Is there a need for a skin editor? (2 Viewers)

[Pascal]

Would be easy to change. Any reason for it? Do you think it would be easier to use? Or just personal preference?
I'm happy to change it, just want to avoid that everybody else wants it the way its now... What do the others think?

Just that the content of the sidebar can become pretty long while the sidebar itself looks kinda empty with only one tab... You could call it personal preference.

Makes sense to me. Will do it for next version....

+1 for this.

Personally I like to have the graphical preview as big as possible. I would be interested to have all (explorer / hierarchy / properties / controls) in one panel at the left. I can already achieve this with the drag & drop feature, but the controls always left of the preview could also be moved.

thanks,
Pascal

 

[NoBugS]

When you do a lot of small changes it gets annoying that I have to leave the skin editor all the times to see the changes. So ideally I could just define a keyboard shortcut within the editor to trigger the refresh and/or an option that everytime I save the file it also refreshes the skin.

The easiest way I can think of is to just send a user-defined key event to MediaPortal.

Done and it works for me... For now the Hotkey is set to 'E' but I make it configurable in the future.

 

[2BitSculptor]

I just installed the editor... very nice, I hope to be able to contribute in some way.

I do have a request.

I have several grids set up to help me keep things within design limits. I wonder if you can create an 'onion skin' layer that one can display a custom design template, overlaying the screen you are working on. and be able to change its transparency for clarity or to hide it. You should be able to load different templates in as needed. It would be useful when trying to match similar screens, or create a new screen based on another. You would be able to load a screen grab from one screen and use it as a starting point for placement.

Looking forward to the next version.

Thanks,

Chuck

 

[DieBagger]

Ah ok, so you want me to control MP from the skineditor when you have both running at the same time?
And can I get the plugin? It would really help me to have something in MP to display some sample-screens to see if my WYSIWYG is working (sometimes not that easy ).

Sent you a pm...

Btw. I noticed that when you're editing a screen with an imagelist the subitems are not saved correctly, so

<control>
      <id>18</id>
      <type>imagelist</type>
      <posX>292</posX>
      <posY>369</posY>
      <width>380</width>
      <height>29</height>
      <textureWidth>22</textureWidth>
      <textureHeight>22</textureHeight>
      <subitems>
        <subitem>starbad.png</subitem>
        <subitem>stargood.png</subitem>
        <subitem>starbetter.png</subitem>
        <subitem>starbest.png</subitem>
      </subitems>
      <orientation>horizontal</orientation>
      <align>left</align>
      <imagesToDraw>10</imagesToDraw>
      <percentage/>
</control>

will be converted to:

<control>
            <id>18</id>
            <type>imagelist</type>
            <posX>292</posX>
            <posY>369</posY>
            <width>380</width>
            <height>29</height>
            <textureWidth>22</textureWidth>
            <textureHeight>22</textureHeight>
            <subitems></subitems>
            <orientation>horizontal</orientation>
            <align>left</align>
            <imagesToDraw>10</imagesToDraw>
            <percentage/>
</control>

which will break the rendering engine...

thx, looking forward to the next version...

 

[NoBugS]

Personally I like to have the graphical preview as big as possible. I would be interested to have all (explorer / hierarchy / properties / controls) in one panel at the left. I can already achieve this with the drag & drop feature, but the controls always left of the preview could also be moved.

I made the controls-part on the left resizable, so you can choose the width you need for it (between 0 to basically covering the whole screen).

for the idea!

 

[Dadeo]

Hi NoBugs, I am really not clear what stage you are at, so I apologize if you have already considered the following.

1. Styles - Can be set in references.xml and then used in any xml: eg in references:

  <style Name="Title">
        tags.....like <posX> etc.
  </style>

Then in xml you use: <control Style="Title"> instead of just <control>. You can see further examples in streamedMP.

My question is, can the Editor show the Style name used? It does show the properties accurately . However, I would like to be able to change the style I am choosing for a control. I would also like to be able to define a property for a Style that overrides the style (i.e adds it to the control), while still using the Style. For example, if the Style has a <posY>50 - I'd like to change that to 90. Since the <posY> 50 is defined in the style in references, the editor would have to add a <posY>90</posY> tag to the style control in the xml while preserving the rest of the style settings. I can't test what it currently does since I cannot save yet!

2. There are many controls for facade views that do not appear in the Skin Editor. Do you need a list? Or should I just be patient? Keep in mind that facades are often defined by imported xmls.

3. I added my request for 'Layers' visibility to your tracker

 

[NoBugS]

I have no clue about the styles. First time I hear about it. If anything works there its just pure luck. Any examples for that? And documentation?

 

[Dadeo]

I added what I could to the Wiki - Skin Architecture. I could not add the attributes as I don't know them or if any apply . At least something is there and maybe more knowledgeable skinners can add/correct it if needed.

 

[hardcorehire]

Wow!!! I am just starting to look at trying to write my own plugins (MyRolodex, Improve MyRecipes, and maybe MyPCMonitor), and this looks like a very valuable asset to use. It will take me awhile to learn all the features of plugins so it is nice not to have to learn how to do the skinning as well. I have some suggestions, but am at work so the sourceforge pages are locked out right now, but I'll try and add them hopefully over the next week.

Thanks for the fantastic work!!!

 

[mohlertm]

Hello,

dl'ed the file in post #1. I click on skine editor .exe and then click "run" and nothing happens. Nothing shows up in task manager either. Is there something else I am supposed to do to get it to load?