Community Design (2 Viewers)

[CypherMK]

While a lot of people may like text directly on to backgrounds i have to agree with infinite.loop on it being a bad design idea, while Lehmden's setup may be perfect for this for many other people the text can get lost and become unreadable particularly if the backdrop if very "busy" and my personal preference is to have as little text shadows as possible because they mostly look crap lol.

But backdrop didn't have text on fanart. It always had a black background behind the text. If I remember correctly.

 

[infinite.loop]

While a lot of people may like text directly on to backgrounds i have to agree with infinite.loop on it being a bad design idea, while Lehmden's setup may be perfect for this for many other people the text can get lost and become unreadable particularly if the backdrop if very "busy" and my personal preference is to have as little text shadows as possible because they mostly look crap lol.

But backdrop didn't have text on fanart. It always had a black background behind the text. If I remember correctly.

nope
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/attachments/music_playlist-jpg.79852/

even though text has a dropshaddow - the text is very hard on the eye to read in that screen from a normal livingroom viewingdistance - especially on a bright LED-backlight (not edge-light) TV.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.
For me the example is readable clearly. I extra tried it on a CRT TV too, also no problem. But others surely could have issues with that, that's why there are more than one skin to choose... I was asked to list what I think are the advantages of Backdrop and I did. Others may think differently, no problem. But that's my opinion. For me, my personal use, this is the way to go.

I'm not sure but I will ask Morph later if it's possible in MP2 to generate a heavily blurred, upscaled and semi transparent black version of text below the normal white text, just to add a underlying gfx with as little space as needed. I'm pretty sure this will be a problem in MP1, but I hope the MP2 skin engine is capable of something like that.

It always had a black background behind the text.

Not really. On top of screen there was a .png that did a "fade out" so the top text was on darkened backdrop. Normal text came without any gfx below.

 

[CypherMK]

nope
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/attachments/music_playlist-jpg.79852/

even though text has a dropshaddow - the text is very hard on the eye to read in that screen from a normal livingroom viewingdistance - especially on a bright LED-backlight (not edge-light) TV.

Ok. My bad. That looks awful indeed.

But the homescreen of backdrop looks good though!

 

[infinite.loop]

But the homescreen of backdrop looks good though!

Fully agree - as I said, I love fanart! But it does provide some challenges because it is not predictable.

 

[wizard123]

Indeed and i welcome everyone to post the elements they think would look good in a new skin.

 

[wizard123]

In particular i would like peoples opinions on home screens because as they stand now they are kind of stale and an boring, there is only so much you can do with the designs and layouts that we use right now.

 

[wizard123]

Ok here is my concept of a new home screen trying to strike a balance between fanart and usability with nice looks.

 

[CypherMK]

Hi,

Looks cool to me. But what are the pictures used for? Latest media?

Another suggestion: Sub menus are also very important to me. For example: I want a submenu under the TV tab to get to my recordings, epg, etc.

 

[wizard123]

Yep the sub menus would only show when a menu item has focus, and the pics at the bottom are all latest media items which you would be able to navigate too and play direct