View Full Version : Slate Beta Released
The day has finally come! Team af is releasing our first public beta of Slate.
Slate started out as this http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=576566&st=30
Slate has been in development for about 6 weeks. In that time a lot has changed from the original mockups.
Please be sure to use the latest version of xbmc. The latest T3CH release will work just fine.
Things to know
Slate has only been skinned for 4:3 resolution.
Slate will work in 16:9 resolution but has not been optimized for it. Please don't post bug reports for 16:9.
Xlink has not been skinned yet and will not work.
Overlays have not been finished.
We are releasing a skin for the webserver in xbmc.
We are also releasing skins for some of the scripts.
Please checkout our website for more info and downloads.
http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de
http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/slate_screen_sm1.png
http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/slate_screen_sm6.png
http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/slate_screen_sm13.png
stanley87
2007-02-22, 01:04
Looks good, WILL try when i get home from work :-D
stanley87
2007-02-22, 01:07
ps: hopefully with the help of Nuka, i will soon have XinBox skinn'able. And then there is the possibility of a Slate version.
Its a really nice skin I like it lots
fluidman
2007-02-22, 01:34
ps: hopefully with the help of Nuka, i will soon have XinBox skinn'able. And then there is the possibility of a Slate version.
why not? looking forward to skin XinBox for Slate :nod:
Nuka1195
2007-02-22, 01:52
very nice team af, well done.
Here's a list of scripts that support skinning that are in SVN:
AccuWeather
Apple Movie Trailers
Ambient Light Control Pad
XBMC Changelog
XBMC Lyrics
Youtube (not final yet)
And I believe the new scripts Installer will, by Blittan. (n/a yet)
Also Retro-X by Chunk_1970
get cracking :)
lennon105
2007-02-22, 02:32
Very Clean! Nice job!
weinerschnitzel
2007-02-22, 02:39
This is an excellent skin! It hits the feeling I get with Clearity, then expands with vibrant colors and the smooth wrap list. It works great.
The one thing I can say about this skin that is negative is the Home menu. Watching the white text slide past the shaded tab looks a little strange.
All in all, this skin is my new default, well until I find something else to experiment with.
......
All in all, this skin is my new default, well until I find something else to experiment with.
hahaha this is so true of pretty much any new skin that comes out but yep the guys have done a great job on it looks awsome
very attractive, clean skin. i like it almost as much as i like clearity.
one small thing, though: where is the system info button? i cannot find it to check my RAM situation, and some of my videos won't play running slate. switching back to clearity allows them to play again.
i'm running 1080i, for what it's worth (can't do 720p on my tv), and incidentally the skin looks pretty good for not having been optimized for anything other than standard 4:3.
stanley87
2007-02-22, 06:44
PS: you guys should set up a SVN for the skin :-D
PS: you guys should set up a SVN for the skin :-D
If they want I can add them to the official SVN but best if they PM me for all that info
Very nice team af !! Thanks a lot.
This looks pretty cool :) But yes please release stuff to the official SVN as that is the easiest way for us to download the latest skin updates.
I also wrote a script to change out splash.png you might want to integrate into the skin http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24955
2 Bugs have find:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/145/398927790_ea550eb680_o.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/167/398927792_b5ee74b566_o.jpg
I hope you can repair that in the 4:3 resolution.
by djtoll
djtoll thanks for you bug report.
Your problems have been fixed. We will be releasing a new version on Sunday or Monday.
Also, I know that a lot of people want us to put this on the skinning svn but we would prefer not doing that right now. Once, the skin is more complete we will put it on the skinning svn.
Hmm, actually putting it onto the SVN now would make more sense, as you will probably be doing lots of updates and changes.. Folks can then just grab it of the SVN without having to rely on you to announce updates.. (will also save you some bandwidth on your website)
NineT9mustang
2007-02-23, 03:19
wow! Nice its done! I haven't tried it yet but from those screenies looks good, I'll be trying when I get some time tomorrow :D great job guys
stanley87
2007-02-23, 04:04
Hmm, actually putting it onto the SVN now would make more sense, as you will probably be doing lots of updates and changes.. Folks can then just grab it of the SVN without having to rely on you to announce updates.. (will also save you some bandwidth on your website)
I agree, i think SVN is for WIP (work in progres). I don't rely on SVN scripts/skins always working as they should. You should use your website for public releases and SVN for like I said WIP. Then you can get bug reports etc quicker from the people using SVN and correct these before public releases :-D, i sugest Pm'ing spiff and gettin on 2 it :-D
stanley87
2007-02-23, 04:05
oops, i mean PM jezz X
Even if you only put releases up to the SVN and keep WIP to yourself it is convenient just to have all these great skins in one place.
However, I agree the svn crowd is likely a vocal but small group of advanced users.
You guys really went all out with the animation :) For the most part it works great too. Im not sure about the dialogs that have different close animation types than open ones... it seemed a little randomish at first since I was expected just a reverse animation and not a different one. I need to use it more before I make a decision on it though.
The skin is great. Very smooth and elegant.
Is there a way to get the Now Playing information such as the album art to show up on screen when playing a song? The only way i am able to do it now is to turn on the visualization.
Thanks!
A new version of Slate is now available. http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/index.html
We have done a lot of bug fixing and added some more features. Thanks to everyone that has submitted bug reports.
We have included buttons in the skin to launch these scripts Accuweather, Apple Movie Trailers, and XBMC Lyrics. These buttons have to be enabled in the skin settings section first. We have also included a skin version checker. This can be found in the other otpions in skin settings. This is a modified version of Donno's Skin Version Checker. Thanks for allowing us to use this great script Donno.
We have also included a Translate.xml for all of the custom labels that we use in the skin. We are providing an english version with the skin but you can download a german version from our website. If anyone would like to translate this file to other languages that would be great. We have more info on our website.
We have included new options in skin settings. Please be sure to check them out.
Please report any bugs that you find here in the thread. Also, if you have suggestions or comments we would love to hear them.
Nuka1195
2007-03-06, 00:51
You SS for the lyrics script skin looks a lot like the changelog skin.
Nice job, skin looks great :)
Yeah must have missed that. I'll make sure that fluidman is aware of that.
Glad you like the skin. It wouldn't have been so nice without your help.
Thanks for the update. I have one issue to report. When trying to "Set Content" for movie directories, XBMC always crashes. Here is what i get in the log file (If i switch to PMIII i can set content with no issues so i think it is a skin issue):
16:30:03 M: 34639872 NOTICE: XBFileZilla: Started
16:30:47 M: 33820672 WARNING: CUtil::GetMatchingShare... no matching bookmark found for [virtualpath://video]
16:30:47 M: 33751040 ERROR: Control 30 in window 10132 has been asked to focus, but it can't
16:30:47 M: 33484800 ERROR: Texture manager unable to load file: Q:\skin\Slate\media\background.png
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::FrameMove()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: exception in CApplication::Render()
16:30:47 M: 33492992 ERROR: CApplication::Render(), too many exceptions
16:30:47 M: 33492992 FATAL: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005)
at 0x0001d092
Thanks for the great skin!
wowser you need to update to the latest T3CH release. There was a change in the code to allow for a scrollbar in set content. I forgot to include this in my post but you can find the info on the website.
Thanks for the info. I should've read that note closer before downloading and installing :;):
Love the skin. Keep up the great work.
So far the .81 release seems very stable. I played with the music and videos a lot and everything works great. I have two suggestions:
1. It would be nice if while playing music, the album cover and song info could be shown on the home screen since there is so much real estate to play with. Maybe on the bottom right, just above the bar where the rss feeds are displayed?
2. The addition of the shutdown button is great, especially for a user like me who mostly uses the remote and not the controller. When playing music or video, it would be nice if the shutdown button would disappear, just so that that the screen looks clean. Especially if you have background visualizations enabled (or if album cover info was added to the home screen :) )
Thanks!
wowser #1 will be added just don't know when.
#2 won't be added. Just think that some remote users would like to be able to access the shutdown menu while playing music.
Glad you like the skin. Let me know if you have any bugs or problems.
Ninjamawwe
2007-03-11, 17:28
Great work on the skin, pm3 is history now that I found this great skin, love your work :grin:
Some bugs that I found and some suggestions:
1:suggestion; when playing media and watching the home screen, pressing the white button could bring up the content menu ( or whatever it is called, where you can see what movie/album is playing and time left etc...)
2:suggestion; an option to change the font color to make the text stand out better on different backgrounds
3:bug?; in big wraplist view, the foldernames are not scrolling
4:bug?; when in list within an album, the text is "cut off" quite far from the time of the song, this distance could be shortened and it would still look nice while displaying more of the song's name. I suppose this has something to do with the text size when a song is highlighted/selected in the list view.
5:suggestion; when watching video or listening to an album, pressing the white button twice could bring up the more detailed view with imdb info and thumbnail, as in the clearity skin.
6:bug?; when fast forwarding or reversing a movie/song the color on the progress bar disappears, i.e. the color that marks how much you've seen of the movie.
7:bug?/suggestion; when lowering the volume to -60 no mute icon appears. It would be nice with a mute icon :nod:
8:me complaining while I shouldn't :blush: , (suggestion) ; the watched/unwatched icons for library view are quite ugly (my opinion). The ones in pm3 or clearity are more to the point I think. The current ones look a bit like the security center icons in windows. Just me being picky :sniffle:
Again thanks for this great skin, I didn't think after pm3 that xbmc's looks could be improved by this much, keep up the good work
/ninjamawwe
Ninjamawwe
2007-03-11, 18:13
Oh I forgot one issue;
9; bug; in some wide icon view, the borders of the content pane gets skew/not straight. It only appears with some wide icons, but shouldn't xbmc cache all icons to the same dimensions?
/cheerio Ninjamawwe
Ninjamawwe
2007-03-11, 22:15
Remembered another one, concerning the web interface. Long folder/file names really screw up the presentation. See screenshots:
http://img459.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testnr4.jpg
http://img397.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test2pa7.jpg
dsvensson
2007-03-15, 20:26
Abe87: I'm about to release a new version of the YouTube script. There are some skin details for you to update if you want the skin to be distributed with this release. (still no config window to change the skin, but that will happen soon).
Slate is now version 0.82 You can get the latest version at our website http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/
This version has some bug fixes in it. Please check the changlog.
I also listened to your suggestions and added some new features such as the scripts button on the home screen.
Since we included the Apple Movie Trailers button, people had started to request new scripts be added. Instead of adding new scripts I have removed the AMT button and put in script bookmarks in the skin settings. This will allow the user to specify which script they want to launch. There are 4 buttons per media section. For these buttons to operate correctly you need to give the button a name, specify the path to the default.py, and enable the button. I hope that you guys like this new addition. I want to thank jmarshall for the help with this and Jezz_X for the example in his Xbox Classic skin.
As always be sure that you are using the latest T3CH version of xbmc.
Please post any comments, suggestions, or bugs here.
fluidman
2007-03-25, 14:10
Quote from http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de @ Mar 25 2007
Version 0.83 of Slate is now available (http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/skins.html)! Once again we added some features that will make your life easier ;-) In our last version we listened to you guys and added a "Script Button Manager" because a lot of you wanted to be able to have different type of script available in the different media windows. This time, we added a sweet feature that will allow you to set Shortcuts on the home screen to different Library views! Speaking of the library views, we also tweaked our library views and added an awesome vertical wraplist view. We are really proud of this one :-)
http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/slate083_screen1.png http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/slate083_screen2.png http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/slate083_screen3.png
At the moment Slate 0.83 is available in English and German. We are looking for helpers that want to translate the translate.xml into different languages. If you want to help, please check out the 'language localization (http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/skins.html)' page for more information.
To have the Slate work properly, you will have to make sure that you are using the latest T3CH release(8306) with the newest version of Slate.
Fluidman wanted to post some new Themes and updated Scripts Skins, but we got busy working on this release, so you will have to wait a bit for these.
Please keep the bug reports coming, and if you have any suggestions, make sure to let us know. Click here (http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/skins.html) to get the latest version of Slate.
Well, there is not much for me to add. I hope you like the new version, if not, let us know what we should do better.
Team AF Homepage: http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de
Slate Direct Download Link: Click Here (http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/downloads/skins/Slate/Slate.Beta.0.83.rar)
Best skin ever, better than mc360, vision, xtv, pm3 2 1, classic, or anything else ever made. thx for making this skin
Best skin ever, better than mc360, vision, xtv, pm3 2 1, classic, or anything else ever made. thx for making this skin
are you sure about that!?
i havn't tried the skin yet but looks decent to me...looks similar to Clearity:/
xTV was good, but gets boring quickly.
The skin I wanna try is the multiplicity:P
also remember diffeerent skins have diffeerent effects
Are you considering adding Slate to a svn repository? I would love to build into my latest releases (I do clean releases with skins once a week on a xbox release site).
fluidman
2007-04-09, 12:14
Slate will be using SVN sometime in the future. But right now we'll just release new versions every other week or so. This week we'll release another version again. So stay tuned.
@Deff: whats the url of your release site?
Nuka1195
2007-04-12, 02:22
Don't ask and do NOT post links to binaries.
Don't ask and do NOT post links to binaries.
I am going to post binaries>:)
☻
marathont
2007-04-18, 18:22
I love The skin. I think the script buttons in each section is a great idea, but It does not work for me.
I enable script buttons in the script settings section, I enable the button, name the button and define the path to the default.py.
The button appears on the menu but pressing it does nothing.
marathont I haven't had any problems with this feature. Are you sure that the script that you are trying to launch has a default.py? Which script are you having trouble with? I tested with Apple Movie Trailers and everything worked fine.
marathont
2007-04-19, 00:10
marathont I haven't had any problems with this feature. Are you sure that the script that you are trying to launch has a default.py? Which script are you having trouble with? I tested with Apple Movie Trailers and everything worked fine.
I had been using the latest t3ch build (rev8519), but I just installed rev 8306 from 15-04-07 and the buttons now work as expected.
Maybe there was a problem with the previous installation. I will try installing the latest build again.
Another I thing I noticed, when I uncheck the 'enable scripts buttons' in the settings menu the buttons still appear on the menus.
I'm glad to hear that the script buttons are working correctly for you now. Thanks for the bug report on the script buttons. I'll fix that and include it with the next release.
HarshReality
2007-05-21, 22:53
So when/if is this going to SVN and/or is it current with control changes?
any chance on the ps3 skin?:P
fluidman
2007-07-11, 22:53
Finally - Slate 0.84 available
http://teamaf.fluidboxmedia.de/projects/Slate/screenshot013.jpg
After taking a long break (real life caught up on both Abe and myself), we were finally able to finish up version 0.84 of Slate. Again we added some more features, like different widgets for the home screen (position can be chosen by the user), new view types, and some bug fixes.
If you find bugs, please make sure to let us know in the different forums. And if you want to help translating Slate into your language, contact us.
:nod:
alucard77
2007-08-06, 02:55
I just wanted to say thank you for this skin. This is by far the best skin for the xmbc for me at least. It has everything I want.
I have one suggestion. In Wide Icon view, instead of having a box around the icon, maybe a you can do a transparent white background.
Other then that, this is great.
janszoon
2007-08-10, 06:30
Hi Abe,
Great skin design!!
I like the way that 'Slate' reflects the album cover when in viz mode.
I have fiddled PMIII with a few tweaks and I would love to include the reflection of the album cover in Vis Mode.
Currently I have added this line of code in MusicVisualization.xml under the image control:
<control type="image" id="1">
<posx>300</posx>
<posy>540</posy>
<width>210</width>
<height>180</height>
<info>musicplayer.cover</info>
<aspectratio aligny="top">keep</aspectratio>
<texture flipy="true" diffuse="thumb_mask.png">-</texture>
<visible>Player.ShowInfo + !Skin.HasSetting(reflect)</visible>
</control>
ignore posx as I was just experimenting...
I then created a mask 'thumb_mask.png' and put this in the PMIII media folder.
basically nothing happend.
Can you point me in the right direction??
Abe87 I promoted you to 'Skinner' usergroup.
janszoon you need to edit out !Skin.HasSetting(reflect) from the visible tags This is because Slate has a skin setting to turn reflections on and off and PM3 does not. Hope this helps.
pike Thanks for the promotion
To all the users of Slate, Sorry there hasn't been any updates for Slate recently. It's been a busy summer. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to Slate this fall.
I was wondering what the users of Slate thought of the new Home Screen Widgets? Any feedback on the skin would be very helpful. Thanks!
alucard77
2007-08-11, 00:08
Your skin is great.
I use the weather widget so far, and it is nice. Great Job overall. I mentioned one thing above for your skin. Just with Wide Icons, it would be cool to have a transparent window highlight of the wide icon instead of just a white box.
Also, a coverflow idea would be nice, the same as this link:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=142048&postcount=188
I think you'll be hard pressed to get feedback, this skin is so good already. Don't know how much you can do to improve it.
stanley87
2007-08-11, 16:31
Hey,
Nice skin Team Af
Just letting you know, the new and muchly improved XinBox script has been released.
Feel free to skin it and send me the skin so i can add it to the script etc.
Heres the link to the forum (it has the download link etc)
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27739
Thanks,
Stanley87
Hi,
This is my favorite skin as well. I only used PMIII before but I think this one is much better. I use the weather widget as well, and I really like the "Radar" button on the weather page. Adding the "Lyrics" button to the viz screen was a great idea as well.
I am still having trouble with the script buttons however, I turn them on, choose the script directory and make sure there is a default.py in the directory, and the buttons appear in the library menus but when I press them nothing happens. Not a big deal though, but I have tried it on 3 builds (earlier t3ch release, deff release, and latest t3ch release) as well as on a second newly softmodded xbox. So I don't know what could be going wrong as far as installation or setup.
Also as far as scripts and their skins... I don't know how to install any of the Slate script skins. Shouldn't the Slate skin files match up with the default skin files of the scripts? If not, is there anything I need to do as far as file renaming/deletions? A few quick guidelines would be useful...
The only other issue I can think of is some of the other scripts don't display properly... for example Torrent-X you can't always see what buttons are highlighted, this is also a problem in XboxPodcast script. No big deal but just fyi...
Some other popular scripts you may want to consider if you get the burning urge to skin some scripts are iTunes Radio and TV Links. I think these are all pretty useful but their look could use an overhaul to be more compatible with Slate. XinBox looks good as it is but a Slate them certainly couldn't hurt.
Anyway I am not trying to be picky and if you never updated Slate again I'd still use it as it is, but I just wanted to give some feedback.
Thanks a lot for your effort, I think this skin will eventually be more popular than PM3.