4:3 skin ::: aMPed 2.0 final (1 Viewer)

[Dadeo]

Thanks Latvian, before you get TOO excited, you should not point to a folder with hundreds of images. Each image does have to load into memory, so if you leave hundreds of images cycling (looping) you can run out of memory. MP does free up memory when you navigate to another screen (at least on Vista!)

For now, the cycling images must be copied into the aMPed\media\animations\home folder (it's a new folder). I would recommend you resize your jpgs so they are small file sizes and take less memory to load, that way you can have more of them depending how much memory you have. Besides, not alll images look good on the aMPed home screen, so it's great to select the ones that really show off your media center. And then just switch to a new group every once in a while.

I'm not big on broadcast or recorded TV either, but I LOVE the TVSeries plugin. Have you tried it yet?

BTW, the new home layouts are not in the rar file yet. I'm still polishing them up, but I just wanted to give you an idea of what's coming.

 

[Latvian3Dman]

Dadeo, thanks for the tips! I do realize pictures shouldn't be big sized, and of course they should be more or less on "dark side" of colors in my case But thanks for warning about count of backgrounds, that isnt immediately technicaly obvious. Any slideshow software deals with whatever count of images, i will keep in mind situation is different here.
Speaking of plugins, I have/use My TV Series, My Trailers and Moving Pictures (remember i was dreaming about Moving Pictures with share browsing structure. Or... vice-versa? Share browsing with Moving Pictures features?). I will also set Emulators some day. I did it already as a test on some PC at work, and it was nostalgic fun
I know those new style home screens arent released yet. Take your time to make them very very nice

 

[Dadeo]

Any slideshow software deals with whatever count of images, i will keep in mind situation is different here.

The new MyHome is using a mutliimage control, which is not intended for a full slide show like you get in MyPictures. So we're cheating a bit

However, that said, I really don't know the limit! I am currently testing running 25 jpg images which total about 1.36MB. I reduced them to a width of 720 (the native resolution for 4:3 in MP) and they look fine as you can see in the screenshots. I've had them cycling for an hour and I barely notice the increase in memory. Once the cycle is loaded it does not increase at all. 1.35MB of memory is not significant anymore. So, I am probably being overly cautious. It's just that I read some threads where users pointed a multimage control to their pictures folder or fanart folder with hundreds of huge jpg images and ran into memory problems and we don't want to implement something that does THAT! That is why we are thinking to keep them in a separate folder in animations so users have to resize and copy them to avoid any possible memory issues.

QUOTE=Latvian3Dman;485563]I know those new style home screens arent released yet. Take your time to make them very very nice [/QUOTE]

Any suggestions from looking at the screenshots?

EDIT: I should repeat that I am using Vista Ultimate 32bit SP1. Vista uses a whole different way of managing GPU memory from XP, so before we release this we will have to give it a thorough test in XP as well. Any volunteers?

 

[marvenius]

EDIT: I should repeat that I am using Vista Ultimate 32bit SP1. Vista uses a whole different way of managing GPU memory from XP, so before we release this we will have to give it a thorough test in XP as well. Any volunteers?

Is everything on SVN already? Be happy to do "some" test driving around

 

[2BitSculptor]

Sure... I'll give it go....

Chuck

Srprisingly... I did the same thing to my MyHome screen... just changed the ID and used it again for the MyHomeplugins screen (still needs just a bit of teeking. (I had already borrowed your hovers... you win with the most!!))

 

[Dadeo]

Chuck - NICE! Why suprisingly? Great minds think alike LOL! I hunted high and low for all those hovers and umm, some of them are still kinda crap! We need a few new ones. I just finished fine tuning them so they all line up perfectly on the bottom bar. How many images do you have looping? Have you run into any memory problems on XP? BTW do you have the info Service plugin working? If so can you send me the xmls? There isn't much 4:3 skin support for it yet.

marvenius - Thanks for the offer. Alas it is not in SVN yet. We've been feeling badly about that for all our SVN users. But the video and music overlays have to switch to the lower right and that will wreck the display of the screens that have not been done yet. Any ideas? That's why I have been posting the new layouts here, for testing, so everything in SVN is still functional. We don't want to do all the screens (it's a lot of work!) and then find out you guys prefer the 2.0 style! So far, we haven't had any feedback on the TVSeries, Moving Pictures and MyFilms layouts, nudge nudge

 

[Latvian3Dman]

Speaking of volunteers... (Hint, hint! )

 

[2BitSculptor]

For the infoservice xmls, I grabbed the xmls from the PureVisionHD skin (thanks Catavolt!) and just moved stuff where I wanted them... with some small edits to fit the space on my Basic Home, I just made new common.rss.xml and then a second version for my MyHome (without the weekly forcast).

I haven't done much yet to the infoservice xml... the menu keeps disapearing, so that's something I gotta fix. Again, I just borrowed the PureVisionHD version of the xml and moved stuff.

Here's my BasicHome, the common.rss and infoservice xml's that I made. Remember it is 800x600. (removed pics for own thread)

I apologize for the sloppy xmls... still a work in progress

Chuck

btw. I used about a couple dozen images in my MyHome image folder (of various sizes) and didn't really notice any issues.

 

[marvenius]

Alas it is not in SVN yet. We've been feeling badly about that for all our SVN users. But the video and music overlays have to switch to the lower right and that will wreck the display of the screens that have not been done yet. Any ideas? That's why I have been posting the new layouts here, for testing, so everything in SVN is still functional. We don't want to do all the screens (it's a lot of work!) and then find out you guys prefer the 2.0 style! So far, we haven't had any feedback on the TVSeries, Moving Pictures and MyFilms layouts, nudge nudge

You could do a branch for this kind of stuff. Then merge the files you want to keep to the trunk.
Working with several svn repositories requires a bit more attention from the devs though
Can you post (or PM) a snapshot of the new files to be tested?

@Chuck: how many Mb do you have allocated for your onboard Graphics card?

 

[Dadeo]

Good point about an SVN branch. But, I'm no expert so I will have to wait for Joz.

The new layouts for TVSeries, Moving Pictures and MyFilms - https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/skins-50/4-3-skin-amped-2-0-final-55261/index25.html#post484786

The layouts for MyHome are attached.