More skin in MediaPortal (2 Viewers)

[nph12]

Hello
I like to have more skin to choose from. Why is Streamed MP Skin and XFace not included in MediaPortal?

 

[rekenaar]

Hi there and welcome

Because it is not created, maintained and supported by the official team.
We have a wonderful community of active plugin-devs and skin-designers that keep our world interesting.
Separate releases like that also ensure that independent releases can take place and the MP release schedule will for example not influence the skin release schedule.

Just go to the popular skin section and install em all if you like

 

[nph12]

Thank you. I know that I can download and install new skins but some few more skin as standard skins will be nice (for new users so they easily can try differences skin). I had find my favorit skin (Streamed MP Skin). With Streamed MP Skin is MediaPortal absolute great. It has all what I need

Blue3 is a little bit boring - sorry

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

And the size of the MP installer would be HUGE, believe it or not their are still a lot of people on dial up connections

 

[nph12]

Thank you for your answer. I still think that a standard skin like Streamed MP Skin will "sell" better than Blue3. Just my opinion.

 

[1stdead]

And the size of the MP installer would be HUGE, believe it or not their are still a lot of people on dial up connections

Yes, that might be true. But the majority has faster connetction and i think that the community would benefit a lot from making it easier to find and install/plugins. And yes dukus has done some very great work in the new mpei installer and plugin That's the way it should go

 

[zicoz]

Well I don't think there is anything stopping anyone from creating a larger installer with aditional skins and plugins, a MP version of Meedios Ultimate so to say, but I don't think that this is something the MP-team should "waste" their time with. They should do what they do now, keeping their focus on creating a platform that others can work ontop of.

 

[funkstar]

Well I don't think there is anything stopping anyone from creating a larger installer with aditional skins and plugins, a MP version of Meedios Ultimate so to say, but I don't think that this is something the MP-team should "waste" their time with. They should do what they do now, keeping their focus on creating a platform that others can work ontop of.

But once you go down that route, when do you stop?

Someone will always want some other plugin or skin to be included, and the download soon hits several hundred MB. Maintenance would become a nightmare too. Every time a new skin or plugin is released a new version would have to be created and uploaded. Same goes for MP versions. Then you would have to make sure the latest versions of skins and plugins don't conflict with each other or are compatible with the included version of MP.

The MP Extension Installer is supposed to avoid all this and I'm sure it will in time.
MEDIAPORTAL - free media center - 1.2: MPEI V2 Extensions Installer

After install you can check to see what other plugins and skins are available for download and this goes off to get them and installs them in the correct locations and sets them up. A far better way of doing things in my opinion. Instead of putting the effort into maintaining a monolithic installer, the same effort should be put into helping with MPEI.

 

[infinite.loop]

I still think that a standard skin like Streamed MP Skin will "sell" better than Blue3. Just my opinion.

MediaPortal stable versions have a release cycle of ~1 year.
This means that all skins and plugins which are included in MediaPortal, only receive an update once in the year.

The team concluded that it is the best approach to keep the main apllication simple and stable.
Our great community provides plugins which extend the useability and skins for every taste.

By doing that, Community Developers and Designers have the freedom to create whatever they want, and release new versions whenever they want.

If all "most used" Community Plugins & Skins would be bundled with MP, then they would loose both.

Well I don't think there is anything stopping anyone from creating a larger installer with aditional skins and plugins, a MP version of Meedios Ultimate so to say, but I don't think that this is something the MP-team should "waste" their time with. They should do what they do now, keeping their focus on creating a platform that others can work ontop of.

GPL does "stop" you.

As soon a 3rd party intends to releases a custom build (fork) of an OpenSource application, then they have to change the name of the application to make it distinguishable from the source.
It is not allowed to distribute it to the public under the same name.

While you would "only" create a package with no sourcecodechanges, the same rule applies. And Team MediaPortal would not give any support for such a release.

 

[zicoz]

GPL does "stop" you.

As soon a 3rd party intends to releases a custom build (fork) of an OpenSource application, then they have to change the name of the application to make it distinguishable from the source.
It is not allowed to distribute it to the public under the same name.

While you would "only" create a package with no sourcecodechanges, the same rule applies. And Team MediaPortal would not give any support for such a release.

Really? Well I've never realy bothered to read any rules for OS-stuff. So I couldn't release an installer that installed MP then say a couple of skins, Moving Pictures and MP-TVseries and put it out on the web as Zicoz' MP-Dreampack?

If this can't be done then scratch what I say below this line but if it can don't.

But once you go down that route, when do you stop?

Someone will always want some other plugin or skin to be included, and the download soon hits several hundred MB. Maintenance would become a nightmare too. Every time a new skin or plugin is released a new version would have to be created and uploaded. Same goes for MP versions. Then you would have to make sure the latest versions of skins and plugins don't conflict with each other or are compatible with the included version of MP.

The MP Extension Installer is supposed to avoid all this and I'm sure it will in time.
MEDIAPORTAL - free media center - 1.2: MPEI V2 Extensions Installer

After install you can check to see what other plugins and skins are available for download and this goes off to get them and installs them in the correct locations and sets them up. A far better way of doing things in my opinion. Instead of putting the effort into maintaining a monolithic installer, the same effort should be put into helping with MPEI.

Yes, and I agree completely, I'm just saying that if someone wants to create an installer that installs their "dreampack" of MP skins and plugins there isn't anything stopping them. And if this is to be done it has to be done by a third party and not by the MP-team.