Quicker skin development (1 Viewer)

[Smirnuff]

Hi -

I've been working on a new virtual keyboard recently and am finding the whole 'make a skin change, restart MP, check it out and make a change...' cycle to be rather annoying and time consuming. To overcome this I've added the ability to refresh a skin in place and this afternoon had a quick brain wave regarding how this can be done in such a way that the other skin developers can use it without me having to submit core changes to SF, after all, such development related features shouldn't be present in the released builds IMO.

The result is a tiny process plugin (meaning it lives in plugins\process folder) that when you hit 'R' or 'r' reloads the skin XML and the rest you can guess.

The plugin can be downloaded here. I haven't tested it with all windows and there is the possibility that it may cause problems on some (let me know and I'll take a look to see what can be done about it) but it appears to be doing just fine on those that I have tested it with.

The plugin has been updated to allow dialogs and OSD to be refreshed also, does a couple of odd things to the background window but the benefits are still obvious.

Smirnoff.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi -

I've been working on a new virtual keyboard recently and am finding the whole 'make a skin change, restart MP, check it out and make a change...' cycle to be rather annoying and time consuming. To overcome this I've added the ability to refresh a skin in place and this afternoon had a quick brain wave regarding how this can be done in such a way that the other skin developers can use it without me having to submit core changes to SF, after all, such development related features shouldn't be present in the released builds IMO.

The result is a tiny process plugin (meaning it lives in plugins\process folder) that when you hit 'R' or 'r' reloads the skin XML and the rest you can guess. I would make it respond to F5 instead but my OnAction handler isn't being called for this key and I didn't want to spend any more time looking into why.

The plugin can be downloaded here. I haven't tested it with all windows and there is the possibility that it may cause problems on some (let me know and I'll take a look to see what can be done about it) but it appears to be doing just fine on those that I have tested it with.

* edit *

Meant to put this in the Graphics \ Skin Development forum since its about skin development and not plugin development.

Also, checked to see what 'R' is used for and it appears that its Record. F5 is rewind. Can change or look at making it configurable if necessary.

Enjoy,
Smirnoff.

Hey you are a star m8

 

[butcherBoy]

yes! really cool! i've been waiting for something like this! thank you!

the butcher

 

[Harley]

Hi Smirnoff,

i have tested it and it works perfekt.

..so it is realy faster to work on the skin


Great Work

Many Thanks for this plugin , think it is a very helpfull tool for us skinners

Greetings 8) Harley

 

[Harley]

Hi Smirnoff,

can you change the Key "r" and "F5" to anotherone that would be not used in MP. That was great, then it is perfekt

thanks 8) Harley

 

[Smirnuff]

I've looked at making the hot key configurable but there isn't a clean way to do this without changing code within MP itself. So in order to offer you some flexibility, you can add the following to mediaportal.xml:

<section name="myrefresh">
<entry name="hotkey">Rr%</entry>
</section>

The above example tells the plugin that it should respond to 'R', 'r' or '%'. You only need to add the above XML if you wish to use something other than 'R' or 'r'.

The updated plugin is available here.

 

[Mr.Mitchell]

Could this one be moved to Graphics and skins and become a sticky? It is way too usefull to be lost.

 

[Inker]

Does this still work in 1.2?

Inker

EDIT: nm, just read the post about it being updated

 

[Callifo]

Just wordering if its possible to make it refresh the graphics as well as the xml files?

 

[Inker]

I noticed that too califo.....would be nice.