[MOD] Now Playing Tab Mod

[VegasPete]

I've made some changes to my original Now Playing Tab mod. Also made an identical tab for the visualization screen and made Music Showcase mode pop up an album review like the Video Showcase does. Here's some pics and a link. Let me know what you think.

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt141/vegaspete_photos/Home.jpg

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt141/vegaspete_photos/showcase.jpg

http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt141/vegaspete_photos/visual.jpg

The link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/nz5inzuxj1i/MusicMods.rar

To install, just replace all the .xml files in your ../skin/horizonz/720p folder and put the .xpr into the ../skin/horizonz/media folder. I also included the original .png image of the tab for anyone who wants to make their own .xpr.

[paul]

That looks far better than the original panel

[VegasPete]

Thanks Paul. I just hated that shaddow and I've wanted to get rid of it for months. This has been a learning experience and I'm gonna work on making the info dialog on the visualization screen look similar this weekend.

[dynamix]

Way better "now playing" tab! Would love to replace the old nasty shadow for this one :nod:

[paul]

Dynamix if you would like this mod then i will add it into my xbox lite version as well. hope this is ok with you pete? i won't be uping it until fri when i get some spare time.

[VegasPete]

ya paul, i'd actually appreciate it if you did include it and post it. saves me the trouble of signing up w/ some hosting site. i'll let you know if i make any further modifications before fri.

[paul]

No problem will post a link in here and in my signature when i upload it

[dynamix]

And Paul's mod gets better and better :;): Thanks guys!

[paul]

Your most welcome, but could not have acheived it without The original Aeon and horizonV4 as i used bits from both + some bug fixes from rocky5. All i do is make it work better for the xbox as i know there are still loads of use xbox users:nod: also thanks to pete for his mods

[dynamix]

You're absolutely right. A lot of people to thank. It's nice to see a lot of xbmc users colaborate on a all sorts of xbmc stuff.

[VegasPete]

deleted

[VegasPete]

I forgot, i have another question... has anyone modded horizonz to use music fanart yet? I remember a post asking about it a few weeks ago and hadn't seen anything else.
If I have time this weekend i was thinking about trying to get the music showcase to work like video showcase so it would pop up the album review and such as you move around. Not promising anything on that though because all the xml I know I learned in the last 4 days. ;)
Pete.

[VegasPete]

i've posted pics and a link to updates in the original post on the first page.
Let me know what you guys think.
Pete.

[paul]

Will include those in my next build as i am finally replaceing those bloody awful placeholders
With nice shiny new one that i am creating this will replce the one i uploaded last time ta v much;)

Update now available with all Vegas petes mods \version 3 frames and i have Replaced the awful brown placeholders new ones
i created for it download it while it's still hot http://www.mediafire.com/?jizoohjynmi

[hexed6]

Update now available with all Vegas petes mods \version 3 frames and i have Replaced the awful brown placeholders new ones
i created for it download it while it's still hot http://www.mediafire.com/?jizoohjynmi

I love this skin, but have a slight problem with this version: My movies backdrop image won't show up. Every other backdrop shows up fine except for the movies one. Not even the default image will display if I reset the backdrop image. Any ideas?

edit: Running this skin on Xbox if that makes any difference. t3ch 1-25-09 build

[VegasPete]

Hmmm, I think that movie backdrops are still working on my xbox. I'll have to take a look after work tonight. I'm in the process of switching xbmc over to a pc so i can run Aeon Stark (which btw is awesome) so i'm not sure how quickly i can fix it if there is a problem, but i'll try.
Pete.

[hexed6]

Here are some screenshots for you to reference. I do not experience this problem with the "original" release of Horizonz vol4 (without nifty frames and such).

Movies backdrop not showing on main menu.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/931/moviesnobackdrop.th.png (http://img6.imageshack.us/my.php?image=moviesnobackdrop.png)

Yet all other backdrops seem to work fine, here's TV Shows working properly.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/163/tvshowsbackdrop.th.png (http://img6.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tvshowsbackdrop.png)

Stranger yet, the movies backdrop appears fine in library mode.
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/2015/movieslibrarymode.th.png (http://img6.imageshack.us/my.php?image=movieslibrarymode.png)

[VegasPete]

Hexed, i'm not having either of the problems you are, i just checked. I would have noticed the fanart on the main screen right away because i use xbmc everyday. Is this happening to anyone else? I suggest you set your movie backdrops folder to something else try it, then set it back to where you normally have it. maybe that will reset something????? also are your fanarts converted to 960x540? maybe it's some memory issue due to my mod although I don't know why that would be because I think you should have more free mem with the modded xpr??

(I notice that you're not using the lower position for your scrollbar and when you do that it will just show the old style now playing stuff just so you know. I only modified it for the lower position because that's all i use, but i did switch to the upper position to make sure my fanarts were still working and they were. so anyway, i have no idea what's going on.)

Pete.

[hexed6]

Thanks, I ended up solving it by resetting all horizonz settings to default. I have no idea what setting was causing it to foobar, but now I'm no longer experiencing the problem.

Anywho, this is a very cool skin/mod, your efforts are greatly appreciated. I tried out Aeon Stark today, and it is very cool but I believe this version of Horizonz is more aesthetically pleasing. The only thing I'm missing is a "videos" menu link, so you can jump to videos in files view (so i can access things such as music videos). Any hints on how I could implement this?

[VegasPete]

You can do that by turning on clips in the setup->horizonz->home shortcuts menu and pointing it to "videos".
i just tried it and it says clips instead of videos, but it works. ;)

Pete.

[paul]

Glad you got it working ok, i were sure it was nothing to do with petes mods or my tinkering for that matter.:)

[hexed6]

Thanks guys, you're the best. Last question, what does force xbox compatability mode do? My xbox seems to function o.k. without it.

[paul]

In this mod it does nothing. In the original if this was enabled it would use lower resolution textures for most of the skin a bit like mediastream did with there lite theme. so you can ignore it if your using my lite version....:nod:

[StratMangler]

Art on CD cases only appears if I select a CD. In the reflection under the CD, you can clearly see the artwork, but not on the actual CD ; it's just transparant.

And the description of the album doesn't appear either. It's just a black rectangle that identifies the album, but no description.

I followed the description to the letter. Ideas?

[paul]

Art on CD cases only appears if I select a CD. In the reflection under the CD, you can clearly see the artwork, but not on the actual CD ; it's just transparant.

And the description of the album doesn't appear either. It's just a black rectangle that identifies the album, but no description.

I followed the description to the letter. Ideas?
Can you post a screenshot?

[StratMangler]

Sure.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v132/Strats991/issue.jpg

As for the album info not being displayed, it does work on some albums, but most don't show anything. Wonder how I can manually fix it so that albums will have info displayed.

[paul]

Sure.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v132/Strats991/issue.jpg

As for the album info not being displayed, it does work on some albums, but most don't show anything. Wonder how I can manually fix it so that albums will have info displayed.

Thats strange have just had a look at my Horizon mod on xbox and it looks like thishttp://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=3mdtf44nwym&thumb=5
I would suggest you reinstall the skin and if that does not work maybe download another copy to see if it still does it.
Are you using one of my mods?
And what are you running it on?

[VegasPete]

My guess is this is another case of Horizonz wackiness. ;)
Try to reset all setting in the skin like Hexed did.
Pete.

[VegasPete]

Well StratMangler, it seems my install is doing this now. It didn't until I installed the XBMC 9.04 Babylon Alpha 1 t3ch release from 4-4. Still not sure what to do about it, but I'm reproducing it now. ;)
Pete.

[StratMangler]

Cool. Glad to see it wasn't something I did. I followed your previous advice, but it didn't fix it, so I'll be waiting for the fix, because this is a great mod. :)

[paul]

Well StratMangler, it seems my install is doing this now. It didn't until I installed the XBMC 9.04 Babylon Alpha 1 t3ch release from 4-4. Still not sure what to do about it, but I'm reproducing it now. ;)
Pete.
Hi i have just downloaded the same revision. i will let ya know if i have the same problem

[Tension113]

Just looked at mine.. My build from last week displays it ok, but I have the same issue with the latest.. Not sure what's changed since then.. :oo:

[StratMangler]

Thats strange have just had a look at my Horizon mod on xbox and it looks like thishttp://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=3mdtf44nwym&thumb=5
I would suggest you reinstall the skin and if that does not work maybe download another copy to see if it still does it.
Are you using one of my mods?
And what are you running it on?
Not using one of your mods, but I am, as you can see, using the old frames from V3.

Well StratMangler, it seems my install is doing this now. It didn't until I installed the XBMC 9.04 Babylon Alpha 1 t3ch release from 4-4. Still not sure what to do about it, but I'm reproducing it now. ;)Cool. So does that mean that you're working on fixing this problem so I can use it with more recent revisions, then? I'd hate to have to stick with Atlantis just to use this very cool mod. :oo:

Just looked at mine.. My build from last week displays it ok, but I have the same issue with the latest.. Not sure what's changed since then.. :oo:Not sure either, but then again it might take a while to figure things out, unless we check into the changelog. Since I didn't program it, I'll leave this to VP, but hopefully the changelogs points to specific files that were changed. Since this mod uses 3 XML files, it could take some time, but I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that it gets fixed real soon. :nod:

[VegasPete]

Tension and Paul,
Have you tried to revert your 4-4 build to something older? I ask because I spent last night trying to go to an earlier build and it wouldn't load my database. Maybe I just botched something, but I want to know if you have that problem too? Oh, I reinstalled 4-4 t3ch and my DB is fine again, but I use the music section more than anything and this glitch is killing me!!!!
Pete.

[paul]

Tension and Paul,
Have you tried to revert your 4-4 build to something older? I ask because I spent last night trying to go to an earlier build and it wouldn't load my database. Maybe I just botched something, but I want to know if you have that problem too? Oh, I reinstalled 4-4 t3ch and my DB is fine again, but I use the music section more than anything and this glitch is killing me!!!!
Pete.
Well i have the same glitch using the 4-4 build, but to be honest i won't be rolling backwards
As this build works far better with My xbox version of Aeon Stark:)

[Tension113]

You can try this..

http://www.mediafire.com/?zijlanmtzmt

I did a quick fix and it's ok for me, but backup your old commoncontent.xml maybe first.. I've made so many changes to this skin that I don't know if this will effect anything else for you.. Just stick it in the 720p folder..

I still have older builds installed on my system, so I was able to check it on a few.. Still not sure why it worked then and not now, but it's good for me now..

[VegasPete]

Paul, I'll try stark again on the xbox if you think it's working better under this build. I didn't have much luck w/ it the 1st time I tried it, but I'm using it on my pc and love it.

Tension, thanks. I'll try your patch. what exactly did you change to get it to work? I figured the thumbs weren't showing because of a memory problem w/ the new build and I was just gonna wait for the next t3ch build.

Pete.

[StratMangler]

Memory problems shouldn't factor in considering I'm using Horizonz on a PC & not an Xbox.

[paul]

Paul, I'll try stark again on the xbox if you think it's working better under this build. I didn't have much luck w/ it the 1st time I tried it, but I'm using it on my pc and love it.

Tension, thanks. I'll try your patch. what exactly did you change to get it to work? I figured the thumbs weren't showing because of a memory problem w/ the new build and I was just gonna wait for the next t3ch build.

Pete.
I just recently uploaded an updated version of stark an it's getting better

[StratMangler]

Just tried Tension113's file and it does restore cover art properly, but the pop-up that describes/reviews the album doesn't show up, so... :(

[Tension113]

Ahh.. Didn't realize Pete made changes to that file.. I'll fix it up when I get in from work..

[StratMangler]

The 3 files there were changes to for this mod were :

- CommonContent.XML
- Includes.XML
- MusicVisualisation.XML

Restoring the CommonContent.XML file basically proved that this is where the artwork display problem occurs, but since I'm no programmer, it could potentially be something in the other 2 files interacting with the changes made in CommonContent.XML that's creating this problem.

VegasPete, assuming this mod is fixed at some point, how can you manually set things so that each album gets a review to appear? Queen's "A Night At The Opera" works fine, but almost all of my other albums don't have reviews popping up even if they're basically named properly (i.e. The Beatles' "Abbey Road").

[VegasPete]

Tension, that's why I was asking what you changed to fix CommonContext.xml I tried to find your change for a while last night, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. ;)

Stratmangler, if I get time my plan is to make that review box not pop up if there is no review of an album. If you have an album that you want a review but the scraper doesn't find one, the only option I know of is to make an album.nfo in the album's dir. It's tedious work, but I have made about 200 album.nfo's for my favorite bands. I get mood and styles info from allmusic.com and Wiki has good info to cut and paste for a lot of singles. I keep hoping for music support in media companion.

Here's the stuff I put in my Album.nfo's just cut this out and use it for a template for your own:

<album>
<artist> band</artist>
<genre>genre</genre>
<year>year</year>
<rating>rating</rating>
<label>record label</label>
<review>reviw (here's the important one)</review>
<mood>mood1</mood>
<mood>mood2</mood>
<mood>mood etc</mood>
<style>style1</style>
<style>style2</style>
<style>style etc</style>
<theme>theme1</theme>
<theme>theme2</theme>
<theme>theme etc</theme>
</album>


Pete.

[StratMangler]

This might sound like an out-there idea, but why not add Amazon.com as a scraper? They have reviews for everything!

Do you think it would be possible to ZIP all your NFOs so I could add them in case we have similar music tastes? :)

[Tension113]

Sorry about that.. I looked at Strats post this morning and was like.. What popup??

Here's what I did, applied to your file..

http://www.mediafire.com/?ymjm2vimyj1


The first listitem.thumb in the focusedlayout only had song container.. I added artist and album to it and that did the trick.. Which I would think it shouldn't have worked to begin with, but whatever.. it works now.. :)

[StratMangler]

I'll check it out and report back about whether this fixed it or not.

Thanks for the effort regardless of whether it works, Tension113. Very appreciated. :)

[VegasPete]

Works like a charm. Many thanks Tension.

Pete.