[RELEASE] reFocus 0.9.5

Very nice update! That 'big list' episode view is awesome. Very clean and sleek. Might be the best I've seen yet. Super job! Thanks again.

I must be retarded this morning. I updated to the Dharma branch of XBMC this morning, coming from a very old stable release. I updated on top of my existing install, then deleted the reFocus folder before copying the latest update to the \skins folder. However, when I open XBMC, I don't see an option to select the reFocus skin. Am I supposed to do something with the addon.xml or skin.xml files?

Edit: duh, it doesn't go in the skin folder anymore, instead going into the addon folder. Oops!

Not sure if anyone has run across this. There hasn't been mention of it so it may be just my setup but the on-screen menu (the play, pause, stop, etc. buttons) do not appear. What does appear is the lyrics button though the others are selectable. This is on a clean update with the lyrics plug-in enabled.

Also, this isn't so much a bug as it is a visual thing but the black text on the highlighted item gets hard to read where the highlight begins to fade to the right edge. This is most noticeable on the big list (nice addition by the way. I loved it in rapier and am using it now in reFocus).

In the same vein, on the home menus some of the items are longer than the highlighting and the black text is hard to read beyond the fade. This is most noticeable at Music > Recently Played and the majority of the setting menus.

I realize things are still changing in regards to the settings menus. I really like the new look of it and especially the new Settings window. These are just a few things I've noticed.

I did have one suggestion regarding the list view. When using fanart, it seems such a shame not use all that empty space the plot in the same way you have the episode view set up. This would work best with the movies and TV show sections.

This is all I've encountered so far. All and all, a great update to an already excellent theme.

I've been using reFocus since the first release, and held off on really posting any problems since I knew you had a big update coming. I've been playing with it this morning, and one big thing sticks out:

Hitting EXIT from videos/music libraries goes to a very tiny list, as opposed to the Home\Whatever menu item I would expect. I can get to the Home screen by pressing ESCAPE, but that takes me all the way back. It's very confusing for the average user (ie wife).

This is especially frustrating for the Settings menu. When I go to Settings > Appearance, there's no way for me to get back to Settings without going to Home > Settings again.

From using other screens, I would expect hitting EXIT at the top level of a given library/menu to take you pack to whatever "level" of the home screen you are at.

Some minor stuff:
Also, I think I've seen you say no to this before, but I would really like to have the option of having TV Shows/Movies as part of the home screen.

Have you considered using Music fanart as the backdrop when you have music highlighted on the Home menu?

Is there a way/option for me to get normally capitalized text? No offense to you, and I know it's a fairly popular schtick to write in all lower case, but it bugs the absolute hell out of me. I have a very difficult time reading the plot summaries as they are all lower case.

I hope none of that sounds negative, this is easily the best theme I use right now! Thanks!

Sranshaft Wrote:Not sure if anyone has run across this. There hasn't been mention of it so it may be just my setup but the on-screen menu (the play, pause, stop, etc. buttons) do not appear. What does appear is the lyrics button though the others are selectable. This is on a clean update with the lyrics plug-in enabled.

They show up fine for me. Anyone else having this problem? The only thing I can think of is something going wrong with compiling the textures or something.

Quote:Also, this isn't so much a bug as it is a visual thing but the black text on the highlighted item gets hard to read where the highlight begins to fade to the right edge.

Valid point, I'll look into tweaking this.

Quote:I did have one suggestion regarding the list view. When using fanart, it seems such a shame not use all that empty space the plot in the same way you have the episode view set up. This would work best with the movies and TV show sections.

Yeah, I've been thinking of that too. I'll probably add that, although there's just something about that layout that doesn't feel right to me. Probably just because I think it looks so much better with the poster layout there.

Thanks for the feedback

Jeroen Wrote:Yup


Really strange. Although now that I think about it, when I was adding this they wouldn't show up for me either and I was pulling my hair out as to why. Then I updated my build and they suddenly showed up. So maybe try a different xbmc build

OK, thanks for the suggestion Jeroen!

Although, it seems that the SVN PPA isn't working right now, from reading the sticky in the Linux forum, so I can't try it right now... My current build is only a little more thank a week old, though.

PS. where do you guys download the Subtitle script that works with refocus?

ECEC Wrote:Hitting EXIT from videos/music libraries goes to a very tiny list, as opposed to the Home\Whatever menu item I would expect. I can get to the Home screen by pressing ESCAPE, but that takes me all the way back. It's very confusing for the average user (ie wife).

Hitting back will take you to the higher level nodes in the library. This will not be changed as the cons outweigh the pros imo. Adding an option for this would basically mean doubling the code for the menu system and adding a lot of conditionals.

For anyone wanting a custom mod with "Back" skipping the higher levels, the solution is really simple though.

• open up HomeSubMenu.xml
• add a "return" parameter to any entry you wish to have this behaviour
• An example:
  

But if I understand you correctly you also want the submenu entry you chose to stay "open" until you return. I can have a look at it, but I'm afraid that's a tall order.

Quote:This is especially frustrating for the Settings menu. When I go to Settings > Appearance, there's no way for me to get back to Settings without going to Home > Settings again.

Go into skin settings->main menu and enable "open settings screen instead of settings menu"
This will allow you to go back to the settings screen after having been in one of the category.
This will disable the home submenu however and go through a settings page first.
Alternately, don't change the above setting and open up SettingsCategory.xml and add this line:

<previouswindow>settings</previouswindow>

at the very top of the file under <window id="4">

Quote:Some minor stuff:
Also, I think I've seen you say no to this before, but I would really like to have the option of having TV Shows/Movies as part of the home screen.

Yeah, that's going to stay the way it is. It's just one click.

Quote:Have you considered using Music fanart as the backdrop when you have music highlighted on the Home menu?

I want to stay away from having overly busy homescreens with backgrounds changing with every keypress. So that would be a no. I will be adding an option to display music fanart as the homescreen slideshow though.

Quote:Is there a way/option for me to get normally capitalized text?

Yup. By modding the fonts.xml file
By looking at the font names and at the font files themselves it really shouldn't be hard.
I will be adding an alternate fontset which is like you want, but it's just not very high on the list. Probably 0.9 material.

Quote:I hope none of that sounds negative, this is easily the best theme I use right now! Thanks!

Nope, thanks for the feedback

Jeroen Wrote:They show up fine for me. Anyone else having this problem? The only thing I can think of is something going wrong with compiling the textures or something.

I was thinking this myself but everything works fine for the video OSD. It's only the music OSD that's giving me problems. I'll try another clean update and see if it irons things out in the mean time.

Edit: I just noticed WinRAR encounters a problem with one of the files while unzipping; will have to check again to see which one. I'll try unzipping with another program and see if that's the cause.

Sranshaft Wrote:Edit: I just noticed WinRAR encounters a problem with one of the files while unzipping; will have to check again to see which one. I'll try unzipping with another program and see if that's the cause.

Me too, I had to use different unpacking programs to get it to work.

It fails on the "Canal+ Espana" studio logo (because of the Spanish "n" in "Espana". The Ñ sign I think.

just made a quick mod if anyone's interested, it replaces videos with tv and movies on the main menu, selectable from the skins main menu settings.


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