aMPed User Mods (1 Viewer)

[2BitSculptor]

Thanks for the hint.... I ended up removing ALL of the animation bits in the Header style, and it then worked... just odd. I'll put them back in sometime ... when I figure it out. I'll use the styles that are there, to cut down on repeating the work, and remove them if it makes better sense.

My MS XML Notepad 2007 stopped letting me grab and move/drop elements within or between the xmls. Really makes it tougher, as that is why I used it instead of notepad+.

I'm trying to use the "Recently Added" code from the Default skin, of course moving things around, and updating it to the LatestMediaAdded plugin. It's tricky finding all the visiblity conditions. ... It would be easier if you already had some sample code I could steal (hint, hint)

Chuck

 

[Dadeo]

Glad that worked for you Chuck! The rotations/animations for those headers are pretty insane because I wanted to center them vertically, and our MP Skin Engine really did not wish to cooperate on that (we sometimes disagree )

There is code in SVN for Latest Media Handler. However, I have only implemented tickers so far. I tried adding covers but with current aMPed design and it just looked horrible. I know how I want to do it, but can't until Migue is done in BasicHome Editor (he's already working on it). So shouldn't be much longer and there will be something more useful you can use. There is a new release of LMH on the way with added support for MyFilms, so I figured I might as well wait for that anyway.

 

[2BitSculptor]

I'm gonna drop work on the Avalon mod... I threw it up on my TV and, ... well ... it looks like crap. Even after I changed the font to Verdana. Because of the large areas of dark/black background, the text is too contrasty and smeary. The graphical "Recently Added" thumbs look crappy as well, it's hard to make out the images at 10 feet (they are not small at 100 pixels tall). It looks great on my dev monitor, even in a window, but on an NTSC TV it falls apart. The skin that comes closest to being usable is my aMPed Rustic Blue mod. It is mostly aMPed (15) except for the Basic Home menus and the change in background and fanart overlays. It's the one I always fall back onto.

I will probably tweek a few things on the Rustic Blue for my own needs, but it will mostly say the same. Besides, the wife is accustomed to it now.

 

[Dadeo]

Ah, sorry to hear that Chuck. It was looking really good in your screenshots! You know I sympathize! There are so many things that are just not easy to do on 4:3 with larger fonts, let alone your NTSC TV! But Rustic Blue is really nice as well so at least you still have that. Maybe after you have a break you will figure out a way to introduce a few of the Avalon gfx you like the best. About the text/contrast - what happens if you change the text color(s) to reduce the contrast? Is it still as bad?

 

[2BitSculptor]

Here are the Basic Home/Weather screens I'm working on for my revaMPed Rustic Blue mod. Starting to look a little more like Maya, but with the font size restrictions needed for legibility on an NTSC TV (min font15).

It is still really challenging to get the quick-weather to fit stacked on the right of the main menu, even with only 4 day forecast.

I'm hoping to get the recently added media to fit in the same area, with thumbs. I may have to cut the hover images to make room (Maya doesn't display them).

Wha'd'ya think?

Chuck

 

[Dadeo]

You did amazing Chuck! I know how hard it is to fit everything in! You can imagine me ripping my hair out and banging my head on my desk as I try to manage it for 18pt font on 4:3

My only suggestion is that it might be a bit more readable if you scaled the weather backdrop similar to Avalon - at least for the weather condition which is a separate backdrop you can control easily. Ofc that is easy to say, but hard to tell how it would fit in with the overall flow.

I think you might have better luck than I did with Latest Media thumbs with the overlay/diffusion on backdrops. Nothing I tried looked good with aMPed design. Still it is not easy to get the thumbs large enough to be visible/useful on a 4x3 screen.

 

[2BitSculptor]

Okay, here are a couple pics of the recently added media. Common thumb display showing last added (when Music/Series/Movies buttons not focused), and recently added TV-Series.

Again, not a lot of room to play with. I haven't reviewed them on my TV yet.

Their is an overlay under the Quick-Weather view that fades to trans to the left, under the Condition icons, to hide the right side of the weather backdrop.

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Added Music and Movies recently added...

 

[2BitSculptor]

MOD ALERT!!!

I've played around with the menus on Basic Home for revaMPed True4:3 to get a side by side menu/sub menu system. Changes are made to BasicHome.xml, references.xml (I added 2 new styles for the Basic Home buttons) and fonts.xml (I added a font26). I'm also playing with adding a graphical recently added media, but not removing the ticker. I've got a working Maya style layout, but am looking at the newer MayaHD style and may go with that. The old Maya style has three textures in a stack (but have to stick to one height measurement), with the newer style, I only need one texture space with a list of title labels below and have room to play with the size of the texture.

here are pics of only the menu change. Let me know what you think.



Here are the 3 files to try out. You would have to copy your aMPed folder after you have configured it for color (should work for all colors), revaMPed and True4:3. Rename the copied folder to (for example) amPed Rustic, then copy the three files in the ziped folder into the aMPed Rustic folder, replacing the original files.

 

[Lyfesaver74]

very nice

 

[pilot_bas]

Nice, but where are the buttons?