PDM skin by SmokeHead

[Smokehead]

been working on this skin for a while now, called it pdm (pr0j3ct d4rk m4tt3r) and is based on the well known pm3 skin, i replaced several things that i didn't like or thought could be done better, and ended up with this.. it still has some issue's cause of recent changes to the skin system, but i'm working on it, you could see it as an early build.

pdm slideshow in homescreen
use your custom images in home, just by selecting them in pdm options.. "customization".


pdm "customization options"
press "black" button for pdm options.. and turn home/menu/media stuff on/off to whatever you want .


pdm "contextmenu"
slidepanels for contextmenu's and filebrowser, they are 5% transperant so you can still see whats under it when you use it.



edit i (24-dec-2005): skin updated to v1.90, also added new options in "settings" ,where you can customize your home screen and turn stuff on or off.. as you please. use custom images from f:/pictures and they will be visible in home, but there seems to be a problem with oversized files, or pics that are 1600x1200 or higher.. but this will probably be fixed soon, i hope.

edit ii (08-feb-2006): skin updated to v1.99, changed and fixed a lot of things, moved skin options in settings to a new menu "pdm options" , wich is accesable by pressing the "black" button in home, also added the ability to use a slideshow in home while playing media files, visualistation can be turn on/off like many other skin related options.

edit iii (15-feb-2006): skin updated to v2.00

download the latsest pdm, if you are intrested in testing.
changelog for all recent changes.
more pictures can be found here.

hope you like it so far, i'm open for suggestions

[HarshReality]

some of the screens look like a pm2/pm3 hybrid (backgrounds). clean looking but a bit cluttered... still will give this a spin and see how the jury (kids and wife) respond

[Livin]

smoke,
i like it overall. i do have a few suggestions. personal tastes for most but one for efficiency.

1) i find that on some of the screens where you have this image...

... it looks cluttered with the logo and test "smashed" together.
i suggest ditching the logo on the screens since the color scheme does not match... either use the pm3 oval logo or just the words "xbox media center".

2) personally i think it unnecessary to view the system temp, fan speed and such. guests could care less and it just clutters up the screen. if someone cares that much about those things they need to focus on stabalizing their xbox and less about the skin they are using

i suggest removing the drive space scroller completely. no scrolling at the top. placing the time/date on the top-right and maybe the city, temp, and weather image under it... this is something that all people will care about and an easy place to put it for symetry.

3) the top and bottom accent lines are nice to add character. i would remove the bottom line though and leave the bottom bar alone. having both lines looks like it is "squeezing" the screen. the top one alone would be a nice accent by itself without the squeeze effect.

4) for symetry and efficiency move the bottom buttons to the bottom left where the weather is now. having the buttons on the left allows a single focus point for any/all movements. this is a common usability study issue. no movement of eyes necessary for usage. i could go into it more but trust me on this.. it is better.

... this frees up space on the bottom right for more (albiet shortened) rss scrolling feeds if the user wishes. i'd have one additional feed that scrolls on half the screen at the bottom. or whatever other info you want there. this makes the entire right side of the screen an "info" side. again, getting your time, date, and weather all at once... no eye movement.

5) for skinning purposes: use the multiimage for the backgrounds. this will allow people to have a slideshow background... it is cool. i suggest these settings:
<timeperimage>5000</timeperimage>
<fadetime>2000</fadetime>
<keepaspectratio>false</keepaspectratio>
<randomize>true</randomize>
<visible effect="fade" time="200">


i hope that is not too much to suggest. i do like what you have done. i love the buttonscroller (i made the pm3 a buttonscroller myself for efficiency) and

[Smokehead]

@ affini : thanks for your feedback, suggestions are always welcome. and yeah i'm also a big fan of the buttonscroller. i like it because you can add as many buttons as you please and it's still using the same amount of space on the screen, instead of the solid buttons like pm3 where you only have 5 and that's it. but sometimes that enough...but not for me. i also like the major updates that has been made so far, like the support of visual tags, etc... i cannot thank the xbmc devs enough for that.

about your suggestions

1) i find that on some of the screens where you have this image.... it looks cluttered with the logo and test "smashed" together.
i suggest ditching the logo on the screens since the color scheme does not match... either use the pm3 oval logo or just the words "xbox media center".

first of all, i really disliked the oval logo in pm3 as it was taking too much space on the screen, but that's just a personal opinion. that's why i choose to place the xbmc logo instead. you're right about the "xbox media center" label that i placed underneath the logo.. and i decided to remove it from all xml's.

2) personally i think it unnecessary to view the system temp, fan speed and such. guests could care less and it just clutters up the screen. if someone cares that much about those things they need to focus on stabalizing their xbox and less about the skin they are using .i suggest removing the drive space scroller completely. no scrolling at the top. placing the time/date on the top-right and maybe the city, temp, and weather image under it... this is something that all people will care about and an easy place to put it for symetry.

i'm sort of a control freak, and i realy like to view the system stats. but you have a point, if you're saying that not everybody like's it like me and see it all the time. and if they want to see it, there's always the system information menu within xbmc (r-thumbstick).. therefor i removed it from the skin. i also removed the top scrolling system info label, and placed the time/date to the top-right just like you suggested.. the weather stuff is still where it was before, i like it there.

3) the top and bottom accent lines are nice to add character. i would remove the bottom line though and leave the bottom bar alone. having both lines looks like it is "squeezing" the screen. the top one alone would be a nice accent by itself without the squeeze effect.

i don't now exactly what you mean with "squeezing" the screen. but when i started photoshopping it, i had the idea to keep the top and bottom symetrical looking and use the full width of the screen, if you know what i mean. and if you compare it with let's say pm3 ,.. you'll notice that my backgrounds (pics,vids,etc) are much wider.

4) for symetry and efficiency move the bottom buttons to the bottom left where the weather is now. having the buttons on the left allows a single focus point for any/all movements. this is a common usability study issue. no movement of eyes necessary for usage. i could go into it more but trust me on this.. it is better. ... this frees up space on the bottom right for more (albiet shortened) rss scrolling feeds if the user wishes. i'd have one additional feed that scrolls on half the screen at the bottom. or whatever other info you want there. this makes the entire right side of the screen an "info" side. again, getting your time, date, and weather all at once... no eye movement.

if common usability study shows that it is better, than why are almost all xbmc skins not like this
and why do you want all rss feeds underneath eachother, if you can simple place them all after eachother by placing several links in one set.

5) for skinning purposes: use the multiimage for the backgrounds. this will allow people to have a slideshow background... it is cool.

that's a good one, will see what i can do.
i'm still working on the skin and also enjoying my holiday, but i will update the download link by every major changes that i make.

[CosyCat]

very nice


edit:
..........but i went back to pm

pdm has to many slidingeffects for me(i like it clean)

[Smokehead]

@ cosycat : didn't you like the slide effects on the volume/seekbar and musicscan @ all , pm3 uses sliding aswell. i was checking out some stuff, and how it looked using the slide effect, but i've changed all the window labels like my music, my vids, etc and let them use the fade effects again, that's much better than sliding in almost every window.

i've also updated the skin, it's now v2.0.. also fixed several other issue's.. see the changelog for that , enjoy !!

smoke.

[HarshReality]

when i ran this (ntsc) it went crazy, are you running pal or ntsc smoke?

[Smokehead]

did it went crazy, thats bad

i'm running pal mode and i probably replaced the ntsc references file with one for pal. but it doesn't matter anymore, because i've removed all the ntsc folders from my skin. xbmc will autoscale to the right size, if "width" and "height" is set on images. i'm going to check that and fix it wherever neccesary.. and upload it again, when done. thanks for letting me know m8.

edit: just uploaded the new build, would you please be so kind and check it in ntsc mode, and give me a little feedback on any remainig errors since i'm not able to test it myself...that would be great. i also added some new stuff to the "settings" menu thanks to britneyspairs, it's now possible to run your own slideshow in home with images from "f:/pictures"... there are more options for turning things on and off in home and i really like to hear what you guys think of it.

[sollie]

smokehead, do you have a mail address (kan ik een aantal probleempjes doorgeven, kan ik beter in het nederlands)

alvast bedankt (thanks).

[Nickman]

the skin looks great
good work!