Suggestion: revised skinning engine methodology
#16
Sad 
changing topic from "who want a easier & more flexible skinning engine?" to "who want a more flexible skinning engine?" since in this case they contredict each other
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#17
ok ok ok - look guys: can you think of any skinning engine that offers as much as the current xbmc engine??

i think no other application on the globe gives you that much freedom... and i also think, too much freedom in the ui is just confusing the user - i have never heard of an app, wehere you have to ask "what skin are you using?" when youre trying to help out on another guys problem - i mean its skins whats the point of building a completely different structure? having one, good structure is no bad thing at all...

besides:


Quote:the current model is not flexible and you want to put items where you decide to, not where the engine developer say you must. ie: weather, sys info, ram, etc on main screen.


i have never seen the point in having any of these in the home screen (keeping in mind that theres not much room anyways and you can reach evrything within xbmc with between 1 and max 4 buttonclicks if you just understand how to set it up)


Quote:you'd like to have differnet icons for each folder and any type of video, audio or any file extension or from within any folder.

already possible... have fun creating icons for all the supported filetypes how many are there? 60?


Quote:you'd like to separate your games, programs, tv shows, or anything else you decide to have separate screens for... not allowing the developer to decide for you what should go together. and access any of them from any other screen directly.

sounds like one hellova mess.... plus you can seperate things allready - again learn how to set things up


Quote:you'd like to have a home button on each screen!!!

you already have that - the back button on the controller and the menu button on the remote goes directly to the home screen in almost any situation


Quote:you'd like to have templates so all your script screen automatically have the same background as your skin, even when changing skins.

possible without any problem if the script author know his shyt


Quote:you'd like to be able to create a new screen, by hand, in 30 seconds because the objects a(like controls and control groups) are already defined in a definition file and all you need to do to use the same control on the screen is put in one line of code! thus, reusing objects that are only needed to be defined in 1 place, not in each xml file you want to use it in.

pfff

Quote:you like being locked into a model designed by someone else that requires you to repeat the same basic layout/design and only change the graphics... woopie!

big: pffff simply not true

voted no

you come up with your own finished skin b4 complaining like this



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#18
personally i would like to see myvideos/mymusic/mypictures/myprograms go the way of settings.

here is how it could work.

<global></global> - everything within these tags applies to every screen.

then outside the global (or in a seperate xml file, it dosn't matter) the elements that are different would be in the window>/<id> tags and inside those would be the screen specific settings.

finally the buttons that are usually on the left (switch view/imdb/etc) become something similar to the button scroller in home.xml. this eliminates the need for myvideostitle.xml myvideo.xml myvideoplaylist.xml etc.
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#19
yea that would be an advantage - we already thought about making only one xml for music and one for vids - based on the settings idea
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#20
i think that they could put 80% of whats in the xboxmediacenter.xml into the setting in the gui. instead of makeing more xml to complicate things. i also see the amount of different xml files for skinning as a problem. i believe one or two large xmls would make it less complex to skin and the devolpment of a pc app to format and edit the xml in a controllered way so that less human typing errors can happen making the xmls. plus the addition of an app to let you preview the images as they overlay and are ajusted by the xml. i would love to start making skins for xbmc but i give up soon after seeing the amount of seperate files i need to make just in the configuration department then the huge amount of images aswell. the images are a given but all the little intricet xmls if too much one or two large ione would lessen the load.
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#21
i cry about everything that gets moved from the xml into the settings - everything is lost once you have to delete your savegame for some reason - i hate that.

moving stuff from the xml into the gui might be nice for n00bs - but its a curse for everyday users (imho)

putting everything in one or two xml files would complicate things a lot i think. all the ids are confusing enough already. right now everything is in perfect order and you can find things fast and easy. i dont even want to imagine the massive ammount of code a single xml would have to hold. on top of that, you might get confused much easier with the area you are typing in - and that would cause trouble, even if theres no typo at all.

a preview for the ui while skinning would make things easier for sure - but since xbmc keeps developing and changing every day, i think its rather hard to pull up something like this. also the 6 resolutions are probably pretty hard to implement in such a tool. even if there was such a tool, there would still be the overscan issue and you would still have to check on tv anyways.

if skinning is to complicated for you by the looks, start by just replacing textures. you will have the xml under control eventually - dint worry - just give it a shot Wink
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#22
just a quick note to say that xform, the xbmc skinning app, has gone open source.

i encourage c# developers to jump on board and help arddrive get this done!

at the very least, it should supply a good preview tool.

i'll be helping in anyway i can by giving them info on the internals of xbmc and how layout etc. should be handled.

hopefully in the not to distant future we can have a decent skinning previewer with stuff such as overscan compensation + pixel ratio compensation so you don't even have to go to the tv to check everything.

cheers,
jonathan
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