Coder for new MP2 theme? (1 Viewer)

[furnibird]

Great to see some more ideas for MP2.
The way morpheus_xx and i work is great, feeding of each other ideas and vision even in a different time zone is fun.
My option which i have shared with morpheus_xx is that there needs to be rules with themes/plugins . I hate that with all the skins for mp1 there are only a few that are still updated and a stack that are older than my kids and just sit there doing nothing. A TEAM is great so if one guy does drop out the project keeps going. Also and this is my option only MP2 is going to be shit hot and i believe from what i have seen and used will be the best HTPC front end out there so it must LOOK GOOD. With a good team working a few skins instead of heaps of semi ok themes laying about. From what i see here we are on a WINNER nice work.
To the designer: LEARN Vector !!! it took me and morpheus_xx a bit to work out the best way for me to get my look correct from photoshop and it just didnt work so I started learning Vector (adobe llustrator) and then port that to microsoft blend for Morpheus to work his magic.

 

[filetree]

Sorry for the lack of response, been on quasi-vacation. Haven't touched a pc in a week or so.

I'll try to run through a couple different pages of mockups this weekend and next week. Thought next week was gonna be easy at work, but client is being pretty ridiculous, so I won't have as much time as I thought next week.

Furnibird, any good documentation on going for AI to Microsoft Blend for the skin? I primarily do UI design in a vector-based program now, so I don't think illustrator would be too hard of a jump, although I've never used it for UI stuff

 

[furnibird]

Blend has a option to import the AI file into a new project very is easy.

 

[morpheus_xx]

Hi all,

are there any new ideas? I'd like to start working on a new skin

There are new features for MP2 available, like support for Audio covers, Shader Effects and more metadata (i.e. series or recording information). I also took a look into MP1 Fanart Handler and asked cul8r if he wants to help porting it to a MP2 plugin...

Some more information about MP2 skin engine you should read here http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/2_MEDIAPORTAL_2/Contribute/Skin_Design#Resource_lookup_chain. The skin engine is very flexible and allows "inheriting" styles and screens from the default skin. And because this default skin is very modular, skinners need to change "only" some colors and styles to create new and nice skins and themes

With this architecture there will be probably never a MP1-like black screen with "no screen file found", because we can use the default screens with our skin's styles...

And last note to vector graphics: once you got used to it, you don't want to miss it. I.e. in MP2 we need to define a button style only once (color, shading, border style) and this style can be used for any button size and aspect ratio, because it is freely scalable ...

So skinner, show us some ideas and enter the new MP2 world, it's worth the try!

Morpheus

 

[MrCrabs]

Today I had my last exam this semester and now I can start getting into XAML and MS Expression (already downloaded it).

The skin inheritance it something I really like, since the fact that no skin will ever end up with a black screen is something I really like.

Am I thinking correct that there is basicly almost no limit on how skins might be designed? Inlcuding all different scrolling through buttons and so on? So instead of having only vertical and horizontal scrolling it could also be diagonal, or am I wrong?

 

[furnibird]

A sneak peak

 

[tomtom21000]

Hi furnibird,

not sure how this will all work out (navigation etc), but it is a completely new, fresh an clean look. I like it very much.

tomtom

 

[MrCrabs]

Man, I still don't really know where to start with skinning for MP2. In MP1 it was pretty easy and it was clear how things work, but with MP2...

Opening a skin with MS Blend doesn't work, does it? And what those long and not very handy IDs used all over the skin files? Help!

Will the tutorial be written any further? Once I get started I would like ot contribute.

 

[Spragleknas]

A sneak peak View attachment 101022View attachment 101023

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