at 2am French time), so there may be a few bugs but generally pretty stable.

Old Builds

Old builds that may be of use if you are running a very old copy of XBMC

Builds on my Google code page (0.95 to present) A direct link to my download page on google code

Screenshots



Skin Change Log

Quote:1.3.1
- Better, Faster, Smaller, Stronger (sounds like a Daft Punk song)
- Now supports the following languages English, Galician, German, Greek, Polish and Russian
- Changes to a number of views (increasing information displayed while maintaining readabilty)
- Expanded the number of option for the quit button on the home screen
- Power menu is now a text menu instead of icons, number of option have increased on this menu
- Major optimisations to the skin code means the skin is now noticably quicker (particualy on slower machines)
- Removal of redundant code and images has resulted in a large reduction in the skins footprint on the system.
- And a number of bug fixes including :-
- Fix for incomplete Russian translation.
- Fix seek slider issue with Fullscreenvideo and Music visualisation.
- Fix for heading icons still appearing when horizontal home menu selected.
- Yet another fix for the Horizontal home menu titles getting out of sync with submenus (now fixed for certain, honestly!)

1.3.0(Frodo only)
- Changes to artwork handling required for XBMC Frodo.
- Major cleanup of skin message strings, strings now being translated via Transfix.
- Re-worked Horizontal home menu code as Eden version did not work under Frodo,
Have now also solved issue with home menu headings and lists getting out of sync.
- Major refactor of skin setting menu (now accessed from system appearance menu),
Number of menu items removed as no longer relavant.
- Horizontal home menu is now the default Home menu (vertical home menu still available)
- Skin now has a look much closer to Gen2 AppleTV when in horizontal home menu mode.
- User can now select the visibilty of the background fanart image (three different levels),
can now also tell skin to ignore extrafanarts (useful for low speced machines).
- Further work on cleaning up skin textures (also removed a number of redundant images).
- A large number of bug fixes / code cleanups

1.2.2(Last build for Eden, future builds will be Frodo only)
- Cleanup of a number of skin texture files.
- Changed custom home menu items to use favourites script (now 15 general favourites positions
instead of 6 scripts and 6 playlists).
- PVR support included in skin, only available with late Frodo Alpha releases.
- Re-worked background handling. Should be quicker for non video library parts of the skin.
- Now support weather condition backgrounds in MyWeather.
- A number of minor bug fixes.

1.2.1 - 0.7.0 Ancient history see change log for details

Thank you's

A VERY large thank you to all that have helped with the skin. Also a big thanks to CHI3f for the original xTV skin.

Wyrm

I put your mod on the xbox I have in the bedroom for my wife and she loves it!
It displaying on a 27in SDtv and looks great!
Thanks again.
Haven't found any bugs yet!!
Maybe just a small request:: I would like an option to have my tvshow in library mode

:grin:Many thanks wyrm. As a dedicated and long term xTV user and fan it's great to have some tweaks to to improve the expirience on 4:3 CRT's (mines a standard 21").

Having the sligthly bigger font works great and I like the date and time and video OSD controls.

One request - can you have a hide toggle for the TV Shows in home screen - even with the 'TV shows in home menu' option deselected it's still appears in the home screen menu. I only have a few movies and lots of music on my NAS box.

Many thanks again

wyrm Wrote:xTV SAF Download

An aside comment: Could all skin makers just go through the trouble to setup a google code account? MegaUpload, RapidShare, the like are annoying as all heck.

Typing in a captcha, wait while Firefox battles all the ads and popups, wait 60 seconds.
-
That said, my girlfriend loves the skin.

Ah people are using the mod, good.

darkscout - Sorry about the megaupload, just seemed to be what everyone used. Will try to setup a google code account later today and post to that instead.

sipart - Sorry never considered that anyone would not use the TV side of things. Will look at including in the next update. I personally found that anything that was not being used caused confusion for the wife and kids, thus the options to turn off menu items. Mind you there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

kautious - Not sure exactly what you are asking for. You know that you can turn library mode on from the context menu. Around here we use 'file' mode as I don't want to have the wife and kids having to figure out profiles and you can't seem to keep the sources (adult and kids) separate.

everyone - another update in a few days. Hopefully will have 'wall' view sorted (although very basic at this stage) plus a couple of bug fixes. Trying to make sure the user does not see any rough edges, but believe me there is a lot of junk (mine, not the original xTV teams) that I need to cleanup at some point.

translators - One of the cleanups will be renumbering strings as I have added strings all over the place and it's become a bit of a mess. Could people please PM me with translations as I'm sure Google Translate is telling me a load of crap with some of the translations.

Wyrm

great concept .. I end up adding most of the stuff in (date/time)....

can you also include Fanart support for list view if its not included already ?

Thanks

batrad Wrote:great concept .. I end up adding most of the stuff in (date/time)....

can you also include Fanart support for list view if its not included already ?

Thanks

batrad, if Fanart was included in xTV release 2269, it will be there. Otherwise I intend to add a number of other peoples mods as I get a chance.

Some of the things I intend to add include:

• Some New file views
• Redo the Skin menu so that it more closely matches the rest of the menus
• Media flag icons on the views that it makes sense to include this
• (not a big fan of this myself) Fanart thru out the skin where appropriate
• Ipod Touch/iPhone style alpha scroll bar where appropriate
  

• A number of small mods to increase the SAF of the skin (thus the name)
  

EVERYTHING will be user selectable from the skin menus, so that unless you want to change things, the skin will still look like xTV.

I have not at this stage even attempted to look after the higher res stuff, it's all 4:3 at this stage. This will change as I get a chance.

If anyone would like to see something else, a feature suggestion to this thread would be helpful. Next release due in a day or so.

Wyrm

wyrm Wrote:Some of the things I intend to add include:

• Some New file views
• Redo the Skin menu so that it more closely matches the rest of the menus
• Media flag icons on the views that it makes sense to include this
• (not a big fan of this myself) Fanart thru out the skin where appropriate
• Ipod Touch/iPhone style alpha scroll bar where appropriate
  

• A number of small mods to increase the SAF of the skin (thus the name)
  

EVERYTHING will be user selectable from the skin menus, so that unless you want to change things, the skin will still look like xTV.

I have not at this stage even attempted to look after the higher res stuff, it's all 4:3 at this stage. This will change as I get a chance.

If anyone would like to see something else, a feature suggestion to this thread would be helpful. Next release due in a day or so.

Wyrm

Very glad to see xTV getting a little attention.

Nuzecast

nuzecast Wrote:Very glad to see xTV getting a little attention.

Nuzecast

That's OK Nuzecast. Doing this mainly to keep the BOSS happy (does not hurt that I am learning some interesting stuff). Good to see people are finding it useful.

BTW, see first post as I have just posted a new release.

Next release probable in a couple of weeks due to large amount of work required to renumber strings and to layout NEW skin menus.

Wyrm

Been using xTV for a long time, thanks for the updates, bro!

Anyway, some quirks I found when applying the skin to my xbox:

1. Selecting on TV menu will go straight to file mode not TV library.
2. Pressing "back" button on the xbox remote for TV and Movies menu will go back to the parent directory not the xTv main menu.

A request though; for TV episodes view, can you include a watched overlay and wide list view something like this:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5553/sc...t000el.jpg (minus the fanart, ratings, media count, media/studio flags. Only TV show title, episodes #, season #, plot will be suffice)

Anyway, great skin and good job, love the minimalist look!