Blue Vision (2 Viewers)

[ge2301]

I modified at first the video part. Since the grid properties are fixed I added additionally a semitransparent background.
Do you prefer with or without the background? I can hardly decide Both look not as well as before. But at least there are no deformed or croped posters anymore.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

Do you prefer with or without the background?

I prefer with background.

Is there a way to use a square grid size means width and height (nearly) equal? Would fit better with mixed graphics like on your sample.

 

[ge2301]

Is there a way to use a square grid size means width and height (nearly) equal? Would fit better with mixed graphics like on your sample.

As I understood the section "videos" will be more for videos apart from series and movies and there will be some modifications.
At least for me, it's not necessary to show movies and series a second time in video section. I see the purpose of the video section for home videos and comparable and those have usually no poster and the aspect is wide.
There were once discussions about the future of the video section and even trials to let the user configure it ... but could not find it now

EDIT: At least the list view is according to your wishes now. Posters are showing up with original aspect ratio. In list view there is no need for a background due to free grid size.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.

it's not necessary to show movies and series a second time in video section.

Completely agree here.One of the most posted criticism on MP2 video section at all.

I see the purpose of the video section for home videos and comparable

Agree too, but as long as we don't have any separate section for documentaries, anime, music videos,... like we have for series and movies, all those is going here too...

those have usually no poster

Yea, but they easily can have. It only takes a single mouse click and a few seconds for each video...

 

[ge2301]

Yea, but they easily can have. It only takes a single mouse click and a few seconds for each video...

I plan anyway a "Bluevision settings" button in settings, where several things can be decided by user. I know that generally the strategy is to use themes for that, but some things should be completely up to the user.
Specific settings could be:

• (de-)activate homescreen
• Select grid style for video (user defined) section(s)
• Select the color setting
• etc.

 

[ge2301]

By the way, has someone confirmed the bug (or not, I don't know) in skin engine displaying the "fallback" image first and after a while starts to show the "real" image? This gives not that nice flicker while browsing especially if you went through the list for the first time after a start of MP2 Client....

I could identify the root cause for this now. It's really, that the FallbackSource is showing up at first and then is replaced by the main poster. If I take the FallbackSource out, there is no problem.
I tried to define the fallbacksource seperately as the poster with a condition, that it only loads when the poster is not available, but it causes the same problem.
WPF offeres something like a deplay for bindings, which could be used for the Fallbacksource, but it seems it is not supported by MPF. Means in the end I have no idea how to solve it

EDIT: I could take theoretically the Fallback out for Fanart. Problem is, that AudioCovers and Images are only shown by FallbackSource ...

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.
This is a bug in MP2 imho and should be solved in code not in skin...

 

[morpheus_xx]

Hi.
This is a bug in MP2 imho and should be solved in code not in skin...

No it's not a bug: the fallback source is conceptionally shown if no primary source is available. And due to the fact that the image allocation works asynchronously, it's visible until valid source is loaded.

If we like to improve this, we should only use local images (with genric folder/media item placeholders) for fallback source (no MediaItem, no fanart source). This should at least solve the switch between 2 images.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.
In my understanding a "fallback" is an "emergency solution" if nothing else is possible. And for this it only should pop up if there is nothing else that can be displayed.

To me it looks like this atm:
We need to display a gfx. So we display the fallback and then have a look if there is something different to display. If yes we replace the fallback, if no we do nothing.

IMHO it should be like this:
We need to display a gfx. So we have a look if there is something to display. If yes, we display it, If no we display the fallback.

IMHO this makes more sense. As the "not displayed" GFX is "faster" than the fallback in any case (as it actually is always "there" already) it did not matter if we need another half of a second to load the gfx from disk (or DB in future). Now we first need to load the fallback gfx from disk and then additionally load the "real" gfx from disk. This lasts longer in any case (maybe only some milliseconds but nevertheless) and also leads to this ugly "flicker".

Maybe this is no "bug" but at least an issue that probably could (and should) be solved by code change.

 

[ge2301]

The point with only local images for fallback I didn't understand Why a local fallback will make it load not at first?
My understanding is that MP2 should first try to load the target image. If this can not succeed, because not available, not accessible or whatever, then the fallback can be loaded. If it's the way around, it's like buying first an apple and then looking for the peach I wanted to eat. If the peach is available I throw the apple then ... for me not the logic approach In case there is not something else, that we as non programmer do not see, I'd also say that the code needs to be changed.