"Skinning Workflow"? Skin xml-files overview (1 Viewer)

[N8jaeger]

Hi all,
yesterday i successfully installed the skin StreamedMP and modified it for my needs (graphics, bigger fonts, ...).

Especially the modification for the thumbnail sizes drives me crazy.... facade, facade 2, facade 3, mymusic - a lot of xml files and i have no clue which role each file has. Is there an overview for the skin engine workflow or something similar?

Another one is that the actual documentation for "Skinners" miss a lot of things. What i have seen is that there are different "effects" you can apply, but i can not find a more useful manual how to use them (keywords, ...).

Thanks in advance for any help on this

 

[joz]

I think there's no such thing, if there is that might even still be handy for me. But figuring out which file the screen your looking at most of the time is pretty intuitive because the filename is the windows name. If that's not the case it's the matter of elimination. I tend to do that by trying to identify the screen together with the refresh plugin. Just put some huge textcontrol in a xml that you might think is it and see if the text appears after refresh.

Your second question, aren't these examples good enough for you? Looks good to me.
MediaPortal1_Development/SkinArchitecture/skin_animations - MediaPortal Manual Documentation

Besides that just take a look at how these sorta things are solved within skins. I agree on that documentation is still pretty lacking. But that's a job that's not really that much fun ey.
The wiki should be as open as possible. I never tried really editing or adding anything myself in there.

 

[N8jaeger]

thx for reply joz.

Well, yesterday evening i surfed again through the wiki and clicked the links inside the skin manual. At least the question about animation/effects is answered by a simple RTFM - i'm sorry

What you mentioned is what i do right now: Create a control and see what happen. This kind of "simple reverse egineering" might be ok, but i really want to understand the "workflow" how the files are parsed. Again - i could learn it by myself with try and error, but it would take much time (and who has it?).

In the forums i found the attached pic which looks more or less useful, and i thought there are something similar docs "in the wild" someone could post here

 

[Anthrax]

Hi N8jaeger,

in my humble opinion some of the stuff in this list might be outdated - so just keep your senses trained ;-)