HiFi Skin 2.0 alpha 1

[onkel bouncy]

i've uploaded the hifi 2.0 alpha 1 skin to the xbmp upload section.
can someone check this ?

[Frodo]

looks great!
a few things are using the old layout like the:
- music overlay shown when playing a song
- my music: view albums

but great work!

frodo

[onkel bouncy]

i hope i didn't missed something in a new cvs version.
- i removed the big time-text (i didn't need it)
- i removed the blue background of the music/film icon.

my music: view albums ?
i didn't noticed any differences.

jmarshall also told me about some changes on the moviecalibration.
i will have a look at it tonight.

[MrMario64]

so, how can i get this file???

[onkel bouncy]

i've some questions again:

there are some graphics in xbmc that i didn't see:

progress_back.png / progress_mid.png / progress_right.png
rectangle.png / rectanglenf.png

are they used at this time ?


i also can't find the position of the icon/thumbs graphics in any xml.
i want to place the thumbs a little bit more in the middle.

furthermore i didn't find the color of this id:
*<id>187</id>
*<value>no albums found!</value>

it's the light blue color, but i did't find it.

by the way...
i deleted the first cvs where the cola.gif is placed for example.
can someone post me the text-lines of it ?
i want to test something with gifs.

[Hullebulle]

i've some questions again:

there are some graphics in xbmc that i didn't see:

progress_back.png / progress_mid.png / progress_right.png
rectangle.png / rectanglenf.png

are they used at this time ?
iirc they are used for the progress bar if you use the file manager and ie copy some files.

[onkel bouncy]

oh sorry, so far i didn't used it.
it will be changed in alpha 2.

hope someone can answer my other questions.

[billcow]

by the way...
i deleted the first cvs where the cola.gif is placed for example.
can someone post me the text-lines of it ?
i want to test something with gifs.

from the october 1st snapshot:

<control>
<description>test animated gif logo</description>
<type>image</type>
<id>222</id>
<posx>620</posx>
<posy>25</posy>
<texture>cola.gif</texture>
<colorkey>0</colorkey>
<colordiffuse>ffffffff</colordiffuse>
</control>


near as i can tell, the cola.gif is a standard, transparent, animated gif.

[onkel bouncy]

it seems to be no difference between graphics.
thanks.

[floink]

im so anxtious... =) when will ur skin be publicly available?

/floink

[onkel bouncy]

i will release alpha 2 in 2-3 days.

[MrMario64]

hey onkel bouncy,

great skin!
my girls likes it more as the default one so now hifi is default.
some nice movement in the skin would be cool,
hope you won't overdo it :)

but i trust you completely on that one...

looking forward to it!!

[onkel bouncy]

thanks.
i will upload alpha 2 tomorrow.
some graphics and colors are changed / added (only small changes).

[floink]

nice skin onkel bouncy... inspires me to give it a trie myself.

inspiring i must say

:)

[Gamester17]

@onkel bouncy, if you allow we can host your (and others) alpha skin/s on sourceforge for public download http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif
(the only condition for this is that your skins does not contain any ripped copywrited pics/art/images/etc.)

[onkel bouncy]

i've not changed every graphic jet.
if there is no copyright on some of the original xbmc skin, feel free to make it public.
:)

[onkel bouncy]

i've uploaded alpha 2.
:)

[MrMario64]

hi,
thanks for alpha 2 :).

not meaning to rant here, but
i miss the reall new skinning features of xbmc.
everything can be freeform now, have a completely different look.
changed layout etc, moving gifs.

will you try to make use of the new possibilities in the future?

again, i do not want to badmouth your work, you do great.
just curious if the new powers will be used by you..
it doesn't have to have the same look always.

[onkel bouncy]

xbmc skins are hard work.
i know i can do much, but i've not the time jet to do 'big things'.

possibly if there is a good skin-editor and xbmc get's final.
editing the position of the graphics by hand is too hard.
???

[floink]

just getting in to the skinning here but i must second onkel bouncy... there is a lot of work involved in creating a skin for xbmc and to get a hang of how everything works.

as in my case i think a problem often is that people good at graphical design isn't necessearly good at coding or at xml as in this case. so getting to know the workings of xbmc skinning requires good skills in both fields, at least in my eyes.

and i for one would happily work with a skinning tool in an alpha stage with xbmc still in an alpha stage. so skin-tool devs i'll be your tester. http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[onkel bouncy]

and if someone wish some animated graphics you must be a video-artist too.
the problem of animated graphics are the gifs.
gifs are 'hard' graphics, not like pngs.
gifs have no smooth transparency.
see the first cvs with the animated cola and you know what i mean.

[onkel bouncy]

alpha 2b is up.
i didn't noticed some changes / new files, so i fixed it.
:)

[oblivian]

great work, uncle!

since i'm a n00b i'd like to see some aid text to the shutdown, restart or exit to dashboard buttons. i never remember which is which... ;-)

[onkel bouncy]

yes i know.
when i've more time i add some extras into the '_alternative'-folder in the hifi skin.
there will be some graphics and layouts for personal taste.

[oblivian]

onkel, i thought you might like to know:
1. when viewing albums by icons (album art) the background is blue. (left overs from default skin?)
2. when viewing active playlist (press black) the text next is garbled. (looks like record is placed on top of it)

all the best!

edit: sorry, this is fixed in build 1126. great!

[onkel bouncy]

yes i know.
both are fixed in the coming cvs.

[MrMario64]

hey,
hifi beta 2 is looking better than ever!
thank you so much for your efforts.
i hope you will be here with us the whole of 2004 to :)

good job!

[onkel bouncy]

i'll do my best.
it's real hard to modify the skin nearly every day/week:
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....7;t=473 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=7;t=473)

most of them must be only edited for changing colors.
i've posted it before, but not all colors are used in the references.xml.

i think the best way would be a seperate colors.xml.

this will help a lot for skinners.

by the way:
bugs: *- 11-01-2003 aspect ratio of thumbs = wrong (mrmario)

are you the man ?

[MrMario64]

yes, i'm the man....

don't know why frodo put my name there though.
maybe i was the first that reported it? hard to miss though :)

i'm looking into xbmc code again, made some fixes to imdb yesterday.
who know, maybe i'll look into this to, cause it is looking bad now.

[onkel bouncy]

great.
one small fix would be even good.
look at the thumbs an the big icons.
they are not in the middle of the boarder.
it's not a skin problem.
all skins have this problem.

the big icons / thumbs must be approx 2-3 pixel to the right and 2-3 pixel up.
i can modify the boarder a little bit for the icons but not the position of the icons.

[MrMario64]

ok, the ar of thumbs is fixed now. (thanx to frodo)

also, some imdb info scrolls now and you need to adjust your skin for that. will be in todays cvs i think.

[onkel bouncy]

great.
i have a look at it tonight.
thanks.

[onkel bouncy]

ok guys.
i hope you love the new layout.
it will be in the next cvs.

i've playing around with gif-animation in imageready but xbmc doesn't seems to play it correctly.

floink: what program do you use for animated gifs ?

[xGizmo]

also tried to add some animated gif's to a skin. made them in animation shop 3 (by jasc software). they shoved up in a square, totally corrupted...

[floink]

i use imagereadycs. make sure you set the gif-anim to "restore to background" if you get strange transperancy effects. otherwise i haven't seen any problems since frodo applied some of his 'gif standard reverse engineering' magic :)

[goataz]

onkel - i use hifi exclusively and can't wait to see an update. are you thinking animated gifs for the background? it would be great if the "spotlight" highlight thing moved around subtly.

aren't gifs limited to 256 colors tho?

[onkel bouncy]

no, sorry.
only some small animations will follow.
i don't want to overload the gui and i'm not able to animate big things.
if someone can generate animated files for the root/home section of the hifi skin let me know.
it would be nice to have animated clouds, hd, ...

yes gifs are limited to 256 colors and a hard cutted transparency.
it's not up to date.

animated pngs would be nice but i don't know if there exists a format like this.

[goataz]

sounds like small .avi or .mpg files embedded in the gui would be a better solution (but harder to implement). i guess they don't have transparency at all tho...

[floink]

a tip: animted backgrounds can be made by using a scaled gif in the very back, behind background.png and make background.png semi transparent. by thinking smart here some really cool stuff can be made. and this would offcourse also be applicable to movies in the background.

still, like you say ob one have to be carefull not to overload the gui with flashy cool looking stuff.

[goataz]

i just want a subtle pulsing background, very classy, like tivo or xp mce...

did you just say you can embed videos in the gui?

[bobrooney_78]

in home.xml there is the command "align". "right" works but what`s about "center" (in the case of labelling a button)?

[onkel bouncy]

yes, this would be nice and align right also doesn't work for buttons !?

[onkel bouncy]

>make sure you set the gif-anim to "restore to background".

thanks floink.
it's hard to find but it works.

[MrMario64]

onkel bouncy, you did it again.
you amazed me with the new layout.
it's cool!!.

the animation on home is very slyck.
these small types of animations rock! and give it the hifi touch.

i'm not sure if i'm happy with the album art missing in the music overlay but it does fit hifi like you did it..

very cool, keep it up!

[goataz]

sorry to be a bother, but can anyone tell the rest of us how to keep up with the most recent version of hifi? allxboxskins.com?

[floink]

yeah ob it's really nice. i'm really jelous of the slickness you've achieved in your skin :)

a thought: if you put a timer on the first frame of the logo-animation i think it would look even cooler. as it is now the animation starts as soon as you enter the home screen. but thats just my opinion... :)

great job!

[onkel bouncy]

onkel bouncy, you did it again.
you amazed me with the new layout.
it's cool!!.

the animation on home is very slyck.
these small types of animations rock! and give it the hifi touch.

i'm not sure if i'm happy with the album art missing in the music overlay but it does fit hifi like you did it..

very cool, keep it up!
thanks.
album art ?!?
hmmm i will have a look at it soon.

[Morien]

onkel bouncy:
yeah the new layout and the skin in general is great.
however, it's kinda destroyed how i've had my configuration this whole time. before i used to have 2 hifi skins, hifi silver (default) and hifi blue (alternate background). however now i can't have this as there isn't any alternate images available and the new image style means i can't use the old blue background without it looking....

do you have any plans of making a set of alternate images soon? it would be much appreciated.

thanks
morien

[Morien]

sorry to be a bother, but can anyone tell the rest of us how to keep up with the most recent version of hifi? allxboxskins.com?

edit by forum mod: no, that is not a public login and now we will have to delete that account
update edit by forum mod: things change http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif now it's ok to give out (aparantly) login: skin password: skin (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.it/upload)

morien

[onkel bouncy]

sorry guys, but i was skiing the last week.
i see very hard changes happened on xbmc / skin.
i don't know if i've time to update the hifi skin soon.

[Hullebulle]

sorry guys, but i was skiing the last week.
i see very hard changes happened on xbmc / skin.
i don't know if i've time to update the hifi skin soon.
:(

[floink]

you can pm me if you want help finding changes. i went on a ski trip last week too.

[Nickman]

edit by forum mod: no, that is not a public login and now we will have to delete that account
update edit by forum mod: things change http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/forums/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif now it's ok to give out (aparantly) login: skin * password: skin (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.it/upload)

morien
i too was wondering how to get all the latest beta skins.

was this login only for developers and skin makers before.
and does it work now ? cause i can't login.

//nickman

[onkel bouncy]

i see many changes that are not importantly for other skins (graphical- and position changes), but enough that are important (buttons,..).

the last changes i've made are from the 5.3.
i hope it's not impossible to send me a pm / mail with the important changes.
???

[Kobazz]

hi, love your skin (xbmc skin that is). came across a few bugs.

- album thumb in bottom left corner wont show when playing.
- part of cancel button is ouside of dialog window.
- big thumb view is off centre

...

changes i noticed with today's build.

- theres a credit button
- they added a pal folder

cant think of more right now.

[onkel bouncy]

nearly 25 xml files have massive changes since 5.3.
i hope to change it next week.
hours of editing / testing.

[Kobazz]

bouncy thanyou very much for the update