[BETA] Shade - A new skin for XBMC

Ok more constructive criticism

Studio logos they are nice but in thumbnail view there are far too many blanks. Personally I think you need to get rid of studios and make it less wanting to be proffesional. To a movie buff I can understand that this is going to be an added bonus.

If you can have this as an optional extra, I do not think that someone will want to make logos for all the new movie companys coming up.

More to follow, I think this needs to be stripped back to the bare essentials, rather than trying to be a smart skin.

Movies thumbnail view

You deffinatly need icons for those, rather than blanks, possibly poster views or DVD views would be nice then the end user being able to chose between there own favourite cover or being able to create their own.

MarkTaunton Wrote:Movies thumbnail view

You deffinatly need icons for those, rather than blanks, possibly poster views or DVD views would be nice then the end user being able to chose between there own favourite cover or being able to create their own.

Please explain this further, I am confused.

Also, I think you are one of maybe 3 people using this skin and giving feedback. Thanks for your efforts.

Sorry movie genre views, you need icons for these

MarkTaunton Wrote:Sorry movie genre views, you need icons for these

Edit: Just remembered I did this for the list view for genres, I just have to add the images to the thumbnail view. Done in a few and new upload will come after.

Edit2: Done! Looks much better now. I had to make it a new view b/c TV Shows have too many weird genre titles, I didnt have images for all of them. So this view is for movies only.

New view. Who can guess what inspired me?

Just got the beta today so I haven't really had much time to mess around with it and find any real errors, however I do have a few minor suggestions that might make it look a little bit better.

On the home screen when you remove enough icons they align to the right side. It would be nice to see them centered when there arn't enough icons to fill all the spaces.

In the movies section some of the views have media flags and some of them do not. Specifically I'm talking about poster view 2 which I like a lot but it doesn't have media flags. poster view 2 also doesn't having running time which some of them do so that would be nice also. space on it is limited so it would definitely take a little bit of creativity.

Big posters looks very nice as well. Maybe more transparency so you can see the fan art better. Also a feature to turn on or off the blu ray disc icons. Some people might like it but i think it looks a bit tacky. Maybe itll grow on me as I use it more.

As for tv I think that there are some view types much better than ones I've ever seen before. I was especially impressed with the side banners one. However I think that instead of having the cut off fan art above the plot details but the season banner right there.

Finally this is more of a feature request than anything else. In plex on mac os x when you press escape in a movie it exits the movie instead of leaving it playing. I thought that was a much better than idea than the way xbmc does it where when you press escape it leaves it playing. However I'm sure some people like it so having it as on option to turn on and off I think would be best. Also in plex when you press escape in the menus it takes you back a level instead of having to press on the back a level icon which is always ugly and eliminates the need for that icon.

Just my .02

In movies when I got to get info it doesn't have the source of the file which I use all the time to know what computer a certain file is on and such. I think it would be good to put that in somewhere for sure

Proph3T Wrote:In movies when I got to get info it doesn't have the source of the file which I use all the time to know what computer a certain file is on and such. I think it would be good to put that in somewhere for sure

I have to disagree with you to be honest, you are looking at something from an old XBMC skin point of view.

If you have took the time to set up your home cinema or media properly, then why do you need where the file location is?

What good is it anyway, of where is this movie too?

I shall once I buy more hard drives will have say Green Zone in Green Zone directory, so why do I need your file is located in Z:\Green Zone

From looking at the info screen, I would have to say the following

Play - Well maybe you can keep that one
Refresh - Being honest I have not tried this
Get Thumb - Probaly remove with third party software to create nfo's
Get fanart - the same as above
Trailer - obviously keep

Suggestions for improvement if possible

View cast, so it brings up another screen or similar with the faces of the people involved, view studio so brings up a list of their movies, maybe directors etc.

We are in the 21st Century people 3D is here once again, but looking much better now, get off your x-boxes or cheap ions and move on, the future is being held back due to some people, ok it is nice to be complient to all, but if you look at some of the pictures of home set ups or cinemas then they can afford a decent pc.

Maybe we need to have a decent spec level, this skin will work for the ZX81 etc

well i need that alot of times when there are movies with sequels because they do not scrape correctly so i have to be able to see the file name and stuff because without it i cant refresh the info. so maybe when you buy more hard drives and have tons of movies you'll realize that sometimes things like this are necessary.