Can the layer order of image controls be changed? (1 Viewer)

[p13man]

I'm playing around with a glass look for the images in MP TV Series' banner view (genre and series screens).

The idea is fairly simple, I've made replacement images for the banner framing images - tvseries_banner_focus.png and tvseries_banner_nofocus.png - which is starting to look good except for one thing: it seems at run-time,that these framing images are drawn first and the banner image is drawn over them.

Is there any way to work around that so that the the series banner is on a layer behind the fram rather than in front of it.

The attached thumbs (below) illustrate the effect I want to achieve. I've read everything I can find about MP skinning but can't see a way to do what I want. Is there anybody out there who can?

Thanks in advance.

Moved to TV Series Thread

 

[Eyep0p]

can you paste the code or add the xml? then i could try it.

 

[p13man]

Eyep0p -

can you paste the code or add the xml?

Thanks, Eyep0p. Since I posted this, there has been a new version of MPTVSeries which I'm working with now (literally). The xml skin files have more detail and the facade has a separate file. Whereas before, I was trying to make use of the banner background, it now seems clearer to me that I need to create a new image control and use the dummy controls written into the plugin to trigger its visibility. I haven't actually done anything yet (I'm looking at it now), but it means that the code I was using is now superseded so there's nothing for you to see. If I get stuck later and can't find a solution, I'll pm you the code (if that's OK with you). However, your offer is much welcomed and appreciated.

 

[Eyep0p]

ok!

 

[p13man]

The latest version of MPTV Series solves the problem so we can close up shop here, I think.

 

[joz]

I was kinda interested in this thread. Layering in MP is not really intuitive, for example all text is always on top.

But most of the time putting an image control above another image control means that the one @ the bottom stays on top.

 

[p13man]

Hi joz,

I was kinda interested in this thread. Layering in MP is not really intuitive, for example all text is always on top.

Wise words!

It's actually a double whammy because in addition to not being intuitive, information is often difficult to come by. For example, the skinners guides in the wiki often disappoint. Almost half of the possible controls or, more accurately their attributes, are either not defined, not completely defined or, worse, listed but link to pages which haven't been written yet. Also, there are attributes used in skin files that have no references whatever. One has to learn by trial and error, which I don't mind but it makes the research more difficult and time consuming than the actual coding and means that innovation happens more by reverse-engineering than by following the guides.

I understand that everyone works very hard and that their work is unpaid but I do sometimes wonder what kind of MP we would have if the documentation was given more priority. Once I have some more free time I will definitely offer my help with that.

Regarding the specifics in this thread, as I wrote above, the problem was partly resolved by the work Itfearme (I think) and others did for the latest version of MP TVSeries which meant that I could tweak that and put it where I wanted it.

Regarding rendered text, the most obvious solution is some kind of overlay graphic but it would need to constantly redraw itself every time the text was updated and I don't know how big an effect that would have on processing load. I think the ultimate solution is to implement layers in the skinning engine. Most graphic designers are familiar with the concept, it would help tremendously with animations and I don't think it would be difficult to implement - but I might be wrong.

On the positive side, I've been looking for an integrated media system for over two years and have tried all of the open source projects there are and I think that MP is by far the best purely because of the community and the forum which has many first-class, totally unselfish and 100% committed members. I aspire to join their ranks.