View Full Version : AEON [ALPHA] (formerly "Xephyr"): Skin Release Thread
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Sinnocence
2008-01-19, 17:35
Out of curiosity, with the skin changing name and all, will it still be necessary to clear out old Xephyr configuration settings from files before copying over the new (upcoming) version of the skin?
I'm still running on Alpha6 at the moment (with mods and custom hacks/tweaks) and ideally speaking I'd like to have both running simultaneously (at least until I can make sure I've replicated the various changes to the new skin).
Thanks for all your hard work Djh!
This is just a test clip I did to get a feel for grabbing video. It's in Ogg Theora format so Windows users should download VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) to view it. Assuming it works okay, I'll pretty it up tomorrow for the benefit of those without XBMC.
It also offers a glimpse of the new name, together with the URL for the website (which sadly won't be up this w/e as real life has had to intrude).
Download here (http://www.nashwanpower.com/download/aeonpreviewtest.ogg)
Aeon a... Very nice:nod:
You like teasing us with screenshots and now a video preview:grin:
Aeon Rulez!!!!
The K-Lite Codec Pack plays just about anything rather then using different media players it all work in wmp
http://smile.smilies.nl/512.gif . . http://smile.smilies.nl/511.gif
Aeon. Cool name! I still think yours is the best out there. I will be looking forward to its release. Take you time, its worth waiting for!
This is just a test clip I did to get a feel for grabbing video. It's in Ogg Theora format so Windows users should download VLC player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) to view it. Assuming it works okay, I'll pretty it up tomorrow for the benefit of those without XBMC.
It also offers a glimpse of the new name, together with the URL for the website (which sadly won't be up this w/e as real life has had to intrude).
Download here (http://www.nashwanpower.com/download/aeonpreviewtest.ogg)
I had a feeling you were from the UK. ;)
NotShorty
2008-01-20, 17:38
Gonna have to fly to Chippenham to shake your hand ;)
When switching from Music back to Home and Weather back to Home, did I correctly see that the tab it defaults to is Movies, rather than whichever section you were just in? It seems to be dependent on the number of tabs enabled on the home screen. I believe that's a known issue though... Also, will it be possible to choose which tab to default to on startup? I'd like mine to go to weather for example.
Looks great though! That's the first time I've seen the PhotoDesk in action! My friends envied my xbmc BEFORE Xephyr was on it - they're gonna go really crazy now! :D
NS
Chippenham hey, I can beat that, I'll cycle there and shake your hand.
:grin:
edwinmcdunlap
2008-01-20, 21:50
Is Alpha 8 the most recent version available?
smcnally75
2008-01-20, 21:56
I've been running this for a couple of days now and I love it! The only issue I'm having is when I run a script (Ooba as an example) I can't see which selection I am on. In other words, it doesn't highlight the titles in the list so you don't know which link you are on.
Nick8888
2008-01-21, 04:43
the site is now up. I won't post the address as it might get flooded but it is looking good although still under construction I'm guessing.
thanks djh!
Heh - I wondered if someone would notice. Still very much under construction, though the layout's basically there and I hope to have the FAQ page up before bedtime. Probably won't get the Backdrops and Mods pages up until the end of the week, however, as I've other work to be getting on with. I'll see about getting a new build for download asap.
Nick8888
2008-01-21, 07:56
Ok let me start off by saying I havent even tried the new poster wall view but from the video and from pictures I dont think I'm going to like the way it scrolls. When youve got one movie selected, it looks difficult to see what is next because it is beneath the info. So I had a little think and this is a concept for it which I came up with. Not sure how much of the asthetics it may compromise but im sure djh you could make it look quite good if you wanted to.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/691/basiccr5.th.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=basiccr5.jpg)
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2667/posterwallideamj4.th.jpg (http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=posterwallideamj4.jpg)
ah was jumping up n down when i saw the link to Alpha9. but was sad when its 404. few hours later i hope..
ah was jumping up n down when i saw the link to Alpha9. but was sad when its 404. few hours later i hope..
me 2...is it an upload problem? Maybe make a torrent of it, so we can all help in providing the bandwidth. I would love to try the latest build!
The bottom line is that there is no adequate way to do the Wall views at present - they're novelties, nothing more. As for visibility, you're welcome to tweak the views however you see fit and submit them to me as mods.
Oh, and the Alpha9 link is just a placeholder, given that the site shouldn't even be public yet.
The bottom line is that there is no adequate way to do the Wall views at present - they're novelties, nothing more. As for visibility, you're welcome to tweak the views however you see fit and submit them to me as mods.
Oh, and the Alpha9 link is just a placeholder, given that the site shouldn't even be public yet.
One of the Alpha6 mods has a nice "wall view" that allows you to move in all directions. Why not incorporate that?
I'll take a look, though if it's just an Icon panel with a moving focus object, it's little use for my fullscreen views. It's not so much the lack of fixed focus but the logistics of getting the panel to fill the screen without bleeding off the edges, or otherwise buffering it with further icons which, due to the Icon panel code, wouldn't contain the right images.
I'm happy to proved wrong on any of those things, however.
NotShorty
2008-01-24, 05:23
One of the Alpha6 mods has a nice "wall view" that allows you to move in all directions.
I second that. The "up and down" scrolling were a little jumpy (hardware limitations I'm sure) but "right and left" were dang pretty. I'm using the "Posters" view now, but for navigating approx 200 movies, it's not as good as wall view, IMHO.
Also, there was an "Album Wall" view for Music. I'm not sure what build/mod it was in since it was on my xbmc and now is not, but MAN I liked it. The same or something similar would be great.
Thanks for everything :nod:
-I'm not sure what build/mod it was in since it was on my xbmc and now is not, but MAN I liked it. -
Totaly agree..this must be implemented again :)
Just a minor observation...
When skipping through a video, the timeline thingie at the bottom of the sceen does not show up.
Also, when i switch from video to the homescreen, the video background is slightly smaller (i get some black borders around the video)
Plus, is there a way to set the "sleep-timer"? i used that a lot with other skins (pressign down on the shutdownbutton would switch between shutdown/30 mins/60 mins/120 mins)
Everything he said
All known issues, all on the to-do list.
As for all this view stuff, is this what you're talking about?
http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/7863/albumdiscreteplayinguf2.png
smcnally75
2008-01-24, 16:59
djh, is there any way to set the time/date in the top right to scroll or to do something so it isn't so static? For some reason I constantly worry about that burning into my screen. I can't wait for V9...This skin is the best I've ever seen!
If you're using an LCD you don't have to worry about burn-in. Otherwise, why not either use the screensaver or turn the time off? I actually use a slideshow of my backdrop folders as the screensaver, that way at least it mimics being on the homepage.
smcnally75
2008-01-24, 17:22
I actually use a slideshow of my backdrop folders as the screensaver, that way at least it mimics being on the homepage.
That's actually a great idea! I'll do that because there are plenty of other things that don't move at times.
Rand Al Thor
2008-01-24, 17:50
All known issues, all on the to-do list.
As for all this view stuff, is this what you're talking about?
http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/7863/albumdiscreteplayinguf2.png
That is the "album Wall," the posters wall (same view but with movie posters) is quite nice as well.
Keep up the good work. Cheers.
As I thought, it's an Icon panel which I doubt will work as a fullscreen view - the focus objects would just bleed off the edge. Functional as it obviously is, I wouldn't use it in the way pictured here either: far too busy given the window size and the backdrops. What I might do, however, is implement it as a mod so it's available separately, but doesn't interfere with the skin proper. Would keep you lot happy, at least. :;):
In fact, I know what I'll do. It'll be a mod, downloadable via the website (you can check out the first backdrop pages tonight, btw), and it'll be a fullscreen Icon panel. So it'll do what those mod views do only bigger, with a gap round the edges and a nice plain background. Hell, if someone implemented the whole optional views / conditional includes thing, I'd be inclined to merge it with the main skin. As it is, however, there are just too many views to cycle through already.
djh, is there any way to set the time/date in the top right to scroll or to do something so it isn't so static? For some reason I constantly worry about that burning into my screen. I can't wait for V9...This skin is the best I've ever seen!
u can set it to show time and weather. it wont be static.
same here, can't wait for any updates on this skin. im 30+ and i feel like a kid waiting for a new toy. :shocked:
The 'Files' views from the Alpah6 mod are called "Tiled Movie" & "Movie" -- there are even cooler ones for the 'Library' views!
midgetspy
2008-01-25, 18:42
Xephyr is a really beautiful skin, but I have a few questions/issues/requests with it. I currently use MC360 and would love to switch to Xephyr but it's missing some core functionality that I need.
First of all, I have hundreds of movies in my library. I find it very difficult to navigate through them efficiently using any of the "fancy" picture views. In MC360 I use the "Media Info" view which shows the following information:
- text list of movie titles and their IMDB rating
- small movie poster
- description/summary text
The closest to this in Xephyr is "List", but List is missing two crucial features:
- it has no poster display
- it doesn't show the IMDB rating
The IMDB rating needs to be added in a column next to the movie name. It is just silly to have my list sorted by rating but have no clue what the ratings are! And the poster of the selected movie should be visible, even if it is just a small thumbnail somewhere (or faded out behind something else maybe).
The second thing I've found is a problem with Party Mode. When I go into Party Mode for my music, the screen is just black, except for a few words and the selected song. Is this a problem with my install or a known bug? I had the same thing happen for both alpha 7 and alpha 8.
And lastly, when I go into full screen vis mode with music (press blue from the messed up Party Mode screen), I can't seem to get the text and album art to go away. I want to have *only* the visualization on the screen, no album name or text or anything. I have a plasma and don't want the shape of a CD cover burnt into my TV, hehe. Is it possible to have just the visualization? If so, how? I guess the text isn't that bad as long as it's not underlined or something (as long as no part of it is always there) but the album cover never moves so I need to get rid of that.
Thanks,
Nic
Mr. Polite
2008-01-25, 20:02
love the skin, i had the missus test it out last night and its almost living room ready. i know that i can change the names of the menu items, but i feel its a bit hackney to do so when you have already set up a great menu system. would it be possible for you to add the entries 'LIVE TV', and 'MY SHOWS' to the options menu?
it can remain hidden until checked much like 'CLIPS' and 'WEATHER' do now.
NotShorty
2008-01-26, 01:39
As for all this view stuff, is this what you're talking about?
Yep, love it! :D
I'd love to see a poster wall exactly like this for Movies. I know I said I like the poster wall in mod v7, but now that I think about it, I'd really like to see the posters only. Movie info (rating, plot summary, etc.) would only pop up when I press the "info" button on my remote...
I like the idea of adding views as mods, while only keeping a few views in official builds. Is there a wiki page or anything about how to edit the individual views manually? If not, no worries. I have a test I should be studying for anyway ;)
NS
Can we look forward to an update this weekend?
FYI, I keep getting a 404 error on the aeonismine webpage whenever i try to go to the download of aeon or the mods page. I'll see if there's another link to a current download somewhere in this thread, but i thought you should know it's not working. :(
smcnally75
2008-01-26, 14:38
Can we look forward to an update this weekend?
:nod:That would be awesome!:nod:
FYI, I keep getting a 404 error on the aeonismine webpage whenever i try to go to the download of aeon or the mods page. I'll see if there's another link to a current download somewhere in this thread, but i thought you should know it's not working. :(
He already told me a few pages back that the links where only "placeholders". The website is not officially up yet! That is why. Patience my friend...
Nuka1195
2008-01-26, 16:15
OT:
djh, or anybody. I have a non XBMC project. (A control panel for an arcade cabinet. For the artwork i want to border the buttons and joysticks with a border similar to your frame when a dvd cover is zoomed.
Could you explain how to do that in photoshop, or if you have a style would you share?
I just can't get it right.
Thank you
He already told me a few pages back that the links where only "placeholders". The website is not officially up yet! That is why. Patience my friend...okay thanks.
I don't suppose you have a link to the current build do you?
just to save me looking through 104 pages of posts. :)
okay thanks.
I don't suppose you have a link to the current build do you?
just to save me looking through 104 pages of posts. :)
The 1st post...
:)
All the backdrop, mod and release downloads will be handled by the website from this evening. I'll also be wiping all the screenshots and files from my old server. If you head over there now, you'll notice that the background pages are all up and running.
Before you say something about there being no "backpacks" anymore, bear in mind that they, together with the skin itself, were consuming over 10gb of bandwidth a day. That's why you can now download each wallpaper separately, which at least gives you a complete overview of what's available. It also means I can add new backdrops whenever I want to without waiting for that magic 100, so there are some backdrops there you haven't seen before.
http://www.aeonismine.com
New build this evening.
Internet Explorer users will have to excuse some initial weirdness with the site. Will be sorted soon.
NotShorty
2008-01-26, 19:59
Joy :d
The 1st post...
:)
aha, a cunning ply i see! ;)
Downloading Alpha9 right now. Thank you so much for all your efforts!
edwinmcdunlap
2008-01-27, 06:28
Does this support 480i?
ewequeone
2008-01-27, 07:25
love the new build, just one problem with it though. I've set all my background image folders but for TV Shows, on the home screen it's fine, but when I go into TV Shows it shows the Movies backgrounds.
Cheers,
Jason.
Thanks a lot for the updates and new background pictures.:)
djh,
Are you planning to add the views from skunkm0nkee's mod...
- created Episode Info view for TV Shows (shows list of episodes for a TV show with large images and info for the selected item)
- created Movie Info view for Movies (shows list of movies with large poster and info for selected item)
- created new Album view which contains a tiled panel of album covers
- created Artist view which shows large album covers and names
- created List Info view for music which is based on the djh's List view but also displays the album cover
... to me these are more useful then most of the "icon" views and such that spend a ton of screen space with empty space and large borders around the icons. When you have a lot of albums, movies, shows, etc... you want to cram a lot on screen so navigation is quick. Skunk's views did that and still made everything look great.
I posted the mods he made here (http://members.cox.net/livin/Xephyr_Mod7.zip)
skunkm0nkee
2008-01-27, 14:08
djh - great work on Aeon (it'll take me while to stop calling it Xephyr!) and I love the look of your site. It might be an idea to have a blog or news page on the site to allow people to see what changes are being made etc (now that alpha9 is out I'm not sure what the actual differences are between it and alpha8)
paperclipmonkey
2008-01-27, 14:24
Maybe a bit of RSS as well?
djh - great work on Aeon (it'll take me while to stop calling it Xephyr!) and I love the look of your site. It might be an idea to have a blog or news page on the site to allow people to see what changes are being made etc (now that alpha9 is out I'm not sure what the actual differences are between it and alpha8)
Neither am I, tbh. :eek: Left it a bit late for a changelog.
I'm uploading a set of PSD documents and textures to the site now - for anyone who feels like a spot of modding. They're a personal resource and hardly intended for user-friendliness, but hopefully someone'll get some use out of them.
Nuka1195
2008-01-27, 17:37
Thank you for the psd's, just what i needed.
This is a very nice skin. The weather window is perfect.
NotShorty
2008-01-27, 20:19
AEON [ALPHA] (formally "Xephyr"): Skin Release Thread
*Supposed to say "formerly" in title of this thread?
*No "select Weather background folder" option in Aeon settings?
*I just copied into \skins\Aeon\ folder. \skins\Xephyr\ is still there. Can I just delete it, and either way should I leave guisettings.xml alone or are there some Xephyr lines that can be deleted for the sake of cleanliness?
The build is nice and clean. Love the psd pack download, love the idea of user mods section! Thanks as usual :cool:
NS
djh_
I still have the same problems with alpha9 as I had with the previous ones:
- performance starts to drop a few seconds after using the skin, and most of the times it's impossible to watch a video. This is much more frequent when using slideshow backgrounds.
I'm tryed running this skin ( alpha 9 ) on three different xbox's two with 1080i output and one with 720p and it's the same thing on the three. Using latest T3CH release ( fresh install ).
- all videos are sourced from samba shares.
I hope that you can try the skin on you xbox and try to reproduce the problem ( not hard at all :( )
I would also like to ask if there is really someone besides me trying this skin on 720p or 1080i on a xbox, with movies on samba shares, because I find it hard to belive that I'm the only one with problems!
thanks
smcnally75
2008-01-27, 20:39
I would also like to ask if there is really someone besides me trying this skin on 720p or 1080i on a xbox, with movies on samba shares, because I find it hard to belive that I'm the only one with problems!
thanks
I'm running this on my xbox with the latest t3ch build and stream all my movies off of an smb share on a NAS and my movies stream totally fine. I watched a few TV episodes and 2 movies today with not one stutter. I have it set to output my movies at 720p and my skin is set to 720p.
Competes2win
2008-01-27, 20:43
djh_
I still have the same problems with alpha9 as I had with the previous ones:
- performance starts to drop a few seconds after using the skin, and most of the times it's impossible to watch a video. This is much more frequent when using slideshow backgrounds.
I'm tryed running this skin ( alpha 9 ) on three different xbox's two with 1080i output and one with 720p and it's the same thing on the three. Using latest T3CH release ( fresh install ).
- all videos are sourced from samba shares.
I hope that you can try the skin on you xbox and try to reproduce the problem ( not hard at all :( )
I would also like to ask if there is really someone besides me trying this skin on 720p or 1080i on a xbox, with movies on samba shares, because I find it hard to belive that I'm the only one with problems!
thanks
I use this skin on an xbox running on 720p and don't have these same problems. I don't use samba shares. However, I do stream the majority of my tv sources through UPNP.... also my connection is wired which in my experience is much more reliable than streaming media wirelessly. Currently my xbox has a 128mb ram upgrade but before I got this I still did not have any of the current issues you are describing... that said every once in a while a file would stutter and be unplayable, this skin is the only one with this problem, but pushing "b" and starting the file over always fixes the problem.
that said, I too have a problem that no one else has and that's with the episode views, the icons just dissapear when they are the point of focus. After re-deleting the guisettings the problem gets solved for a short while but then something must happen with my subsequent changes to the skin settings....
Anyhow great work djh, it is my default skin and I love it to death. Please keep up the good work.
ewaterke
2008-01-27, 22:10
It seems that the "selected" icon disapears when the setting are set to "keep episode ratio" ON. If you don't select this option, the selected icon appears. (If this make sense).
That certainly makes sense: I've been neglecting that feature for a while.
Does the newest alpha have progress windows for the imdb/tvdb scanning process yet ? Today I wanted to update my library with some new tv show episodes, and my XBMC seemed to just hang, there was no progress window for the scan. Is that a known issue, or a misconfiguration/bug on my behalf ?
And a question regarding the osd while watching movies - when I use the remote to skip ahead or backwards, the osd does not show up to show me the progress of the movie, or the position i skipped to - is that by design ?
It's not been added yet.
Great update - everything feels smoother.
djh - great work on Aeon (it'll take me while to stop calling it Xephyr!) and I love the look of your site. It might be an idea to have a blog or news page on the site to allow people to see what changes are being made etc (now that alpha9 is out I'm not sure what the actual differences are between it and alpha8)
Skunk,
Are you planning on porting the mods you did to the new version and/or working with djh to integrate them - my preference :cool:
Rand Al Thor
2008-01-28, 01:39
I must agree with Affini here. The tv info view is my default at the episode level and the movie info view is my default for movies. I use an assortment of your music views as well. I have spent quite a bit of time getting these views to work with the newer versions of xephyr (aeon) but i am no skinner. I have a fairly recent version working to my liking right now. It took some tinkering (copying and pasting, messing with fonts etc), however i can't get DJH's beautiful new weather screen working in my mangled version of the skin.
It would be great to be able to have a vast number of views available and then be able to choose which ones would appear as choices in each window. Just my 2 cents. Cheers.
Right. I have an idea.
I can't do too many view types at once because it's just too awkward for the user... but I can make one view type do two different things. So rather than have two entirely different TV Info views, for instance, have two different versions of the same one which you can switch between in the Custom menu.
Here's my proposal. Given the support you guys have given throughout this whole thing, and how vocal you've been regarding these mod views, it seems only right that something comes of it. So get together, draw up one alternative version of the views you have issues with (just concepts, no code required) and give me a rough idea of what should be shown, where and with what animations.
Then, when I have something substantial, it's yours. I'll make it fit with the rest of the interface and give you the option to switch. It'll bloat the XML, sure, but so long as neither performance or usability suffers it's no problem. So hop to it. :grin:
With the posted PSD I mocked up something I'd like everyone's opinion on...
I like seeing a shortened time/date in the upper right corner and the weather in the lower left corner on the home screen.
If everyone likes this example maybe djh will take the images I made for it and code up the back-end... otherwise I will have to resort to hacking up the code myself, and I'm not sure anyone wants to see that mess! :shocked:
What do you think of this example...
http://members.cox.net/livin/home_info.jpg
Rand Al Thor
2008-01-28, 03:47
@ Djh
Personally the views that I feel are "must haves" would be the tv info/ movie info views and if you can work in the tiled movie view i would be totally content. I know you have said you are going to add more music views so I'm not sure what you have planned there. However, all of the music views are quite nice as well.
In case you have not seen tvinfo/movie info view it could take the place of the icon info or list info. It is great for tv once your reach the individual episode level. The episodes are listed on the left had side of the screen as you currently have, however the episode thumb appears on the right hand side filling the shaded area. Then, after a few moments the thumb shrinks down to a reasonable size (still on the right hand side) and reveals the episode information. The thing i love about this setup is you get large images (for a moment) and full episode info all in one view. The only difference between the tv info and movie info view is that the text for tv info leaves room for the series banner. Movie info works the same way but the info covers all of the empty space on the right hand side.
The tiled view is quite nice as well. If you could figure out a way to make the Videowall function similarly to the tiled view i think it would be more usable on regular basis. As it is the "WOW" factor far outweighs the functionality.
Lastly, I think you have mentioned that you are working on an info screen. Even though you can fit quite a bit of information on the main screen, views like the movie wall and the tiledview would definitely benefit from having a dedicated info screen that can be called when needed. This would also open up the possibility to have a coverflow view like XTV for those of us that love big hi def images. Cheers and thanks for all the hard work.
jmarshall
2008-01-28, 04:41
One thing to consider (just going by what I've read - I have not actually played with these info views):
Anything that you have to pause on during browsing to get the information you want to see is a bad design. If you are not sure which episode to watch, the thumb for the episode is probably not going to tell you an awful lot, whereas the plot outline will tell you what you need to know.
Cheers,
Jonathan
I like seeing a shortened time/date in the upper right corner and the weather in the lower left corner on the home screen.
but now playing.. & volume bar etc is on the bottom. the current layout is ok, but it be nice to have the icon showing too.
but now playing.. & volume bar etc is on the bottom. the current layout is ok, but it be nice to have the icon showing too.
my proposal does not interfere with anything on the current interface... most items like Now Playing and Volume are on the left side or center.
skunkm0nkee
2008-01-28, 13:54
Skunk,
Are you planning on porting the mods you did to the new version and/or working with djh to integrate them - my preference :cool:
I'm not currently planning on doing any mods (I'm up to my eyeballs with coding the Fluid stuff at the moment anyway) but once djh has completed his vision for the skin I'll no doubt be checking it out and if there is some scope to add further views (and djh is happy with it) then I'd be happy to see what I can do.
Rand Al Thor
2008-01-28, 20:29
One thing to consider (just going by what I've read - I have not actually played with these info views):
Anything that you have to pause on during browsing to get the information you want to see is a bad design. If you are not sure which episode to watch, the thumb for the episode is probably not going to tell you an awful lot, whereas the plot outline will tell you what you need to know.
Cheers,
Jonathan
jmarshall you should check out the tv info view, I think you might like it. It only shows the enlarged image for a moment then zooms out revealing the episode info. I actually find that i makes finding episodes easier for me. If i am looking for a particular episode i usually recognize the screenshot first and having it large makes this visual identification much easier. Then, just to make sure, you can check the episode info. Then on the other hand if you are looking for an episode that you have not seen (obviously you could just switch to "unwatched") you can scroll through until you see a screenshot that you don't recognize, then read the episode info to be sure that you didn't just miss something. Long story short, it works very well for me. If you feel that image takes too long to zoom out you can always adjust the time and make it shrink faster. Personally I love large images, they look amazing on my 120' hd screen so I changed the values for movie info to wait even longer before zooming out. Obviously these are just personal preferences. Cheers.
I agree with Rand Al... the TV Info view is SWEET!
wow, now this is really beginning to be supernice... love the pictures views and movie views. But as music is the main thing for me i cant really see any updates theres.. Only one view in the music section still?? Or is something wrong at my box?
keep up the great work!
shanedoyle
2008-01-29, 12:57
Hi all - DJH thanks for the most recent update its fantastic.. Would like to see a couple of more music views as thats what I use the most. having said that the best things come to those who wait..!! Perhaps the TV INFO view could be replicated for music in library mode. Or reinstate some of the mods like the album wall.. Nice to have some variety
Fantastic update this time - I look forward to the next release.
Shane
the best things come to those who wait..
Couldn't have put it better myself. To those wondering about the lack of music views, they're next on my list. Once I've figured out how to do a fullscreen icon panel properly, that is.
Competes2win
2008-01-29, 22:55
Quick question, I was wondering what i would have to do in order to make the "clips" section link to my music videos in the video library. Thanks in advance.
Great skin.
Rand Al Thor
2008-01-29, 23:28
you can go into the custom skin options and there will be a section that lists all the main menu options and a corresponding target. Make sure to set music videos as a source then list its name in the clips target. I'm at work right now so i can't remember all the details but it is pretty easy to accomplish. Cheers.
Competes2win
2008-01-29, 23:43
well, by putting in the directory I can easily link to the folder where my music videos are stored, however I can't get it to link to my music videos portion of the library.
exxelent work praise thy.,
buthow can 1 change the background for the weather.
waiting in vain for a answer
thank you in advance
Couldn't have put it better myself. To those wondering about the lack of music views, they're next on my list. Once I've figured out how to do a fullscreen icon panel properly, that is.
exxelent work praise thy.,
but how can 1 change the background for the weather.
waiting in vain for a answer
thank you in advance
Competes2win
2008-01-30, 00:21
exxelent work praise thy.,
but how can 1 change the background for the weather.
waiting in vain for a answer
thank you in advance
you know you posted twice? you can't change the background for the weather as of now I don't think. at least not in the traditional way, perhaps though someone has a work around?
No need for a workaround - I'll just put the option in and release an interim build.
djh,
a few questions...
Can you make the text for the time/date and weather a bit larger?
Can you do a short version of the Date/Time? I'm pretty sure we already know what year it is ;)
What do you think about replacing the back timepanel with something like the one I created? I think it matches the glass theme better and also follows the other style cues you've built into the skin. I can provide the PSD if you want to use it. Here's the PNGs (http://members.cox.net/livin/homeInfoPanels.zip)
Can you add a Weather.Condition Image to the weather display? A layout like this is nice and really easy to read... <condition text> <temp> <image>
thanks... cannot wait to see the 'mod' views integrated!
This skin is so great now, cant wait until the new views for music are ready :)
A bit anoying that we cant go up or down on the posterwall view... i understand that those actions are linked to the upper menu atm, but this should be done in another way i thing so u can go up and down. Maybe this is already considered?
anyway..keep up the great work
one more thing... when i start it stand on adult as default.. is there a way to set it to what we want?
This skin is so great now, cant wait until the new views for music are ready :)
A bit anoying that we cant go up or down on the posterwall view... i understand that those actions are linked to the upper menu atm, but this should be done in another way i thing so u can go up and down. Maybe this is already considered?
anyway..keep up the great work
one more thing... when i start it stand on adult as default.. is there a way to set it to what we want?
PosterWall: Can't be done, sadly. The only possibility would be to use a fullscreen icon panel instead, which presents so many problems of its own that I've simply dropped the idea for now. Jezz X kindly offered one possible solution - to have the outer icons zoom inwards to avoid going off the screen - but it just wouldn't have worked with the frames and was clearly a concession to the limits of the control. Even if that had worked, you'd have still had empty space where the icons ran out (because the view doesn't wrap) and I'm not even sure it would have scrolled smoothly. So the end result would have been unacceptable, imo. Like I keep saying, however, if someone makes it a mod, I'll host it.
Adult: I can see that being a problem. :grin: Not much I can do about it, unfortunately. The skinning engine doesn't quite stretch to a completely user-definable Home page. Or if it does I'm not aware of it.
@ Affini: I won't be making any of those changes to the skin proper, though pack them together as a mod and I'll host them. Not sure how best to do that, mind - maybe just bung the altered XML into a zip file w/ instructions. Or, if you want insurance against the skin becoming incompatible, just describe the individual changes in a document. You could include any new graphics and just have ppl copy them to the textures folder - they can work outside of the usual .xpr file.
Ok... i hope u sort out some kind of poster view at a time... What about the other views for music? Coming soon ? having a party this weekend and wanna show the magic ;)
I'll drop in a generic Icon view and a variation of the PhotoWall - nothing enormously functional, but a bit of variety for the time being.
will this be a problem for the common user?
wont everyone have at least that many album to fill out the screen? Whats the point of having 4 albums.... then u can choose another view? this goes for the movies as well...
i want my poster view, but with scrolling up and down ;);)
and did u say there is no way to trigger the onfocus on homescreen to start on movies, instead of adult as it does now? change id or something?
XBLgamertag
2008-01-30, 18:54
Hi,
Hope it's not a daft question....
I switched to the PM3 skin to setup my three weather locations becuase I couldn't find where to set them in Aeon, but I can't find how to switch locations... Is it already possible or is it in todo list ? ;)
Cheers.
P.S Great skin :)
The only thing you can try is turning the other items on or off.
I only have Movies, TV Shows, Weather, Music and Pictures selected on mine and it defaults to TV Shows which is my most used anyway. If I add Games then it defaults to Movies, if I add Arcade it moves to the left again and defaults to Pictures. So try messing around with them.
Hi,
Hope it's not a daft question....
I switched to the PM3 skin to setup my three weather locations becuase I couldn't find where to set them in Aeon, but I can't find how to switch locations... Is it already possible or is it in todo list ? ;)
Cheers.
P.S Great skin :)
To-do list.
Though a few of you might appreciate this:
http://www.aeonismine.com/downloads/misc/aeonmusic.zip
Again, it's an Ogg Theora file so you might need to download codecs.
To change the default home menu button, you need to rearrange the items in the homescrollers.xml file (wraplist, id=300) The content items are right below the focusedlayout section. The 4th visible item listed will be the default focused item.
Sorry, I think it's the 3rd visible item that will be the default. But regardless, moving items up/down in the list (without changing ID#s) is the way I changed the default.
http://www.aeonismine.com/downloads/misc/aeonmusic.zip
so.. did you find the album youre looking for at the end? :rofl:
shanedoyle
2008-01-31, 10:04
DJH thats fantastic view.. Lookin forward to it
Thanks
S
Rand Al Thor
2008-01-31, 17:37
That view does look great. Hopefully that is what you were hoping for. Have you tried make the border space around the images black? Or even transparent if that is possible? Just some suggestions.
ewaterke
2008-01-31, 20:01
I've got a small problem with the last built:
When I enter a view example TV show, the focuss is set in the MENU and not on the icones (I have then to first exit the menu).
This can cause some problems for my kids.
Is there anything I should do to solve this ,
Thanks,
Eric
Stingray
2008-02-01, 01:15
I was soo sad about the media center on the X360 :no:.
When I visit a friend of mine and saw the xbmc media center with the AEON skin, I was just a little kid. So I get rid of the X360 and bought a xbox.
All installed and AEON really really looks great :grin:.
I've only got one problem. When I put some music albums to the playlist and go to the playlist, all I see is a black screen with only the playing song highlighted. I can scroll down but the only thing I see is one song highlighted.
Is this something you're working on (I couldn't find it in this thread,I'm a newby, so maybey I looked over it) or can I change this somewhere?
Keep up the good work, it's really good :nod:
Yup, playlists and Party Mode are both still to do. Won't be long, though.
Here's a video update of the new PhotoWall. I like this view enough now for it to act as the single "tiled" view for all media windows: Movies, Pictures and Music. It's not quite there, obviously, but it's certainly on its way.
http://www.aeonismine.com/downloads/misc/aeon_photowall2.zip
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-01, 06:13
Nice ;) I'm assuming that the info button brings up the frame surrounding the image?
NotShorty
2008-02-01, 06:34
...When I enter a view...the focus is set in the MENU and not on the icons..
Have had this issue as well. From Movies, I default into "title." Removing default, and/or setting the default to something else (i.e. year) doesn't fix it. Not an earth-shattering problem, but a bit disorienting.
Music Wall in the video looks phenomenal :cool:
Nice ;) I'm assuming that the info button brings up the frame surrounding the image?
It comes up automatically if you hover for a couple of seconds.
Competes2win
2008-02-01, 07:56
Here's a video update of the new PhotoWall. I like this view enough now for it to act as the single "tiled" view for all media windows: Movies, Pictures and Music. It's not quite there, obviously, but it's certainly on its way.
http://www.aeonismine.com/downloads/misc/aeon_photowall2.zip
Congrats on getting these 'wall' views to work.
please keep up the good work, my favorite skin.
Hudson_Hawk04
2008-02-01, 17:26
I'm using AEON on my Hi-Def TV absolutely love it any idea when it will be available via SVN?
Another video, this time of the new PosterWall
http://www.aeonismine.com/downloads/misc/posterwall2.zip
Competes2win
2008-02-01, 21:48
Another video, this time of the new PosterWall
just release it already... lol j/k keep up the good work.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-01, 22:21
Wow, that looks very slick. Out of curiosity are you planning on implementing a "real" movie info screen that will provide cast info, full synopsis, taglines etc etc. I think that most of the views are great at providing the most pertinent information when browsing movies but from time to time it is nice to be able to get all the nitty gritty details of a movie on one screen. I could see my self using the wall views much more if that info was available through the info button. Just a thought. Cheers.
DJH,
Just a minor picky thing from me, I was wondering if it were possible to have an image for when the play disc option appears. I use my xbox a lot for dvd playback and unlike the rest of the menu options "play DVD" has no background image. Should be a quick fix if you can find a relevant image. :D
EvilDude
2008-02-02, 11:00
I've been reading and looking at screenshots for a while, but had been too lazy to copy it until today and I have to say.. I am completely blown away. The XBMC UI blew me away the first time, and the library is still awesome, but the way Xephyr wraps this all together is just amazing. Great work :)
This is definitely *the* skin for the future. For an alpha skin, there aren't many bugs, I have a couple of minor ones with overlapping labels (either unexpected cases, or for example, the movie title is too long), but nothing major at all.
A couple of things I'm wondering about:
- When browsing my movies, the only non thumbnail I have is for the "..". Is there anyway to either.. remove this (I can use back) or give the specific genres an image etc in library view?
- When I go back to the menu, is it possible to keep the last location.
- Possible to show a button for lyrics from full screen visualization view? All my music has lyrics and it would be cool :P
Thanks for the skin, it has made XBMC even more awesome, something I didn't really think was possible :P
agathorn
2008-02-02, 12:13
A couple of things I'm wondering about:
- When browsing my movies, the only non thumbnail I have is for the "..". Is there anyway to either.. remove this (I can use back)
Go into Settings and HIDE PARENT ITEMS. By default this is located in SETTINGS->APPEARANCE I think.
- When I go back to the menu, is it possible to keep the last location.
If you mean the home screen menu, this appears to be a bug in XBMC itself. I have the same issue with my skin. Sometimes it remembers it, sometimes it doesn't.
EvilDude
2008-02-02, 13:00
Ah thanks, I knew there was a hide parents somewhere, just forgot where completely a quick scan of the settings couldn't find it.
DJH,
Just a minor picky thing from me, I was wondering if it were possible to have an image for when the play disc option appears. I use my xbox a lot for dvd playback and unlike the rest of the menu options "play DVD" has no background image. Should be a quick fix if you can find a relevant image. :D
Believe it or not, I didn't even know this worked until the other day. I'd put the option in and it had never none anything, then suddenly it popped up. But yes, I'm thinking of something to put in there.
NotShorty
2008-02-02, 22:43
Is there any progress with removing the black bar on the home screen when RSS feeds are disabled?
Not that this feature should have any priority over anything else, but I'm just on XBOX v1 hardware and switching tabs is much snappier with RSS disabled...
Stingray
2008-02-02, 22:48
Yup, playlists and Party Mode are both still to do. Won't be long, though.
Looking forward to it! Don't forget to sleep :)
Is there any progress with removing the black bar on the home screen when RSS feeds are disabled?
Not that this feature should have any priority over anything else, but I'm just on XBOX v1 hardware and switching tabs is much snappier with RSS disabled...
I just did it! What are the chances?
http://www.nashwanpower.com/download/aeon/aeon_norss1.jpg
http://www.nashwanpower.com/download/aeon/aeon_norss2.jpg
Yay, I've been patiently waiting for that little extra, thanks.
Competes2win
2008-02-03, 01:01
man djh have you been holding out on us? where did those two backdrops come from? i want them. lol
keep up the good work.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-03, 01:21
That looks very nice ;) Can't wait for the new release!
love this skin, breathes new life into xbmc, i have it just about setup the way i like it after changin some font sizes and types. running on a 32" sony crt. looks cool.
lookin forward to the music views...
how about an rss feed to keep us up to date on the latest aeon releases??
NotShorty
2008-02-03, 05:28
I just did it! What are the chances?
Wonderful :D
I'm using this skin in XBMC for Linux (and I'm really liking it!). All works fine, but in some screens the brackground flickers. This happens with the "Music" screen and all the screens that have a green dot as background. Is there something I can do to fix this?
I'm not sure how to install the alternate Backpack. Can anyone tell me how to do this?
Thanks in advance
If this is the problem specifically affecting Music, Weather and Settings backdrops in the latest XBMC builds then I've nailed that one. For some reason, if you specify a folder to grab backdrops from (a "Settings" folder, for example), XBMC now confuses that with every other image you have that begins with "Settings...". So what you get is a rapid flicker between the background image and a whole load of other shit.
I just renamed the offending files in the end and the problem disappeared. I'm uploading a new build when the next public binaries are released - that'll fix it.
That's good to know because I've just given myself a crash course in Linux just to have this skin running on my PC. When I eventually got Ubuntu and XBMC running I had the exact same flickering problem and thought it must have been something I'd done wrong.
All I need to do now is get XBMC to use my sound card.
Hitcher,
Are all the XBMC functions working in Linux? I have a PC here with Vista on it just waiting for the Linux version to be "production ready".
XBMC on Linux has been reliable and almost fully-featured for a while now. You just have to accept that streaming DVD ISOs isn't always successful, there aren't really any music visualisations and there's no GPU acceleration, so you'll need a beefy CPU to get faultless HD playback.
I'd also recommend keeping all subsequent Linux discussion to the relevant forums. Not to be a killjoy, but this thread's hard enough to follow already.
djh,
Thanks for the info and I'm with you. Just thought I'd ask since I've had trouble getting decent responses in the Linux forum. I have an E6750 & 4GB RAM so I think the machine is ready!
I'll stick with XBOX until things get better on Linux.
Also, you may want to start a new thread once you decide AEON is "beta" to clean things up?
Also, you may want to start a new thread once you decide AEON is "beta" to clean things up?
Tell me about it.
If this is the problem specifically affecting Music, Weather and Settings backdrops in the latest XBMC builds then I've nailed that one. For some reason, if you specify a folder to grab backdrops from (a "Settings" folder, for example), XBMC now confuses that with every other image you have that begins with "Settings...". So what you get is a rapid flicker between the background image and a whole load of other shit.
I just renamed the offending files in the end and the problem disappeared. I'm uploading a new build when the next public binaries are released - that'll fix it.
Fantastic. Looking forward to it!
KingJames
2008-02-04, 05:34
Any Modders wo4rk8ing on a 4:3 version, or want to make a request for someone to do it
Any Modders wo4rk8ing on a 4:3 version, or want to make a request for someone to do it
Have you tried it to see what it looks like? I think XBMC will scale automatically... not that it will look perfect but it might work.
agathorn
2008-02-04, 13:04
Any Modders wo4rk8ing on a 4:3 version, or want to make a request for someone to do it
I started to, but stopped, and then that was when I started building fusion instead. Xephyr is an amazing skin, no doubt, but its designed for Widescreen. you can mod it to make it "work" in fullscreen, but it really doesn't do it justice because the entire design layout is really best for widescreen. You end up wasting so much space, it just isn't worth it.
This skin looks great!! Is it possible for me to fix the flickering problem with my downloaded (and "compiled") version, or do I need to wait for you to release a new one?
Thanks,
-elan
dukegrad
2008-02-06, 00:41
loving this skin!
someone else asked this way back when and i can't find the answer. how do you call up the favorites menu (like PMIII)? i use this all the time for internet radio stations i've bookmarked.
leigh_munro
2008-02-06, 00:47
Elan....I vote for this to be the default skin in the OSX version of XBMC....
This skin looks great!! Is it possible for me to fix the flickering problem with my downloaded (and "compiled") version, or do I need to wait for you to release a new one?
Thanks,
-elan
It might be as simple as using custom backdrops instead of the default ones - but don't quote me on that. The new build's ready to go but is also in limbo: XBMC's new unfocus anims don't like it and they're buggering all the Wall views, and the RSS bar won't toggle properly on older builds. So I fear you're stuck for the time being.
One rather awkward possibility: go into the backgrounds.xml file (or whatever it's called) and change the default image paths for the affected backdrops. Make sure the new names have nothing in common with any other image files (just give 'em mental names to be sure) and then pop some matching backdrops in the media folder. Quite a mission, mind.
someone else asked this way back when and i can't find the answer. how do you call up the favorites menu (like PMIII)? i use this all the time for internet radio stations i've bookmarked.
It's not something I've looked at so I doubt it works. I'll be mopping up stuff like that fairly shortly, though.
Elan....I vote for this to be the default skin in the OSX version of XBMC....
I don't think it should be the default skin for any version of XBMC, as much as I appreciate the gesture. This was never designed to be a skin for everyone, built to show off every feature of XBMC and operate at every resolution. And I'd never want it subjected to the kind of "scrutiny" (that's the polite word for it) endured by a default skin; were that the case, you'd have seen it paraded before the kids on Xbox-Scene a long time ago.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-06, 05:39
The new build's ready to go but is also in limbo:
You tease ;)
Looks like it's coming tonight -
:blush:
Oh God, it's all my fault. All of it. Every wasted word of this thread is my fault. I was putting the reversible attribute within the effect tags rather than the animation one. Now it works fine and there's clearly nothing whatsoever wrong with the unfocus code.
Apologies to everyone. I'll get a new build out this evening... and then shoot myself.
Yay! I hope it also fixes the flickering background issue under the OS X build / Linux.
Yay! I hope it also fixes the flickering background issue under the OS X build / Linux.
That was actually a bug in XBMC (Linux/OSX), not the skin. It is fixed as of r11529.
Build up, bichos!
http://www.aeonismine.com
NotShorty
2008-02-07, 04:16
Build up, bichos!
http://www.aeonismine.com
404 error, Broseph. Excited though :nod:
Give it another try - should be fine. There's a new, actually decent readme now as well.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-07, 04:30
nice ;) Thanks again.
Some quick notes about this version:
The RSS bar will only toggle properly on very new SVN builds of XBMC. I don't think the public binaries support it yet.
The new Wall views are a vast improvement over the old ones, but they're not quite there yet. There's a glitch where they don't quite update properly when scrolling left, and the default thumbnails are still placeholder.
The font resizing stuff could use a tweak.
The Music Roller now stays "free" all the time, the now playing strip along the bottom being used for all views.
And the usual alpha caveat applies - don't expect miracles.
djh,
your site is really slow on DL. May I suggest posting a torrent and allowing the entire user base to support the bandwidth needs collectively?
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-07, 04:39
Oh yeah, explorers, shoot em up, and Indiana jones backgrounds are not linked to the full size images. Just thought you might like to know ( I would also like the background ;) ).
Weird, it's usually quite fast. I'll keep an eye on it - might be just a momentary thing.
Oh yeah, explorers, shoot em up, and Indiana jones backgrounds are not linked to the full size images. Just thought you might like to know ( I would also like the background ;) ).
How about now?
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-07, 04:45
Sweet. I definitely owe you a pint ;)
NotShorty
2008-02-07, 04:48
djh,
your site is really slow on DL. May I suggest posting a torrent and allowing the entire user base to support the bandwidth needs collectively?
I didn't notice. Star Downloader (free) (http://www.stardownloader.com/) cut through it like butter.
djh first off I love the skins look but when I read this on the website AEON is a new interface for Xbox Media Center designed to give the media, not the interface, the spotlight It kind of makes me laugh because I see AEON as the complete opposite the actual bit with the media take up a half or under of the actual screen space (except the wall ones) just look at the posters view screenshot on the website the rest is the interface.
I will give alpha9 a go when it finishes downloading @ 20k a second :\
Heh - I keep meaning to rewrite that whole bit. When I said "media", I actually meant the backdrops as well, though it is confusing. In fact, I'll see to that now.
20kps!? Fucking 'ell. I'll keep an eye on that.
agathorn
2008-02-07, 05:43
Yeah seems to me that Aeon is designed the opposite. Its there to show off a beautiful UI, and be functional as well, but the focus is definitely on the UI and the UI's media rather than the actual media content.
Yeah that isn't confusing at all :p
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-07, 06:50
I am loving the wall views. They look amazing when you have a massive amount of high quality images. One suggestion. It seems to me (at least for movies) more intuitive to scroll more down than across. Does that make sense? So have a certain number of images across and have it scroll infinitely down. When browsing my natural instinct is to search down instead of across. Might be just me. Cheers and great work!
Love this skin, the new wall view is awesome, one slight problem though, which ive noticed in the last couple of build's, in file mode, when I choose to get the movie information, a box pop's up, allowing me to select the relevant info from imdb fine, but once past that, and the info is collected, theres no info screen displaying it, but theres a faint text on the screen, ive highlited it in the redbox. It's the only thing thats holding me back from using the skin 24/7, and would love to see it finished, if even just a basic blackbox untill skinned, in the next build.
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k132/mastersan/screenshot009.jpg
still no views for music section?
Bigfoot87
2008-02-07, 15:51
still no views for music section?
Yes there is, in the latest released version (Alpha 9A) you can also select the 'Photowall' view in the music section.
...in file mode, when I choose to get the movie information, a box pop's up, allowing me to select the relevant info from imdb fine, but once past that, and the info is collected, theres no info screen displaying it, but theres a faint text on the screen, ive highlited it in the redbox. It's the only thing thats holding me back from using the skin 24/7, and would love to see it finished, if even just a basic blackbox untill skinned, in the next build.
Because you have Brewster's Millions, Big Trouble and Clash Of The Titans in your movie collection, I shall make this a priority. To be honest, though, the context menus are in dire need of work to make them appropriate to each view. What you have at present is a single context popup that doesn't fit the Wall views properly, though it could do with just a little work. As for that movie information screen, what you've got there is the workaround solution I put in for changing thumbs and updating content; there is no Movie Information screen at present. You'll find that if you push back when that text appears, it returns you to the usual view.
For your benefit, I'll ignore Caravan Of Courage. :oo:
Yes there is, in the latest released version (Alpha 9A) you can also select the 'Photowall' view in the music section.
wooha! great!!!
jabba200
2008-02-07, 17:36
i have uploaded a torrent of Alpha 9a here: :;): (m/i/n/i/n/o/v/a/)
http://www.********.org/tor/1156215
djh_ if you have any objections i will remove it.
Looks really nice now without the RSS feed bar on screen - thanks.
RockDawg
2008-02-07, 23:59
i have uploaded a torrent of Alpha 9a here: :;): (m/i/n/i/n/o/v/a/)
http://www.********.org/tor/1156215
djh_ if you have any objections i will remove it.
I tried that, but it showed nobody seeding it.
NotShorty
2008-02-08, 05:22
One suggestion. It seems to me (at least for movies) more intuitive to scroll more down than across.
I second that. If there could be just enough posters to fill the width of the screen, with all additional posters displayed by "up and down" scrolling, I think the usability of the poster wall would be improved a lot. Ditto for Music's Album Wall.
Also, Album Wall is only accessible from the "files" view, not Library.
Man it's hard to offer constructive criticism without sounding like a whiner! :o
Don't get me wrong, the improvements in the Wall views from the previous build to this one are HUGE! It makes me even more excited about where this skin is headed! The disabled RSS bar is great too!
On another note, is anyone having problems with scraping Movies from imdb? I just installed the T3CH 1/27 build before the latest build of Aeon, and even switching to PMIII isn't helping. I'll post more details if anyone else is having probs...
NS
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-08, 05:45
@notshorty
I could be wrong but i think there are some known issues with builds older than a couple days. I'm running the linux build which i update daily so i personally am not having imdb issues.
@DJH
As mentioned before I think up and down scrolling would feel more natural for the wall views. I was wondering however about the panel list that Jezz-x had showed you in this thread. http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=30937
I actually really liked this layout because there were no borders. I read your replies but I still am not quite sure what it was about the view that you disliked? If your main concern is that there might not be enough items to fill the screen you would just have blank space right? I could live with a few blank spots. More incentive to add items to the library ;) Or is your concern more about your custom info overly not fitting properly? In a view like this i am more likely to just pick the movie by it's poster (or perhaps have just the name of the movie appear in the frame around the poster). If you can't decide on a movie via the image I think a dedicated info screen with all the movie details would be a great addition. These are all just personal opinions that seem intuitive from where i am sitting ;) Obviously it is your call in the end. Cheers m8 and thanks again!
Were it possible to use conditional visibility on the wraplists and icon panels, I'd happily include vertical/horizontal scolling as an option. I'd rather not have it exclusively vertical, however, as it clashes with the general theme. I'll give it a try, but the last time I meddled with view type visibility on that scale it ended in tears.
Apologies for the absence of Music Wall from the Library - that was an oversight.
As for the scrapers, I just did a Movies update and it went fine, though I have had problems recently.
@ Rand Al Thor: My issue with Jezz's view, appreciated as it was, is that it didn't tally with my ideal wall view. A wall view, imo, needs icons that bleed off the sides to indicate where there's more to see. Having the icons zoom inwards like that felt claustrophobic, and like the result of a technical limitation. And it wouldn't have worked with framed icons - the zoomed position would have deviated too much from the unfocused icon.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-08, 06:06
hmm, could you make a template (ie fake half posters) that would go around the actual movies panel? It would give the illusion that there is more going on outside of the screen and eliminate the dead space borders. Not sure if it would work.
Wouldn't work for two reasons:
1) You can't use offsets relative to the entire icon panel, only to the focused object. So your fake icons would keep changing as you moved round the panel.
2) Getting the fake icons to scoll in sync with the panel would be an absolute nightmare - and I'm not even sure it would work anyway. You could leave them as a static frame but it'd look like dogshit.
I'm actually quite happy with the empty space around the panel - I think the textured background goes quite nicely with the icons. I do want to introduce a drop shadow at some point, but getting it right is trickier than it looks.
EDIT: And a third reason: having fake icons round the sides would be massively confusing for the user. The icon panel can't scroll indefinitely in all directions, so at some point you're going to try selecting a icon and realise it's a fake.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-08, 07:34
at some point you're going to try selecting a icon and realise it's a fake.
Yeah, i could see my girlfriend getting pissed when she realized i didn't actually own a copy of the English Patient ;) It was just a thought. I love the way the wall views look when i am right in the middle of my movies collection but once i reach the borders it seems odd. Oh well, you are the skinning genius and I'm sure whatever you come up with will be amazing. Cheers.
Hmmm, something is wrong with the music views.. installed a new build of xbmc and a new alpha release of AEON... in file view i have list and wall, but in library (that i belive everyone use) i have only list view, and the background dissapears..anyone else has theese probs????
maybe u havent done anything for the library view in music yet, djh??
Anyone, this skin is so damn nice now... just this little thing :)
Hmmm, something is wrong with the music views.. installed a new build of xbmc and a new alpha release of AEON... in file view i have list and wall, but in library (that i belive everyone use) i have only list view, and the background dissapears..anyone else has theese probs????
maybe u havent done anything for the library view in music yet, djh??
Also, Album Wall is only accessible from the "files" view, not Library.
Apologies for the absence of Music Wall from the Library - that was an oversight.
Back one page.
oooh, sorry... didnt see those posts.. Sorry :(
Any more views plannet for music?
agathorn
2008-02-08, 13:50
On another note, is anyone having problems with scraping Movies from imdb? I just installed the T3CH 1/27 build before the latest build of Aeon, and even switching to PMIII isn't helping. I'll post more details if anyone else is having probs...
NS
Known problem with that T3CH build. Either wait for the next build from him, or build your own from the latest SVN. There was a bug that got fixed like a day after the T3CH build.
jabba200
2008-02-08, 15:17
I tried that, but it showed nobody seeding it.
its shows nobody seeding it on m/nova, but right now theres 3 seeds and 1 peer connected.:nod:
I'm going to go along with what others have said. Great skin, my favorite by far. I do however have a problem with the wall view as do others. I do realize its a work in progress, if you have big changes to it that are already in progress then please ignore me.
I may be that I'm getting old and resistant to change but the thing just doesn't feel right. I can't get used to having scrolling work in multiple directions. The edges of it feel and look strange and when I do finally get to a edge I'm unsure if it should wrap or stop. I'd like to echo Rand's and NotShorty's request basically word for word, have it scroll one way and fill the screen with icons.
As mentioned before I think up and down scrolling would feel more natural for the wall views. I was wondering however about the panel list that Jezz-x had showed you in this thread. http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=30937
I second that. If there could be just enough posters to fill the width of the screen, with all additional posters displayed by "up and down" scrolling, I think the usability of the poster wall would be improved a lot. Ditto for Music's Album Wall.
I hate to admit it but I'm still using a old mod7 version as my primary because it has a multiple poster view that feels comfortable. I think the picture is from version 4 and has changed a bit since then but it is similar.
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8006/tiledmoviegw3.png
Thank you for all your hard work.
Jim G
Stingray
2008-02-08, 21:27
Hai there,
Why is the background of the rss feed completely gone? I thought it wouldn't be there when there where no feeds. Now when there are feeds and my background is a light one, i don't see any feeds at all??!!???
When I playing music and go back to the main-screen, the background picture (the sharp tranparent one) of the music info is doubled.
Sorry if it sounds like complaining, only reporting things :grin:
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-08, 22:25
Did you completely remove all of your previous Aeon settings? I would go into guisettings.xml and delete every line for Aeon. I know you can use the reset button in the aeon settings menu but hey im old school ;)
The view Jim G posted is my favorite too... I still use the old Mod7 due to the views that Alpha9 do not have.
Hai there,
Why is the background of the rss feed completely gone? I thought it wouldn't be there when there where no feeds. Now when there are feeds and my background is a light one, i don't see any feeds at all??!!???
When I playing music and go back to the main-screen, the background picture (the sharp tranparent one) of the music info is doubled.
Sorry if it sounds like complaining, only reporting things :grin:
Sounds to me like you're not using a recent enough XBMC build. Like I advised before, the RSS on/off functionality requires a *very* new SVN build - newer than even the public binaries. The problem you're describing certainly isn't familiar to me.
NotShorty
2008-02-09, 00:57
Known problem with that T3CH build. Either wait for the next build from him, or build your own from the latest SVN. There was a bug that got fixed like a day after the T3CH build.
Thanks, agathorn!
Left my 1/27/08 build installed, overwrote the imdb.xml file with the one from the 1/06/08 build (located in /E/dashboard/system/scrapers/video/) seems to be working fine so far...
*end threadjack*
Regarding this persistent issue of the mod view, I've reached a point where I don't have time to both cater to its fans and ensure the completion of the skin. As such, I can only recommend that someone takes my mod proposal on board and develops this, with the help of the Aeon PSDs, into something you want to use. The problem with the View system in XBMC is that you can't selectively deactivate certain views, so the more views a skin has, the more you have to negotiate while using it.
As such, I'm going to be quite strict as to what Aeon does and doesn't do. So expect the current Wall views to become the norm, and the pairing of Wall and List to define how the music section works. If that inspires you to want or create something different then the mod section of the website is your friend. Sorry if this sounds like a step down from what I proposed recently, but the last thing I want is to bloat the skin with fan requests and experiments. That could change, of course, when the ability to cherry-pick views becomes available.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-09, 02:48
It is not overly difficult to edit myvideonav.xml to remove or add views with a line like <include>SSMovieInfo</include>. I personally removed a few views that I didn't use so i wouldn't scroll through them needlessly.
Would you be opposed to adding multiple/many views but only releasing Aeon with your select views in place in the .xml files. Then if someone wanted to use a different view or remove views that would not get used they would be available with minimal effort.
If i understand you right, you were saying that it would be impossible to make activating/deactivating certain views through the gui. Also you didn't want to have people wade through 50 different views if they really only need 1 or 2. I think having the views available but not "activated" might address these issues.
I would be more than happy to put together a little tutorial for the mod page to explain how to add or remove a view from the .xml of your choice. I have been "modding" the newer builds of Aeon to keep my favorite views and would be more than happy to share what i have. However, i am no skinner so they are quite a mess.
Long story short, would you be opposed to something like this?
Regarding this persistent issue of the mod view, I've reached a point where I don't have time to both cater to its fans and ensure the completion of the skin. As such, I can only recommend that someone takes my mod proposal on board and develops this, with the help of the Aeon PSDs, into something you want to use. The problem with the View system in XBMC is that you can't selectively deactivate certain views, so the more views a skin has, the more you have to negotiate while using it.
As such, I'm going to be quite strict as to what Aeon does and doesn't do. So expect the current Wall views to become the norm, and the pairing of Wall and List to define how the music section works. If that inspires you to want or create something different then the mod section of the website is your friend. Sorry if this sounds like a step down from what I proposed recently, but the last thing I want is to bloat the skin with fan requests and experiments. That could change, of course, when the ability to cherry-pick views becomes available.
Thank you for taking the time to think about it. If anything I want to see your work finished and don't want a single view to stand in the way of that. I'll look forward to code changes that allow you to activate and deactivate views and hope that someone creates a mod for the view I want, or learn to do it myself in the meantime.
It is not overly difficult to edit myvideonav.xml to remove or add views with a line like <include>SSMovieInfo</include>. I personally removed a few views that I didn't use so i wouldn't scroll through them needlessly.
I would be more than happy to put together a little tutorial for the mod page to explain how to add or remove a view from the .xml of your choice. I have been "modding" the newer builds of Aeon to keep my favorite views and would be more than happy to share what i have. However, i am no skinner so they are quite a mess.
Any chance you could explain how to mod the current build to make the mod view I posted over work? I know I would love it, probably a few others would as well.
Thanks again,
Jim G
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-09, 03:29
Explaining how to add a view that is not currently a part of the skin is a little more difficult. I accomplished most of mine through cut and paste of the mods and the new builds of aeon. This required lots of trial and error (on my part) and basically adding the view from the mod to the commoncontent.xml
What i was referring to in my previous post is that if many views were added to the commoncontent.xml from the get go you could pick and choose which views appear on your screen as options by editing the myvideonav.xml. This process is much easier. 1 line changed adds a view or removes the view. I think that changing 1 line of code is something that the average user would be able to do without too much trouble.
However we would need the commoncontent.xml to contain these views for this method of customization to work. Cheers.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-09, 04:20
@ Jimg
Just to illustrate what i mean here is the files to add the view you liked. All you have to do is replace the existing files when it asks. The hard part was editing the commoncontent.xml because some of the mods have includes for things that no longer exist. The easy part was adding the view to your list of views. I changed one line in myvideonav.xml to remove one of the icon views and add your tiled view. Here is the link
http://rapidshare.com/files/90296124/Aeon.rar.html
PS: I did this mod just to show how it works. I do not take requests so don't ask for any other views. If what i have been discussing does happen it will be through cooperation with djh on which of the extra views get incorporated to ensure that they all work with the official builds. Cheers.
@ Rand, djh, JM, jezz-x, etc...
What the massive # of skin mod requests highlight is something I've been concerned with for 4 years... difficulty of customizing a skin... even to a small extent.
The complexity of skinning is 10x what it was 3-4 years ago when made mods to PMIII and was asking JM for an easy way to do this. I gave several suggestions/methods (templates, overlays/layering, folder hierarchies, etc) of implementing an easy way to customize a skin without a complete edit/rewrite but they were all rejected. About a year after I stopped asking 'Includes' were added. While Includes introduce some code efficiency, on the flip side, it makes skins even more difficult to "follow".
Having a great skin like AEON brings back my wishes for an easier way to allow "non-expert skinners" that have an urge to customize a few parts of a skin without needing to constantly update the mod with every 'core' skin update and/or xbmc build change.
Until we get an addition to the skin engine to make mods easy create and maintain, people like djh will get many customization requests.
We'd have 100x or a 1000x more people moding skins and helping the community if it was easier to do so... and at the same time skinning would be easier.
AEON is really the greatest XBMC skin ever. Would it be possible to get it to run on Pixel Shader 2.0 hardware? The Mac Mini seems to be a very nice XBMC platform but it has the old GMA 950 chipset = can't run AEON :(
scruffbast
2008-02-09, 17:21
djh,
Since I've only got a tiddly lilttle 60GB HD, I keep my DVDRips on disc and play them through XBMC. Some discs have 6 films on them others have just 3.
Would it be possible to get the focus working right for as little as 6 or 3 items / Currently, it only works with 7 :)
I don't know what your priorities are with the next builds, but would you consider changing the now playing info for movies to that nice tidy strip from one of the mods (strip across the bottom, title on the left, cover on the right)? A seek bar in this would be great too. I use the filemanager a lot too. Could we have the black box return for behind the actions?
Thanks again.
In the meantime, does anyone have a fix for the music library poster wall?
The <7 objects issue 'aint mine, unfortunately, but XBMC's. Or so jm suggested last time I mentioned it. Funny thing is that I'm sure Aeon didn't have the problem at one point. Maybe someone can shed some extra light on it...
I am with affinis saying. Skinning has gone way to pro.
I did Skins back then for some weird AR applications on the Gizmondo, Winamp, some emulators and so on. A "little" xml besides the GFX would be ok, but the way its now its really too bloated for "drive-by skinners".
Aeon has really a nearly nonexistant playlistmanager atm, which sucks for my Parties. And because i am too stupid/XMLnoobish/lazy, i have to ask:
Dear djh, are playlists on the upper or lower end of your priority-list?
On the upside, the "too-much-code-issue" lets us appreciate your work more :D
i am so NOT changing to a different mediasoftware just for HD b/c i enjoy Aeon that much!
i am so NOT changing to a different mediasoftware just for HD
Switch to different media hardware instead. :;):
Stingray
2008-02-10, 14:32
Sounds to me like you're not using a recent enough XBMC build. Like I advised before, the RSS on/off functionality requires a *very* new SVN build - newer than even the public binaries. The problem you're describing certainly isn't familiar to me.
Replaced xbmc with the newest build (27-01-2008), the doubling of the (sharp) image on the back of the music info on the home menu is still there.
And the rss feed has still got no bar behind?
Have done a reset within Aeron, the doubling is still there, someone any suggestion left? ???
Changeset [11498] by jmarshallnz
added: system.getbool conditional for retrieval of gui settings.
That's the update that introduced RSS on/off functionality, dated 02/02/08. Any build dated prior to that won't do it.
NotShorty
2008-02-10, 19:08
...02/02/08. Any build dated prior to that won't do it.
Do you guys use a source for new builds other than T3CH? Apparently another revision (http://dn-0.com/xbmc-trac/browser/trunk/XBMC/system/scrapers/video/imdb.xml?rev=11601) fixed the imdb scraper issue (which has been anticipated for a while due to imdb's planned changes).
I'd happily compile my own, except for my lack of the XDK :sniffle:
NS
p.s. Hopefully this post isn't perceived as too off-topic. As Aeon progresses, access to the latest XBMC build will become more of an issue, especially with T3CH announcing that he'll only compile every 2 weeks instead of every week.
Stingray
2008-02-10, 22:33
Replaced xbmc with the newest build (27-01-2008), the doubling of the (sharp) image on the back of the music info on the home menu is still there.
And the rss feed has still got no bar behind?
Have done a reset within Aeron, the doubling is still there, someone any suggestion left? ???
:nod: DJH, jou were right, I hadn't the latest build (I thought I had). The problems mentioned earlier are gone an everything works fine now. Seems to work quicker with refreshing the backgrounds. :grin:
If the background of the playlist is working I'm very very happy with this amazing skin. Thnx in advanced!!! :rofl:
jmarshall
2008-02-11, 00:51
Apologies for intruding, but as it has been brought up by two different posters:
The current XML skinning engine that we has come about almost entirely at the request of those doing the skinning.
Yes, it is complicated, and sometimes unweildy. It is also very powerful. It is very difficult to have both simplicity and power in the same "language".
I'm always welcome to suggestions - ask any skinner listed in the credits of any skin.
I however am NOT welcome to suggestions to "make it simpler" without any real information as to HOW it could be made simpler, with concrete examples in written XML that would work in a real skin.
Feel free to post suggestions in another thread.
Cheers,
Jonathan
agathorn
2008-02-11, 02:30
Apologies for intruding, but as it has been brought up by two different posters:
The current XML skinning engine that we has come about almost entirely at the request of those doing the skinning.
Yes, it is complicated, and sometimes unweildy. It is also very powerful. It is very difficult to have both simplicity and power in the same "language".
I'm always welcome to suggestions - ask any skinner listed in the credits of any skin.
I however am NOT welcome to suggestions to "make it simpler" without any real information as to HOW it could be made simpler, with concrete examples in written XML that would work in a real skin.
Feel free to post suggestions in another thread.
Cheers,
Jonathan
The current system of includes works just fine guys IMHO.
You want to put your own custom views in AEON? Simply MOD the views in the include that AEON uses.
I however am NOT welcome to suggestions to "make it simpler" without any real information as to HOW it could be made simpler, with concrete examples in written XML that would work in a real skin.
Feel free to post suggestions in another thread.
Cheers,
Jonathan
I have not mod'd a skin since early PMIII (I did many XML & PSD mods then) days and no longer have time to do anything extensive but I'd like to mod AEON though it is not easy with it so complex.
I have made several specific suggestions (page templates/overlays/layering - suggested a year before Includes were put in, priority page loading via folder hierarchies, etc) over the past few years and they have been ignored seemingly since I was not in the in-crowd of skinners.
I may not be an expert skinner or coder but my career is designing technical work flows, IT systems, and directing developers of Fortune 100 companies and making them more efficient... I create architecture & do code flow reviews. My suggestions are not things I just pull out of the air... they have been implemented in many systems both commercial and private.
There are some ways to make things easier for mod'rs and still keep all the complexity for those that need it. Much of it already exists in the engine today... Includes, Control Groups, etc -- others could be added easily... priority page loading via folder hierarchies, Control Group substitution/override, etc
Given that power and complexity tend to be bedfellows when it comes to software design, I'd say your best bet of making XBMC skinning "easier" lies with the skinner rather than the engine. Good documentation (i.e. comments within and logical arrangement of the XML) would make any skin easier to get to grips with. Is mine a good example? No. But it can be given just a few hours work.
djh,
You are 100% correct... but my point was not to make creating a full skin easier. It was to make end-user mods easier by adding a few features to enable simple moding, not full skinning.
One example, from several:
Adding the ability to easily sub/replace code using Control Groups from a central location (User Data)... allow the user to "override" Control Groups within the XMLs and replace with their own, thus no need to actually change the original XMLs -- allows for skin and build updates without needing to redo the XMLs everytime - hunt search for code, etc. This would also make skin changes easier for pro skinners like you.
jmarshall
2008-02-11, 11:15
Skins change too much to make that particular suggestion feasible IMO - even if just simple things such as sizing or positions change it means the users "mod" needs redoing.
At any rate, the reason your suggestions have not been implemented is because none of the developers (me mainly in this respect) have seen enough benefit in said suggestions to warrant spending the many hours required to implement them. That does not mean they were completely ignored - I often spend several hours dwelling on (and discussing with others) ideas suggested for the skinning engine before deciding one way or the other.
Feel free to repost whatever suggestions and comments you have about the skin engine in a new thread - we have more developers at the moment willing to do a bit of UI engine work, so perhaps you may have better luck.
This thread is dedicated to commenting on Aeon.
I agree with djh regarding mods of the kind you are indicating: With a bit of documentation and some code shuffling (i.e. taking out the bits that users are likely to mod into separate, clearly labelled includes, and include documentation on to what bits to play with would help). This ofcourse is not something that djh needs to do - finishing the skin to his satisfaction is his priority - but it may be something that gets done at some point perhaps once the skin is somewhat finalized. Perhaps you could help djh in this regard by pointing out the bits that you would like to mod.
Cheers,
Jonathan
BritneysPAIRS
2008-02-11, 12:00
Johnathan has made a truely remarkable skin engine and in truth even today isnt being used 100percent, its so comprehensive. Complexed a little but not after a while but very flexible I for one would hate to see it dumbed down at the cost of features. My only suggestion would be to have something like a mods folder in the skin. If you had something named skin/mods/Icreatedthismod/pal16x9/home.xml it automatically add a setting to choose default or Icreatedthismod.. Then any files like the home.xml would override the orig file this could also include textures (it could even replace themes really as each texture package could be renamed texture.xpr and placed into mods/xxxx/media). If there was no file in the skin/mods/Icreatedthismod/ files it would fall back to skin/.
Cheers
skunkm0nkee
2008-02-11, 15:00
I have no real issues with the current skin engine (I can't compare it to how it easy it used to be to code/mod skins as I only started looking at it about 6 months ago) but one suggestion I would have if more skinners want to get involved is to badger a windows/linux application developer and get them to code a skinning application (something that simplifies the intracacies but still has the ability to allow the developer to get down to the nitty gritty code when required).
I would imagine the most difficult aspect of such an application would be to keep up to date with all the various tags and attributes and what they can do but that could be handled via the use of some sort of data dictionary (which would probably require Team XBMC input to keep that up to date).
I have thought about doing this in the past but don't currently have the time to put it into practice so if anyone else out there does have the time and the ability I'm sure it would be greatly recieved. :grin:
BritneysPAIRS,
You are describing the feature request I made call "priority page loading via folder hierarchies" -- User Data is the perfect place for it.
and jmarshall already told you it's a bad idea.
BritneysPAIRS
2008-02-12, 05:12
:) hi spiff whats up
Competes2win
2008-02-12, 06:17
Sorry to repeat a question but back a couple of pages Jazzen asked a few questions about the music views, one of his problems was the entire background panels and things in the music library disapearing, I have never had this problem until I just noticed it tonight. This part of his question was not addressed I don't believe.
I just reinstalled the skin and deleted my complete guisettings.xml, this did not fix the problem. Any ideas?
Stingray
2008-02-12, 10:17
Sorry to repeat a question but back a couple of pages Jazzen asked a few questions about the music views, one of his problems was the entire background panels and things in the music library disapearing, I have never had this problem until I just noticed it tonight. This part of his question was not addressed I don't believe.
I just reinstalled the skin and deleted my complete guisettings.xml, this did not fix the problem. Any ideas?
After I updated the Aeon skin to the last version I also had problems with images. Have you update your xbmc to a version later dan 2-2-2008? ???
After I updated the Aeon skin to the last version I also had problems with images. Have you update your xbmc to a version later dan 2-2-2008? ???
I have the newest tech, fresh install and i still have problems with the views in music/library view. Now i also have problems on the front page... when switching between music, movies, weather etc when playing music the viz i showing for about a second and dissapear again..
anyone else still have theese problems or is something really fucked up at my box?
elitegamer360
2008-02-12, 21:30
Thnx for the great skin djh, I've tried Alpha9a and the only thing that I did not like is the new PosterWall View, I found that the actual movement is not as smooth as the earlier one but thats not the reason behind me disliking it, its the overall view and the gaps that form all over the sides of the screen.
I know that you worked hard for it because people requested it but I hope that you can keep an option between the old PosterWall View and the new Posterwall view, for now I'm reverting back to Alpha9 :P .
BTW Thats just my veiw and people may disagree which is fine by me.
Thanks.
I have the newest tech, fresh install and i still have problems with the views in music/library view. Now i also have problems on the front page... when switching between music, movies, weather etc when playing music the viz i showing for about a second and dissapear again..
anyone else still have theese problems or is something really fucked up at my box?
Yep I have that problem since 9a, but I havent up'ed the latest t3ch so can't coment if there is any connection just yet.
Heres waiting for ver 10
Competes2win
2008-02-12, 23:11
I do have the latest tech, and my music library does not display any of the typical images (the panels and wotnot).
As for the other "issue" regarding the visualization flashing, that has always happened to me even with older builds. I was always under the impression that for some reason the visualization would be playing in the background (taking up lots of cpu in the process) and would just flash itself between the two images. but hey, what do I know about skinning.
The flickering visualisation thing's a bug - I only noticed it myself the other day as I haven't been rigorously testing. You know there's an option to turn it permanently on or off though, right?
Much the same's true of the music library - I haven't tested it much so it's probably replete with issues.
As for the Wall views, the gap down the left hand side when scrolling backwards is a bug. I'm not sure how to fix that one yet. As for the gaps top and bottom, you (the vocal minority here, that is) asked for better navigation so that's what you got. And the original Walls were horrible code-wise - loads of fudged animations and hacks. So there'll be no return to those, I'm afraid. The jerky scrolling is an inherent issue with the icon panels which I assume comes down to memory constrains and caching. Maybe something can be done for Linux owners to cache the whole lot to RAM, not that I know much about XBMC requirements. I doubt the 64mb RAM of Xbox would support such an option.
For those of you wanting to use 480p resolution, replace the Font.xml in the PAL16x9 folder with this. It isn't 100% perfect, but it's close. There's a few overlapping text areas on the movie information screen and other places, but it's the best I could do without touching the other files.
<fonts>
<fontset id="Xephyr" unicode="true">
<font>
<name>menufont</name>
<filename>xephyr.ttf</filename>
<size>45</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>weatherfont</name>
<filename>xephyr.ttf</filename>
<size>48</size>
<shadow>dF000000</shadow>
</font>
<font>
<name>sysinfo</name>
<filename>ocr.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
<shadow>FF000000</shadow>
</font>
<font>
<name>osdsmall</name>
<filename>ocr.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
<shadow>FF000000</shadow>
</font>
<font>
<name>osdbig</name>
<filename>ocr.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
<shadow>FF000000</shadow>
</font>
<font>
<name>osdfont</name>
<filename>xephyr.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>dropdown</name>
<filename>frutiger.ttf</filename>
<size>16</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>dropdowns</name>
<filename>frutiger.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
<shadow>FF000000</shadow>
</font>
<font>
<name>fruity21</name>
<filename>frutiger.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>fruity24</name>
<filename>frutiger.ttf</filename>
<size>18</size>
</font>
<font>
<name>dropdownbig</name>
<filename>frutiger.ttf</filename>
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Rand Al Thor
2008-02-13, 04:09
For anyone interested. I have a mod that should be ready in the next couple of days. It includes many of the views from the old mods and an alternate wall view that i have been working on. There are also a few small changes. Airdate is working now for shows as is total episode count. I widened the text boxes in a few of the views to get more plot summary on the screen at one time etc. I will post some screenshots later. Cheers for now.
Airdate is working now for shows as is total episode count.
ohh i so want that. :nod:
For anyone interested. I have a mod that should be ready in the next couple of days. It includes many of the views from the old mods and an alternate wall view that i have been working on. There are also a few small changes. Airdate is working now for shows as is total episode count. I widened the text boxes in a few of the views to get more plot summary on the screen at one time etc. I will post some screenshots later. Cheers for now.
Rand,
That is great... I love the mod views.
also, what do you think about adding a weather.conditions image to the weather info in the upper right side. I've been working on code but cannot get it to work. It would be great if you could give it a shot?
non-working code here in thread here (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31136)
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-13, 09:44
@affini
Sure I'll take a look at it when i get a chance. I can't promise anything though. I am definitely not a skinner.
Changes:
Added "zoom" view for movies and tvshow episodes
Added Tiled view for library and files view
Fixed aired date and total episode #'s in tv views
Expanded text box for plot summaries
Created 2 new wall views (experimental right now)
Here is the Zoom view before and after the zoom effect.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4285/screenshot006uz7.th.bmp (http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot006uz7.bmp)
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/9754/screenshot000im6.th.bmp (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot000im6.bmp)
Here are the tile views.
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/4725/screenshot002ev5.th.png (http://img81.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot002ev5.png)
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4950/screenshot003kw5.th.bmp (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot003kw5.bmp)
And finally here are the wall views i have been working on. Some feedback would be great on these views.
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/2926/screenshot000rz6.th.bmp (http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot000rz6.bmp)
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/8753/screenshot005ig7.th.png (http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot005ig7.png)
Still to do:
Create a dedicated video info screen
Create a view better suited for browsing tv show seasons
Fix episode view to include tvshow banner instead of season thumb when at the episode level.
Lastly, this mod is views that I personally like which is the only reason I have spent the time doing this. I am willing to share with the community when it is finished but as I said before I will not take requests. If you can help with code am always looking for help as I am no skinner. Cheers.
Thanks to DJH for the awesome skin and skunkeemonkey for almost all the views in this mod!
@Rand, can you point me which file and line should i edit to get Airdate & episode count to showup. i try to do the rest myself, thanks.
@affini
Sure I'll take a look at it when i get a chance. I can't promise anything though. I am definitely not a skinner.
Still to do:
Create a dedicated video info screen
Create a view better suited for browsing tv show seasons
Fix episode view to include tvshow banner instead of season thumb when at the episode level.
Lastly, this mod is views that I personally like which is the only reason I have spent the time doing this. I am willing to share with the community when it is finished but as I said before I will not take requests. If you can help with code am always looking for help as I am no skinner. Cheers.
Thanks to DJH for the awesome skin and skunkeemonkey for almost all the views in this mod!
GREAT mods man.. those views look nice... really looking forward to get some view for music/library so i can start using this masterpiece :)
@Rand
Those are my fav views, I use them daily with mod7! Thx for hooking us on on these! Looks great so far.
One suggestions on the wall view: Maybe a slight 'glow' around the focused image? I can make the PNG if you want? Just tell me the dims to use.
Also, I have replaced my timepanel image with something I think fits the glass theme much better. Take a look and see if you like it. Built it from the djh's PSD. Posted here: http://members.cox.net/livin/homeInfoPanels.zip
screenshot example is posted here: http://xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=166059&postcount=1066
... I just changed it so that the weather is now at the top with the time/date -- thus the code I'm trying to get to work to have them fade in/out opposite of each other.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-13, 20:14
@affini
I think you might be right and the highlighted image need so to have more "pop" I am no artist so if you could help on the gfx side that would be huge! I will let you know the dimensions later tonight. There is an issue with the wall views right now. Randomly the images will zoom to a size far bigger than specified. There is no real rhyme or reason to it so it might not be a bug on my side.
@R111
You need to add <info>listitem.episode</info> and <info>listitem.premiered</info> to the appropriate sections of the library info include.
Don't expect too many changes beyond what i have listed above. I don't want to spend any more time on this than I have to. Since I know absolutely nothing about skinning I am shotgun debugging everything which is time consuming.
A couple questions for anyone who might have some answers that will save me time. Is there anyway to specify that a view will appear under a different name depending on the content? either movies or tv? I know you have the info displayed change but I would like the name of the view to change as well. I am maybe being a bit picky. Also if anyone can point out where and why the season thumb appears instead of the series banner when i browse episodes that would save me some time searching. Cheers.
agathorn
2008-02-13, 20:23
Also if anyone can point out where and why the season thumb appears instead of the series banner when i browse episodes that would save me some time searching. Cheers.
I don't have the AEON code to look at, but I had this problem with Fusion at one point. It seems a change to XBMC requires some changes in the skin. To display the proper banner, even in episodes view, you want to use Container.TVShowThumb. I think the old code used Container.FolderThumb
That may or may not be the issue but if it helps, great :)
@Rand
The views you are working on look great, can't wait to see how the wall view functions.
Thank you for taking the time to make the old mod view work as well.
I really do hope someone can come up with a relatively easy way for adding and removing views.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-14, 05:54
@agathorn
Yeah i noticed that a few builds ago it stopped showing the series banner throughout and started showing season thumbs at the episode level. I figured it was probably a change in the code somewhere. Thanks for the heads up, now all i have to do is track down where DJH hid the damn thing ;) Oh and congrats on fusion. It looks mighty fine.
I now have a fully functioning videoinfo screen. It is a modified version of skunkeemonkey's, in fact almost all of my mod is! I still need to add the trailer button to it and then add a settings button to the set content screen. I am ironing out the kinks in the wall views. As I said they work great except randomly some images will zoom much more than they are supposed to. I am also planning on adding a few of skunkee's music views. After that and the other changes I have mentioned I think I'm calling it good.
@R111
You need to add <info>listitem.episode</info> and <info>listitem.premiered</info> to the appropriate sections of the library info include.
Thanks Rand. its all showing proper now. :grin:
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-14, 11:50
@R111
No worries, glad i could help.
I finally figure out the season thumbs/tv banners issue. Looks like it was a problem in my code not in something of DJH's :blush: Guess I should have paid better attention to what i was doing. Anyway im having a little issue figuring out where to put the banner at the episode level. For some reason every time I take a screen shot the text doesn't show or the image zooms back out to full size. Anyway you can get the drift.
Here is the first thought I had:
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/9329/screenshot004xv2.th.png (http://img525.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot004xv2.png)
Since screencaps from shows are all different aspects and sizes I have to be kind of conservative on the size of the banner so it doesn't interfere with the image. I am actually quite fond of this location except it look odd if the banner is a really light color like this one:
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/4231/screenshot010ae6.th.png (http://img511.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot010ae6.png)
The other options would be putting the banner below the plot synopsis but that would limit the amount of text space and again bright banners would look a little strange in the middle of all that black space. The other option I had considered would be to have a large banner across the top right of the screen similar to agathorn's lovely Fusion Skin. The only draw back i see with that is that i hides the background images more which is kind of the opposite goal of this skin. Anyway, I'm open for suggestions. If I can't find a way to work in the banners elegantly I am just going to take them out.
HanTheMan
2008-02-14, 16:52
Very Nice skin!
But I have only one problem with it and that is that I use the Visualiser a lot.
It works fine but album info/art stays on screen and I would like that it hides after a few secs just like PMIII.
Is that possible?
Again Kudo's for the nice work
Rand,
It would be cool to have the option to use the TV Show's banner 'as' the background. Then have the Episode image and info in the right-side info panel. I know the banner dimensions are different than the full screen but maybe keep the banner on the upper portion of the screen and have the TV Show name near the bottom, under the glass panel? The continuity would be great instead of having some random background that has nothing to do with the show you are viewing.
@Affini:
This is called fan art, which is supported by most other HTPC programs. Would rock with a skin like Aeon.
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-14, 20:00
@Hitman
I am working on just that same issue. Current you can turn off album info completely during visualizations but that won't sit right with me either so I think i will try to add like a 10 second delay before it fades.
@affini
You can't really tell from the screen shot because as i mentioned before printscreen on my linux build either doesn't pick up the text or makes the unzoomed image zoom back to full size. Anyway, the tv episode info looks very similar to the movie info screen after the image zooms out. You get a small screenshot with season # Episode #, writer and aired date next to the image. Then a plot summary below all in the right "info" portion of the screen. It looks really nice ;)
I guess what you say makes a lot of sense, that having images from other shows in the background is a little strange. So for now I can put a large banner across the top right hand portion of the screen. The banners usually have the series name in them so I don't really see a need to also list the series name somewhere else. Until we get fan art support as szsori mentioned I think this might be our best option. What does everyone think? I will make the changes and get a screen shot later tonight. The only thing i worry about is that the right edge of the banner will be flush with the side of the screen. The left edge might look a little out of place just ending abruptly especially when there is high contrast between the banner color and the background color. Maybe i could work out some way to fade the banner on the left edge.
@szsori
Thanks for the amazing website. Your site makes this system amazing!
@szsori
Thanks for the amazing website. Your site makes this system amazing!
Tried checking what it was but got 'This Account Has Been Suspended' message.
agathorn
2008-02-14, 21:21
Tried checking what it was but got 'This Account Has Been Suspended' message.
http://forums.thetvdb.com/viewtopic.php?t=495&start=15
TrueHD users (if such a thing exists yet) will be pleased to know I'm currently redoing the best Aeon backdrops (about 75% of them) in 1080p. Because the BMP file size bloated to over 5mb, however, I'm saving them as PNG images. We'll just have to see how quickly they load.
The quality's off the scale. :grin:
cannot wait to see the PNGs!
TrueHD users (if such a thing exists yet) will be pleased to know I'm currently redoing the best Aeon backdrops (about 75% of them) in 1080p. Because the BMP file size bloated to over 5mb, however, I'm saving them as PNG images. We'll just have to see how quickly they load.
The quality's off the scale. :grin:
Any plans on fixing the views for music before u get into this?
really miss that feature :(
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-15, 10:17
@DJH
Nice, I too am anxious to see some nice HD backgrounds ;)
On a side note I have a few more screenshots to post. Here are some shots of the posterwall i have been working on with a glow effect around the focused item. I might go with a different color surrounding the image or perhaps a glass theme to fit with the rest of Aeon. Thanks to Affini for the artwork.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v458/johnslayer/screenshot002.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v458/johnslayer/screenshot000-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v458/johnslayer/screenshot001.jpg
I don't know if i will be done with the whole mod this weekend as I had planned. I keep coming up with more and more ideas that I want to try. Anyway, thanks again to DJH. Cheers.
Competes2win
2008-02-15, 10:52
@Rand Al Thor: Ya I definitely think you should go with a different color glow around the focused item... that yellow is not characteristic of the rest of the skin at all.
Rand Al Thor you should really start your own thread instead of confusing people in the main one if you are making a whole skin mod
Also your aspect ratio of your covers looks wrong
@Rand Al Thor: Ya I definitely think you should go with a different color glow around the focused item... that yellow is not characteristic of the rest of the skin at all.
yes..agree, does not look good.. great idea with som glass look instead :)
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-15, 12:22
@jezz x
Do you mean the aspect looks wrong focused or unfocused? I know the unfocused items are a little narrow because i wanted to evenly fit 7 across and 3 rows. The focused items should be pretty much the same aspect as movieposters. I'll post a new screenshot in a new thread.
Nick8888
2008-02-16, 12:17
Djh is there any chance of you making a full screen view for the now playing info since visualizations havent been developed in linux?
Love the skin.
Nick
Rand Al Thor
2008-02-16, 20:17
Actually if you extract all of the milkdrop presets to Projectm you get basically milkdrop for linux. Hope that helps.
Nick8888
2008-02-17, 00:51
ok cool. Thanks for the tip Rand Al Thor. Playing music has been quiet boring lately with no visualizations.