Blue 3 (4 Viewers)

[thesystemera]

Hey should we not have a dedicated section to throw skins needed for all the plugins that are not done yet... Like mediaslayer, mVids, yahoo music videos, my trailers, etc etc... Loving this plugin but can't justify giving up all my cool plugins for it quite yet...

 

[Imzadi]

This skin is really amazing, I can't wait for the 16:9 version.

But one question, perhaps I've done something wrong:

I'm using fanart in mytvseries. Is it not possible to change the fanart in the backart randomly? I assume, the wrong size of the fanart is due to the 4:3 version of the skin?

 

[tomtom21000]

Hi Harley,

in TV section, there is one little bug with the progressbar:

when you pause live tv, everything is fine: green/red progressbar, gray part for of progressbar for the not yet shown part of the show, start and end time, blue background

when you skip forward or backward with right/left button only red/green progressbar is visible, gray part, end time and blue backround are missing.

No screenshot atm. But I can try to do one, if the description isn't clear enough.

tomtom

 

[Harley]

Hi Harley,

in TV section, there is one little bug with the progressbar:

when you pause live tv, everything is fine: green/red progressbar, gray part for of progressbar for the not yet shown part of the show, start and end time, blue background

when you skip forward or backward with right/left button only red/green progressbar is visible, gray part, end time and blue backround are missing.

No screenshot atm. But I can try to do one, if the description isn't clear enough.

tomtom

ah, yes, same problem was in videooverlay, so its easy to fix i think

 

[kkendall]

Very nice skin indeed! Great work!

Really looking forward to start using the widescreen version of course. One thing I don't like about this skin though is the EPG. I can't really put the finger on what I think is wrong but somehow I feel it's hard to read as if everything is floating together or something?...A part from that I'm very happy for the moment, and the mepo doll is great!

//johnzered

I love the skin (really fantastic!!!)...but just like you, I really don't like the EPG...
I'm a graphic designer and I do have a suggestion why you do'n't like the EPG.
There are several things.

First, because the contrast has been raised, the white letters are more in your face than in Blue2.
Together with much bigger fonts, the big white text on the darker background is just too "in your face", too hard/loud/busy/restless.
In Blue2Wide, the fonts of the epg were a bit smaller than the fontsize of the buttons of the main tv screen. Now, the fonts of the EPG are much bigger than the fonts on the buttons of the main tv screen...
Also, because the fonts are bigger, the programtitles in the EPG are broken off earlier than before.

Second, the EPG has no 'top area', which is present on all other sections, like it was in Blue2. This breaks the uniformaty and maakes the epg out of balance. Here I'd suggest to bring this back to make MP as clear and uniform as possible.

My suggestion for the text would be to increase the fontsize compared to the epg in blue2, but make the fontsize not so huge as it is right now (because on a 42" at 10 feet, it's just too big). I think the perfect solution would be to choose the same fontsize as the buttons in the main tv screen.

I also found a little bug in the epg.
When hitting the page up button on the mce-remote, the EPG highlights the second channel from above too! This only disappears when going over it...

EDIT:Could you tell me how to change the fontsize in the epg? Is it hard or easy to do? The EPG is what I mostly use in MP, so if I could change it back to the Blue2 size, that would be great.

 

[johnzered]

Thanks kkendall!

I think that was exactly what I wanted to say!

I also just recently found a little bug in the epg probably because of the lack of 'top area' as I couldn't find any other screen having the same issue.
When recording, the red dot is overlapping the channel group text...see attached screenshot.

The bug you're referring to is already in mantis:
0001699: Blue3: when entering TV Guide 2nd channel is always and constantly highlighted - MediaPortal Bugtracker

//johnzered

 

[Efros]

I really like it although it is a little chunky in places, 32" TV may be an issue, I think on a 50" or above it'll be great.

 

[karakas]

Hi, the skin looks very good, but is there any way to redesign the layout for MyFilms? It might be because it's a 4:3 skin but I have the same feeling with BlueTwo wide and that is that the menu bar on the left side takes up too much space. Take a look at Monochrome/Indigo it has a much cleaner layout, and the cover area just looks bigger. While in the Blueskins it seems as if they have too little space so it just looks cramped.

 

[Baranzan]

Great work

Thanks for this great skin. Can't wait to see the widescreen version.
A small thing : when using the video background switcher, the sliding menü on the video can be a little transparent. It may seem nicer.
Thanks again..

 

[kkendall]

...video background switcher...

Video background switcher, what's that?? I can't fin anything in the manual/featurelist/etc...

EDIT:
Ah, I see the video background auto switcher is a downloadable plugin. Great, great feature!
Like it is with some other HTPC software out there, shouldn't this be a standard MP option?