[CloudDweller]

Now that XBMC has been ported to iOS devices, I wondered what others thought about having the disc drive and power options available on the home menu and not as separate buttons?

The reason behind my thinking is…

1. Both MediaStream and Apple Front Row, two of my favourite UI's show disc drive on the home menu.
2. Both MediaStream and Apple Front Row only show this menu option when a disc is detected, therefore keeping the menu uncluttered.
3. iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and ATV2 don’t have disc drives and so the disc button is redundant.
4. iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad don’t need a power button because you exit XBMC using the home button.
5. ATV2 does need a power button, but having it as an option on the home menu is, in my opinion more intuitive as the user only has to refer to one location for all options and it also follows the design conventions of the ATV2’s software.
6. The disc drive home menu would have a pop out menu with options like, Play disc, eject disk.
7. The power home menu would have a pop out menu with options like, exit, shut down etc…

I know it’s purely personal preference but I do feel that this change would best serve iOS devices and also XBMC / Confluence as a whole. What do others think?

[CloudDweller]

I'm looking to create a customised Home.xml file to achieve my goal of adding disc drive and power options to the home menu. I was wondering if someone could please give me a couple of pointers. I have managed to add disc and power to the home menu, but I can't figure out how to create a pop out menu with a list of options. Could someone please point me in the right direction?

I’m totally new to skinning and XML so although I have been able to make some very small changes, I’ve drawn a blank when it comes to more advanced changes.

If I am able to get this working, I will make it available for others to download. Hopefully someone else will find it useful.