[rubenm]

hi everyone,

after looking around a bit, i have now settled for xbmc as my media center app. currently i am using jeroen's refocus skin. i think it is awesome, but i would also love to improve on it. for example - support for simplified chinese would be good, and i also would like to improve my own configuration.

so i set out to do my own skin, to learn how things work internally, learn about how events are processed and what the concepts are - and also, i want to try wether or not it is possible to implement a certain structure (my best description, in short, would be "i-pod style")

now i started with the "empty" skin, took some cues from refocus, and from other skins, and i am stuck with a few things:

a.) onright -> activatewindow
is it possible to activate a window when the user presses "right" on an item in a list without compromising the function of "right" in any other situation? basically so that "select" and "right" do the same thing on a specific button?

b.) onleft -> back
same thing, but going up to the previous menu when "left" is clicked.

c.) different animations based on direction
if you look at the menu as a tree, it will have things that are more towards the root and others that are more towards the branches. now i want to do a different animation depending on wether we're going up (towards the root) or down (towards the branches).

root -> branches
- closing the window zooms 100->120 and slides out to the left
- opening window zooms 50->100 and slides in from the right

branches -> root
- closing the window zooms 100->120 and slides out to the left
- opening window zooms 50->100 and slides in from the right

i thought that this might be achieved using conditions and the z-index ... but i would have to compare the outgoing and incoming window's z-values ... how do i do that?

any hints, pointers, help would be appreciated ... and ... plenty more stupid questions where this came from, i just dont remember them right now

.rm

[jmarshall]

a. Yes - in a list you can use <onleft>Select</onleft>. Alternatively use a grouplist where you have control over that sort of thing directly.

b. See a.

c. Yes, you can have different animations based on the previous or next window if you really want to. There's an info condition for these. See MC360 for instance.

[Hitcher]

I'd use Confluence over Empty simply because it's so outdated now (skins don't use all the PAL, NTSC folders now only 720p or 1080i).

[rubenm]

hi guys,

thanks for your replies.

@jmarshal: so few words, so much help. great, thank you!
@hitcher: yes, i saw that it is oudated. but i just use it now to have a set of files, pretty much empty. the actual implementation clues i take from other skins. i just want to start with a blank slate, it makes it easier to isolate potential errors. and then just build it up bit by bit.