[WIP] Fusion - a new skin for XBMC

Broads Wrote:Hi, as reported earlier, here are my findings so far along with some nice to haves.

Bugs

Profiles- No Login
Settings - No Fusion
Settings Display / Video Calibration - Funny Square to calibrate.

Main Menu Settings - Play Lists not skinned.

Unbelievable how solid everything skinned is. I've had the same findings as everyone else although I wouldn't call them bugs, just unfinished sections... the most obvious being the playlists page and the now playing window:



probably also just unattended elements:

OSD info for episodes are displayed as posters



Info Wrap scroll bar obviously works because it's navigating through pages, but can you tweak it to scroll through multiple pages... otherwise it's useless




So far the skin has undoubtedly met all of my expectations, Although I do have a few design concerns about the poster overlays. In quite a few views I think they are way too heavy and end up overwhelming the views and artwork. This is probably just a matter of personal taste, I didn't want to note any unconstructive criticism's so close to completion but wanted to know your opinion on it.

Noticed some more issues:

• TV Show Information screen has a duration (only minutes, because there's no duration)
• The size of the buttons on refresh information dialogs doesn't seem right (selected button is smaller than non-selected)
• Watched overlay on infowrap in tv shows shows briefly on the image, don't if it's supposed to be there or if it's simply wrong layering (I would like it there )
• When you change view to musicposter, the glass overlay bugs until you select an album (minor thing)
• Now playing overlaps the settings dialog
  

Would it be possible to add more recently added material, i.e. if you pressed down on the bottommost recent item it would scroll to another one? And the same for featured items. That would be a great addition imo.

A small quickly coded scetch for making the video section on home screen more exciting:



I tried to use the fanart for random episodes but I didn't get any image (RandomEpisode.1.Fanart)? Any ideas? I would like fanart instead of thumb as my thumbs are low res.

Stranger Wrote:Info Wrap scroll bar obviously works because it's navigating through pages, but can you tweak it to scroll through multiple pages... otherwise it's useless

We should just remove it - having it scroll through multiple pages would be useless because you can't see the ones inbetween.

And to everyone with multiple durations - either let XBMC extract the actual runtime or edit your NFOs with something like EMM to get the correct value.

Well, here I go with the bugs first:

• Overlapping in episodes view:
  
• Overlapping in fangrid:
  
• When switching from list to poster in the music section, there is a glitch:
  
• When browsing in file mode, there's some cleanup necessary:
  
• The last bug is an animation bug: In the musicposter view, the glassy border doesn't size up with the same speed as the cover. This is particularily visible when switching between top bar and browsing mode (cursor up/down). The posterwrap view, which is similar, doesn't have this problem.
  
  

Here are some obvious TODOs I'll nevertheless mention:

• The default icon for actors should probably be more coherent with the other icons:
  
• Same for playlists:
  
• The addon browser needs some more work. The top bar is empty and the aspect ratio of the icons is wrong. Remember that all addon icons will be square at 256x256 with solid background, so an iconview-like view would be ideal instead of the list.
  
• Postergrid in music section is probably best to drop:
  
  
  

• Fangrid and postergrid are kind of incomplete and buggy, so this needs to be either redone or dropped.
  
  
• The "get more" item in addons section should probably have a default icon:
  
  

Now those are suggestions and my own personal subjective opinion.

Folders:
I like the folder of the second row in the screenshot much better. Could you maybe imagine a way to incorporate those overlays into a "engraving" style like I did on the new Confluence folder icons (new in RC1)?




Default fanart:
Now that you're using fanart as banners and even icons, what do you think about a default version for those? It looks kind of empty if there is no fanart in those views:





List views (small):
Those look really nice, but they don't use up a lot of space. I imagine that the box could be at least a little bit taller so the padding is equal on all sides:



Widescreen folder icons:
There's still some remaining media from Aeon, speficially my TV posters are in landscape. This doesn't work at all with Fusion, so I was wondering if maybe you could add a view supporting those or check for poster.jpg first? It's no biggie though.

Animations:
While all of the animations are wonderful, they are a little too slow for my taste. Drawing up the home screen takes nearly 2 seconds, also the info screen takes about a second. For us freaks browsing like crazy that's a lot of waiting time.

Trailers:
One thing I loved in Aeon's multiplex view (in the mods anyway) was being able to start a trailer with two key presses directly from the view. Here, as with other skins, I have to go to info, press the trailer button which is like 10 clicks. It would be great if an instant trailer access could be integrated in one of the views.

Big posters on info page?
The big poster list is nice but not as sexy as the other views. Displaying it full (or nearly full) height in the info view would be perfect. I suppose that you have already put quite some time into this one and it does really look good, but the poster is a little too small for my taste.

Keep up the great work!
Really, this skin is one of the best ever. I really enjoyed playing with it, most views kick ass and everything is smooth as silk. Congratulations!

Ok played around with it for about 30 minutes now and I must say I'm very impressed Great work!

I do have some "bugs/oversights/requests/ideas" or what you might call them.

1) I'd love to see some views with extrathumbs support (perhaps on/off toggle) for example BIGFAN view (which I really liked the scrolling animation on jumping through items)

2) Option to hide top bar. (and/or add different color options for it)

3) As there is only a blank page on Fusion settings I'm not sure if it's being added but: Option to add items to homescreen or subgenres like playlists, addons etc (I'd like to have playlists directly accessible under Movies for example)

4) For some reason my "featured film" on Movies is a movie I've removed from my library. (this however corrected itself after xbmc restart )

5) Option to remove items from submenus (for example remove "by studio" etc under Movies)

6) Topbar: Clock not working for 24h (seems to have been reported) + Weather info is not centered as far as I can see:


7) Add a view for season items that looks like BIGFAN, but with all the covers aligned in the bottom. (+ same for episodes)
Season:

Episode:


Not bashing on skin creators, but it seems that not that many skinners create views for tvshows,seasons,episodes that kinda feel like "one interface".

8) Option to remove the [HD] image that is being displayed on views like INFOWRAP (I love the faded title text in the background there btw! Nice touch!)

9) Option to remove the big red X in the movies list view(s). I see that the X is not displayed in all the list views (tvshows list for example)

10) TV view FANGRID does not display any information, just the title under the anart to the left.

11) Option to always show the info on POSTERSHELF view. Also the text (episodes+watch and year+drama is not 100% centered vertically within the box)


12) Pressing 'M' in views seems to pull up some unfinished or not-looked-at dialogs?

13) Featured episode on mainmenu/tv: would love to see showtitle aswell as episode name if possible

14) Not really Fusion related, although I'd love to see some of these views being added to the RCB script

15) Playlists seems to be unfinished / unskinned under Videos

16) Option to turn autoscroll off on recently added items on home screen

17) I can't seem to access bookmarks, audio, video, dvd while playing a movie. Not sure it's the skin or my navigation skills ;D

18) 'I' (i) while playing a movie seems to not have a dialog at all.

19) No option for subtitle lookup (might already be in the black fusion settings tho..)

20) featured film/episode, would love to have some more information displayed about the featured item like duration, year etc below the image and title.

21) play/paused text is not 100% centered vertically it seems to my eyes. (Yes this is nitpicking.. In a good way I hope )

22) more info in list views possible?


I'm sure I'll think of something more, but this is it for now

I did not have the possibility to test the Music bit yet.

All in all, this is a very well running and goodlooking skin! I'm sorry for my jumping back and forth on my issues/requests/etc, but I wrote them down as I went along

I know alot of these are requests and I hope that is not a problem. I do not in any way think you've done anything less of an excellent job so far! Great skin and great condition for a beta release