Is there a need for a skin editor? (1 Viewer)

[pilehave]

MediaPortal1_Development/SkinArchitecture/togglebutton - MediaPortal Manual Documentation added

 

[NoBugS]

Thanks for your support guys...
Maybe I can make your lives easier by explaining you what I want/need.

• a list of all properties supported by each control
• if any of these properties should be reflected in the WYSIWYG editor I need to know what they do
• a quick description for EACH property that I can display as a hint for new skinners
• a bonus would be a quick example how to use the control

a quick example to the second point:
lets take 'on left': basically I don't need to know what it does, I just provide you with a property to edit but I don't use it in the editor.
on the other hand lets take 'label': I need to know what it does to reflect changes in the editor (at least I think I should do that )

Maybe I confused you more with that?!

And yes: the developer would be the right person to do the job. For all controls that I support I started by using the wiki but ended up looking in the code to really rebuild what MP does (sometimes the behavior is not really intuitive )

all

 

[Dadeo]

No, he didn't meant to post it here and it will be ported by someone, if you do so it may get lost here in forums.
What he meant it to add it simply as plain text TO the wiki. If anyone other sees it later, he is able to format it and so on...

Thanks for the clarification.

Indeed. This is why I asked skinners to do the documentation work as there is currently no developer who knows as much as the skinners know.

I think you have an exalted view of many skinners' knowledge . There are perhaps a few that do understand the skin engine, but most of us just work around it using trial and error and crossing our fingers and trying to copy from the skinners who know more. As Pileave said you really need to be able to read the source code, so you are talking about a very few skinners who could document accurately. Perhaps we need to recognize the difference between skin developers, who develop skins from scratch, and skin designers who just copy code and redesign graphic elements.

• a list of all properties supported by each control
• if any of these properties should be reflected in the WYSIWYG editor I need to know what they do
• a quick description for EACH property that I can display as a hint for new skinners
• a bonus would be a quick example how to use the control

I just want to clarify terminology - when you say properties, do you mean the tags/elements supported for each control type? I usually think of properties as GUI Properties like #itemcount or others you are listing in properties.xml

So my question is, does the current Wiki page on Label meet your needs? If not, what is missing? Is Pileave's new page on togglebutton enough for you to work from?

Maybe I confused you more with that?!

I found it helpful, not confusing. And I am asking because I will try to add what is missing if I know what you need and if it does not require looking in the code .

sometimes the behavior is not really intuitive )

LOL! Wait until you try and show that an image is dimmed when you put it in a group control! Now how do you document that in the Wiki? I for one don't expect you to resolve all skinning issues. If you can just sort out the "layers" issue I could start using the Editor as it is.

 

[Bleazle]

Since I made a couple of posts earlier in the thread I figured I should jump in again

...Or if my knowledge is thorough enough to be complete and accurate...(to update the Wiki)

@ NoBugS - I think you'll find that's how most "skinners" feel - while we might be able to come up with something that looks OK on a screen it doesn't make us code experts (unfortunately).

...And I don't think skinners can document the GUI Properties supported by a control. Would that not have to be done by a developer who knows the skin engine intimately? Who exactly is the expert on the skin engine?

....You are right that the initial devs should have documented more, but that's an issue in general for MP1. And a few of the initial devs of the skin engine for example are not on board anymore and there are only one or two guys left which know the skin engine good.

It's kind of like having a team of guys design a rocket at NASA and then they leave with the working drawing in their heads - everyone that comes after them has to try to reverse engineer everything....

....A lot of skins' code is a mess because everybody is copying everybody else, while no-one actually knows how the skin-engine really, really works. ...

Yep, that's about right. I look at some of the great work Psycho Reptile comes up with and think "how does he know how to get MP to do this???" There's an example of someone who knows what he's doing, but I think he's a rare breed.

...Asking skinners to provide documentation is the world upside down if you ask me...

Agreed but not much can be done about it now by the looks of things...

Indeed. This is why I asked skinners to do the documentation work as there is currently no developer who knows as much as the skinners know.

I think you have an exalted view of many skinners' knowledge . There are perhaps a few that do understand the skin engine, but most of us just work around it using trial and error and crossing our fingers and trying to copy from the skinners who know more.

... you are talking about a very few skinners who could document accurately.....

I agree, and the lack of response from "skinners" to NoBugS's request for the Wiki to be updated seems to confirm the point (Pilehave excepted of course )

..I for one don't expect you to resolve all skinning issues. If you can just sort out the "layers" issue I could start using the Editor as it is.

Me too! If there's ever anything where I think "hey, I could help out with that" I'll do it, but conversely if I don't think I've got anything to offer I'd rather "stay out of the way".

BTW, where's Harley in this thread? As the designer of the default skins I'm sure he could help out in a big way...

Keep up the great work!

Bleazle

 

[Alltaken]

Would an XML Schema file help you with things?

I started creating an editor for skins, but based it around an XML schema in order to create drop downs etc.... (not wysiwig)

I put a huge amount of work into defining what controls existed and what options worked for them, to the point where it would identify errors within existing skin files such as duplicate declarations, etc...

Let me know if this is useful to you.

It may or may not be as I have noted that the Media portal XML files have never been built around schema's and have some interesting inconsistencies such as inconsistent capitalisation, duplications for the same logical element i.e. backgroundimage bgimage....


It was created for 1.0 but I'll upload it for you anyway as most of the information will not have changed.

Cheers,

 

[NoBugS]

oh that sound great to me. I think creating an XML schema for the whole skinfile to really validate does not really work too good.
But what you have might contain most of the stuff I need. So I'm waiting for what you have....

 

[NoBugS]

I just uploaded my Alpha 5 (already a week old). To be honest: its been a while since I worked on it so I might have missed to mention some of the new features/fixes.
Just go ahead and try it out.

BTW: as always attached to first post.

and as always: comments wanted

 

[NoBugS]

anybody any feedback?

 

[DieBagger]

Sry it took so long but I had a short testrun today with the new alpha. First of all: Great work with Save/Undo/Redo, works like a charm so far. Another highlight of the release is the live preview which even at this early stage gives a good impression of how the file will look like. The context menu on the explorer bar is not working for me though (it works in the hierarchy window).

The most severe bug/missing feature with the latest version for me is that I can't even move/resize/delete imported controls (like common.videowindow.small.xml in BasicHome.xml). Besides that the latest alpha is another great step forward.


A few wishes for future releases

• Keyboard shortcuts would be great: I find myself pressing ctrl+x/ctrl+v or ctrl+s all the time before realizing they don't work (yet)
• Maybe you could split the "Explorer" Sidebar into Fonts/Images/Screens
• A toogle autohide for the sidebar would be nice
• Directly change skin file in xml editor (currently it's read-only)

Here's a (quick and dirty ) mockup of how the changes to the sidebar could be done:



I'll try to go throw the code and add some docs to the wiki but I can't promise anything since I'm not at all familiar with the skinning engine.

Thx and keep on the good work!!!

 

[Pascal]

Wow! Drag & Drop, very nice!

Great great work!