Noob skinning help - borders, scroll bars and mini-guide (1 Viewer)

[Alphathon]

I'm currently working on a skin specifically for desktop use with a 16:10 monitor (based upon DefaultWide), but I'm having some trouble getting some things to work.

First, I can't for the life of me figure out how to get borders to work. All I really want to use them for is to show highlighted items in the TV guide, but I can't get anything (guide items, images, buttons…) to display a border. I've had a look in the wiki but it isn't much help - it tells you what parameters to use but not how to actually use borders themselves, and it doesn't give any examples either.

The second issue is with scroll bars. I have mouse controls enabled in the settings, and the bars seem to be there (I can click and drag at the side of list controls etc and it works like a scroll bar would) but they are not visible. I have tried manually adding textures, but that doesn't seem to work. As I understand it, this may have something to do with it being based on DefaultWide.

Thirdly, I want to add a channel list to the main page of MyTV, rather than using an overlay (i.e. the mini guide). Ideally I'd like to put the full mini-guide on there (now and next, recording info etc) but a list of channels with their logos (and a way to change channel groups) would be sufficient. On a related note, is is possible to put a "change group" button (like is found on the full guide) on either the MyTV home screen or the mini-guide?

Edit:
Oh, and one more thing. I assume this isn't possible, but it can't hurt to ask. Is it possible to add context-sensitive right-click menus, for example in the recorded tv section? Basically I'm wondering if the overlays can be turned into more menu-like items with dynamic positions based on where the cursor is.

 

[Shangostar]

For border try

<imageFolderFocus>border.png</imageFolderFocus>

Not sure if it will be the same in tv guide but thats how streamedMP adds borders to focused items, cd covers, dvd covers etc.

Install some other skins, find one that has borders and look at their code to see how they do it.

 

[Alphathon]

That only really works for fixed-shape items though - the reason I want to use borders is so that it can be a fixed thickness regardless of how wide the item is (in this case the guide entry which can vary wildly depending on the duration of the program). What I am referring to is actual coded borders, which are documented here. Unfortunately, when I use the code shown there, it has no effect.

Edit: Actually, looking at the example code again, I think I may have noticed what I was doing wrong when using it on images, not that that helps when using on the guide entries, since it doesn't use the same syntax.

 

[Shangostar]

I just tried it on a poster using the code and image provided in the wiki and it works but i dont have tv card to try it in the guide.

 

[Alphathon]

OK, I seem to have found how to do it on standard buttons, but it doesn't seem to work on the "button3part" used to define the guide info. I.e. this works:

<textureFocus texture="previewbackground.png" textureRotate="yes" textureRepeat="no" border="5" >tvguide_button_selected_middle.png</textureFocus>

But this does not:

<textureFocusedMid texture="previewbackground.png" textureRotate="yes" textureRepeat="no" border="5" >tvguide_button_selected_middle.png</textureFocusedMid>

 

[redeye19987]

Hi Alphaton,
This should fix your borders issue:
If you are on 1.3 Alpha borders will work however you will need to have the following image in your media folder:
tvguide_highlight_border.png
This is simply a 1x1 pixel white image (see default wide example). You then set the colour in Configuration GUI > Edit Skin Settings (TV Guide tab > Colors tab)
If you have this already you will need to activate borders either in the settings screen of the GUI (if you have skinned that control) or in the above skin settings area.

With your Scroll bar issue:
I believe you will need to include the scroll bar textures in the list control if you wish to use them. The controls are below:
scrollbarbg
scrollbartop
scrollbarbottom

see Listcontrol and Listcontrol_Scrollbar


Justin

 

[Alphathon]

If you are on 1.3 Alpha borders will work...

I'm on 1.2.3 unfortunately. Also, I'm not wanting borders just as a highlight, but on all forms (highlighted/unhighlighted, recordings, "on now"... although the colour will vary depending on what it is)

I believe you will need to include the scroll bar textures in the list control if you wish to use them. The controls are below:
scrollbarbg
scrollbartop
scrollbarbottom

see Listcontrol and Listcontrol_Scrollbar

That fixed it, thanks. Kinda stupid that it's not listed under the scrollbar wiki page itself though. There seems to be an awful lot of that kind of thing in the wiki. :/

 

[redeye19987]

Still not sure if I understand your borders query? The one I am referring to is a border for the current selected item. You cannot currently have a different color for each different item though. This is a relatively new feature that was implemented to work with the new genre colors functionality.

 

[Alphathon]

Hmm, I could've sworn I'd already replied to this. Oh well, better late than never I suppose. Basically what I want to do is put an outline around the guide items. This is a stylistic/aesthetic choice not a functional one and has nothing to do with selection/highlighting. As such it would apply regardless of whether an item was selected.

If this were any other item, I'd probably just do it by adding an outline to the texture (as I have done on various other parts of the skin already), but since the width of the items changes depending on how long the program is, I wanted to use a code-based border like can be applied to standard buttons, images etc. That way, the outline would remain consistent so wouldn't get all stretched and smudged on the sides on long programs, or shrunk to the point of invisibility on short ones. However, it would appear that this isn't possible on 3-buttons, or at least not in the same way as the other items.

 

[redeye19987]

Ok got ya! Yep, button3part has an overlay texture but it is only used for the inside of the button. To do this, you would essentially need to create an individually coded overlay for each of these buttons. And as you said, one for each different size if you wanted to avoid stretching. This of course then wouldn't work if a plugin developer used any buttons as you would essentially have to do a texture for each one if you skinned that particular plugin.
Good luck! Hopefully you can figure something out?