Focus - a new skin in work (port from XBMC) (1 Viewer)

[ajp8164]

Welcome to Focus

I am working to port a skin named Focus from XBMC to MP. There is a long way to go but I have (alpha) completed some screens and want to start sharing my progress. Since this is a port from XBMC I am having to make patches to the MP skin engine to achieve some of the capabilities. The process of patching MP is slow and so the development of this skin has been slow. I have been working on since about July 2009 and I expect to be able to pick up the pace once I have integrated all of my outstanding patches into the MP skin engine. Since this is a port of an XBMC skin I must acknowledge and thank the original author, Jeroen, for allowing me to attempt this port. His thread for the XBMC Focus skin is here: Focus - XBMC Community Forum.

I am designing the skin for an output resolution of 1366x768 but changing it for other resolutions should not be too difficult.

I have have attached a series of images of the work done so far (these are real screen shots of MP, not Photoshop files). I have spent most of my time to this point on the settings screens and weather plugin.

This skin incorporates a number of skin engine changes and pending changes including the following major features:

• Shadow text
• New Spin Button control (see a settings screen with up/down arrows in the button control)
• New Check Button control (see a settings screen with check-circle in the button control)
• Improved Button control with fadelabel
• Image bordering (all buttons have a one pixel white border; no skin developer effort to add)
• New text alignment attributes (e.g., vertical align)
• Dialog animation on close
• Textbox updates
• List control updates
• New group layout - TableLayout (see the skip step settings page; the layout is all done in one group using TableLayout)
• Skinnable keyboard (cool!)

Most of these features can be seen in the attached screenshots. I am planning to not release the skin until I get at least basic functionality complete (TV, Music, Video, Pictures).

I hope you like it so far. I am trying hard to maintain the integrity of the original XBMC skin (I'll get creative from there ;-)
?

Update: Updated TV guide window (still working on skin, going slowly atm; work, family, holidays...)

 

[Spragleknas]

Another great looking and "simple" skin!

I am designing the skin for an output resolution of 1366x768 but changing it for other resolutions should not be too difficult.

I just have to ask (as I do other skinners selecting this resolution ): Why 1366x768? The only reason I can think of is that you have a "HD-ready" screen witch manage to do 1:1 pixelmapping.

 

[emphatic]

The patching is really appreciated. Will these be in the final release of MediaPortal, what with the feature freeze and all?


Emph

 

[ysmp]

Hi Andy ! Looking very good ..so far ...rally great ..
its bin so long sinss last talk ...i thot you drop it down ... i'm happy to see you doing it ...

Thank you for FOCUSMP it will be 1 of the great one (skin) for MP.....and Big Thank's for all the patches you mack for MP...

 

[Dadeo]

Hey Andy - glad to see you've made so much progress! Congrats! But do you really have to make us drool over all those new additions that are still 'pending' I can't wait to use all your patches!

 

[Psycho Reptile]

Those skinning engine/plugin improvements are brilliant Andy!!!!! Hopefully they will get approved for the rest of us to use

 

[2BitSculptor]

Will the skin-able keyboard patch be in on time?



Chuck

 

[ajp8164]

I'm not sure I can absolutely answer the critical question :-/

Will the skin engine patches be in on time (or targeted for the Dec release)? Answer: don't know. In the event that the MP team decides that all of the changes cannot be included I will be happy to maintain and post binary (experimental) releases of MP that include all of my changes. However, I think in the long run that we will (somehow, not going to talk for the team here) be able to add updates in the future (of course I could be outvoted ;-)

Okay, the delay for getting the patches all rolled in lies mostly in my lap. I have a lot of changes that I made using a baseline from several months ago and so reconciling the changes with the latest baseline is what I am doing now. I have asked for write access to the ajp8164 branch and so the changes will appear on that branch first. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated. Thanks for being patient and interested in my work. I really appreciate the support of the team and this community.

Thanks everyone!

 

[ajp8164]

Another great looking and "simple" skin!

I am designing the skin for an output resolution of 1366x768 but changing it for other resolutions should not be too difficult.

I just have to ask (as I do other skinners selecting this resolution ): Why 1366x768? The only reason I can think of is that you have a "HD-ready" screen witch manage to do 1:1 pixelmapping.

Yes - I have an HDTV with a native screen resolution of 1366x768. The connection between my PC and TV is SVGA and so I can use all of the resolution. While I've been developing the skin I have used window mode quite a bit for testing and nearly all of it scales without changes to the skin files. There are a few things I'll need to address but hopefully that won't be too difficult to tackle.

 

[iMse]

Its great to see that someone is porting Focus. Its one of my favorite skins for XBMC. What I particulary like about it is that you can change it to fit your needs. Since the text is white colored transparent it changes as you change the backgrounds. I changed to a brown color to match my wall behind the TV. The only thing that i could complain about is the color on blue top bar, which doesnt fit in with the blue color on the standard background.
I will definetly use this skin

Thanks alot Andy! Keep up the good work