1.4.x Titan - Pulse8 Theme (1 Viewer)

[GaryMartynUK]

Pulse8 - Theme for Titan

Overview
Pulse8 is a theme for Titan which places a 4x2 grid of buttons on each screen allowing for more functions to be included and actually uses up less screen space thus showing more of the backdrop images.

The skin incorporates a number of visual enhancements and features including...

• User configurable pulsating and colour changing button highlights
• Optional background/fanart animation
• Optional panel behind the BasicHome buttons (to separate them from the background)
• Optional and configurable 'Latest recorded TV' overlay
• Support for Rockstar and MPSteam on the main BasicHome screen
• Full integration of ClearArt, ClearLogos and DiscArt for Music, MyVideos, Moving Pictures and TV Series
• Full configuration options through MediaPortal front end

There is a video in the files below which shows some of the animation/effects in action.

Note : If you would prefer this theme to have the traditional 3x2 button layout on the Basic Home screens, this is now available as Pulse-Hex which can be found here https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/titan-pulse-hex-theme.122995/
Pulse-Hex provides many of the same functions with the obvious exception of not being able to have as many buttons on the screen and thus not as many plug-ins can be supported on the home screens at once.

Latest update in summary

Update 17/12/13 - Version 2.0.0

Major rework to include full support for Clear Art, Clear Logos and CD/Disc Art (You can download these by using MePoTools) - With an optional background panel and Clear Art/Logos on the 'Filmstrip' view for TV Series, Moving Picture and MyVideos

New darker 'now playing' overlay (the small bar top centre of the screen when you go back to the menu when you have a video/music playing)

You can also reveal the Fanart on the Rockstar and MyVideos plugins. Simply press 'left' on the details of a movie or the Rockstar screen and the details panel will disappear to reveal the fanart.

There is also an updated patch to replace the Radio Button with HyperSpin for anyone using this.

Plus a variety of tweaks to visual items/settings screens

Earlier updates in Change log at the end of this post

Screen Shots
'Pulse8 Aqua' main basic home screen - with recently added Videos overlay

'Pulse8 Cherry & Dark Cherry' main basic home screen - with new darker Now Playing overlay

v2.0.0 Updates

ClearArt / ClearLogo / DiscArt


Reveal Fanart in Rockstar and MyVideos (pressing left in details view to show backdrop/now playing)
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New Settings option to configure new features



v1.1.2 Updates - New Dark Cherry Theme
New Dark Cherry theme is the same as Cherry but with a dark default background. No difference on BasicHome with backdrops, but in other screens it is darker and less intensely red.

Dark Cherry and Cherry screen shots of record TV screen


v1.1 Updates
Here is an example of the new larger TV overlay and one of the spotify/grooveshark/rdio logos on the Music button to indicate that Rockstar is also installed and a shot of the screen without the optional main menu panel (turned on and off in the settings screen)


Other features/screen shots


Full features list

• Optional and configurable Pulsating animation for BasicHome button highlight (multiple colour choices)
• 8 buttons per screen (revealing more of the backdrop)
• Optional Animated backdrops for all BasicHome buttons (on both pages of BasicHome)
• Optional Recording space indicator on recorded TV screen
• Optional recently recorded TV overlay (with optional display of programme genre)
• Optional Music button 'enhancement' with Spotify/Grooveshark/rdio icon when using Rockstar streaming music plug-in
• Optional 'panel' behind the buttons on BasicHome (to visually separate buttons from backdrop)
• Full support for ClearArt, ClearLogos and CD/Disc Art
• Radio submenu (to match the TV submenu)
• Ability to 'hide' the details in MyVideos and Rockstar to reveal the Fanart behind
• Music submenu to access local music library and Rockstar (when using Rockstar, not shown if not using Rockstar plugin)
• BasicHome directly supports the following plug-ins...
  • MP-TV Series
  • TV
  • Films (MyVideos or Moving Pictures or My Films)
  • Online Videos
  • Music
  • Rockstar
  • Radio
  • Pictures
  • MPSteam
  • Settings
  • Infoservice
  • Trakt
  • Tetris
  • Settings
  • Plug-ins
  • Extensions
  • Sudoku
• Variety of new home buttons included (use, replace or delete as you see fit)

Current ideas for future features:

• My films overlay
• Latest / last played music overlay
• Latest pictures overlay
• Support for more plugins
• Configurable BasicHome button priorities (no idea how yet, this might not even be possible)

Installation instructions

• Download the Pulse8 Aqua and/or Pulse8 Cherry zip files from below.
• In the zip file is a directory called 'Pulse8 Aqua' or 'Pulse8 Cherry', this needs to be extracted to C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\skin\Titan\Themes\ (note do not install it in the skin directory directly, this is a Theme for Titan, not a full skin (thus you inherit support for any plug-in that supports Titan when using this skin)
• In the zip file is a fonts.xml file. Ideally install this in C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\skin\Titan, overwriting the main Titan one.
  • My fonts.xml does not change any of the fonts used by Titan it just adds a new one, so this will not adversely affect Titan.
  • If however you already have an altered font.xml file, then I suggest you place my fonts.xml file into the C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\skin\Titan\Themes\Pulse8 Aqua and Pulse8 Cherry directories. But please note that when you select the skin in the settings screen, that much of the screen will go blank until you close and restart MePo. It will however then work fine and is perfectly safe. This is because Titan can not currently switch fonts definitions on the fly (a known by safe issue with themes in Titan/MePo)
• If you are updating from a previous version of Pulse8 Aqua or Cherry then please delete the C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\cache\titan directory. This will cause MePo to re-cache the image files on the next start-up and ensure that any updated images are pulled in properly

Change log
Update 17/12/13 - Version 2.0.0

This is a significant update to previous versions. Pulse8 now has support for ClearArt, ClearLogos and Disc cover art for Music, MyVideos, Moving Pictures and MP-TVSeries. This includes Art on the browsing screens for each plug-in and also the On Screen Display pics up the art work for videos being played.

Clear Art can be turned on and off in the settings and when enabled there are two additional options for including ClearArt and a black background panel on the FilmStrip views for MyVideos, Moving Pictures and MP-TVSeries. The Filmstrip view has a significantly different layout to the icon views and some may prefer to only have Art on the details view, so this allows FilmStrip art to be turned off whilst leaving the other Clear Art enabled.

I have replaced the now playing on screen overlay (top middle of the screen) with a darker one, more in keeping with the style of most screens.

You can also reveal the Fanart on the Rockstar and MyVideos plugins. Simply press 'left' on the details of a movie or the Rockstar screen and the details panel will disappear to reveal the fanart. Then press any direction to return to the details screen (Makes My Videos more like Moving Pictures where this happens if you press left)

Plus a variety of tweaks to visual items/settings screens

Update 11/12/13 - Version 1.1.4

Added a 'Now Playing' feature to RockStar (Press left on the menu to reveal the Fanart, Press right again to put menu back - Note Rockstar does not support this, so sometimes the list is a mess when pressing right, but select a menu item and it will look right again)

Fixed a some backdrop issues with different combinations of MPSteam, World Weather Lite and Trakt. Should now all be correct in Fanart and Default backdrop settings for any combination of these plugins being enabled

Fixed the Moving Pictures submenu appearing behind the TV Series button (Thanks to Andrew Rogerson for highlighting)

Included the feature to put the Weather button on the 1st BasicHome screen if not using Trakt or MPSteam. (requested by Andrew Rogerson)

A few tweaks to the submenu indicators

Update 26/11/13 - Version 1.1.3

This update includes some updates to the TV Guide to make the program bars into arrows when a programme continues beyond the currently visible time period.


This version also includes the release of a theme called Pulse-Hex. This theme has the same features and is built on the same design, it just reverts to the original titan 3x2 grid for the BasicHome screens. This is more suitable for smaller TV screens. You can find Pulse-Hex here -> https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/titan-pulse-hex-theme.122995/#post-1043145

It also includes some minor tweaks and fixes such as converting Tetris to the Cherry colour scheme, a few final blue elements converted to the cherry colour scheme and some fixes to the 'default background' options as animation was not working with this option selected.

Update 22/11/13 - Version 1.1.2

If you have installed Aqua or Cherry v1.1.1 and cleared your cache there is no need to update to 1.1.2 as this only contains a rename to avoid a cache problem which is fixed by clearing the cache on v1.1.1 anyway.

Introduced a new Theme colour scheme. For those who want a slightly less intensely red interface, the new 'Dark Cherry' includes a dark default backdrop. It looks just like Cherry on the BasicHome screen, however in any screen using the default background, such as the recorded TV screen, Weather, Pictures etc this theme has the dark background from the settings page for a less 'in your face' red appearance.

Update 21/11/13 - Version 1.1.1

Tiny error located in my earlier release. Two files updated as TV and MPTV series buttons backdrops were round the wrong way.

Update 20/11/13 - Version 1.1

I have now added the following

• Added multiple pulsating highlight colour options (pick your own combination)
• Integrated Rockstar plugin
  • Music menu button has a submenu if you have Rockstar enabled (functions as normal if not)
  • You can choose to have a spotify/grooveshark/rdio icon overlaid on the music button when using Rockstar
• Fixed a number of backgrounds for various plugins. Backdrops should now work correctly with Fanart or single backdrop options. Backdrops should work on home page 1 or 2 automatically depending on which plug-ins you use
• Found and fixed a few hard coded text colours and a couple of graphics items that were still blue the Cherry version
• Moved the TV menu to the far left and created a new Latest TV overlay that uses more screen space to make the text fields longer and avoid text scrolling except for very long programme titles

I have also added a full configuration page in the 'Gui' -> 'Skin' -> 'more settings' -> 'Pulse8' menu. From here you can now perform the following

• Configure the colour options for the basic home menu buttons (with a live example on the settings page so you can see your selected style)
• Disable/enable the pulse feature
• Disable/enable the panel behind the buttons on basic home
• Disable/enable animated backdrops
• Configure which logo to overlay on the Music button (with a live example on the settings page so you can your selected images)
• Enable/Disable the latest recordings overlay (hover on the TV button)
• Enable/Disable the inclusion of programme genre on the latest recordings overlay

Initial version 20/11/13 - Version 1.0

Done in this version...

• Initial version of Pulse8 Aqua and Pulse8 Cherry themes
• Support for core plug-ins + MPSteam +DriveFreeSpace (for Storage indicator on Recorded TV page)
• Animated backgrounds and red/white(Cherry) or blue/white(Aqua) pulsating button highlight working
• Latest TV overlay
• Recording space indicator
• Radio submenu

To be done

• Configuration page
• Further testing of backdrops for default and fanart options
• Some font colours and a couple of graphics in Cherry still need converting (only appear on a couple of settings screens)
• Plug-ins font colour to update

 

[catavolt]

Very nice mod

 

[Brudertac]

Very nice! Thanks for your work!

 

[Game_dude]

Love the cherry one!

 

[allanp81]

Anyone getting the text wrapped when highlighting the TV button?

 

[GaryMartynUK]

Hi Allanp81

I've changed the Latest TV overlay so this should happen a lot less now, I've maxed out the space for the programme title. Let me know how you get on with v1.1

 

[Game_dude]

Could you make a custom basic home image for emulators?

 

[allanp81]

Seem to have a weird problem now with 1.1 whereby the buttons for TV and Radio appear to have horizontal grey lines across them. Will try and get a screengrab to highlight.

 

[etagure]

Sorry to ask, is this MOD support MP1.5, because when I start MP I get error; failed to load your skin..aborting...can not find parth of path c:/programdata...../tetris

 

[GaryMartynUK]

Allanp81,

That is a nice easy one to fix. I've updated the submenu indicators so that they scale properly when the buttons are highlighted, but your MePo is using the version it already has cached. In hindsight I should probably have given the new menu indicator's image file a different name to solve the problem. You can fix this in seconds. If you close MePo and then delete the C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\Cache\Titan directory (this only contains the cache of image files) and then re-run MePo it will take about 5 seconds longer than normal to load (this time only) as it will re-built the cache. It will then use the new versions rather than the old versions as it has not realised the file has been changed.

The big lines will disappear and you will have the submenu indicator sorted. Perhaps my next challenge is to look at making an installer that will add the new font to the existing fonts.xml file and clear the cache to avoid this sort of problem and save people having to manually place the fonts.xml file.

Note: for above the c:\programdata directory is normally hidden, but if you open and explorer window and type c:\programdata in the top bar it will then pop up just fine.


etagure,

I created the whole skin on 1.5 so it should run. The only reference I make to Tetris is a button on the main menu but there should not be anything looking for a directory with tetris in the name, it simply loads a link to the built-in tetris module. Worst case scenario if you have the tetris plug-in disabled it will load a button which does nothing (I should make it so that the sudoku and tetris buttons load dummy buttons instead if those plug-ins are disabled, but as they are a part of MePo I did not worry about this initially).

Do you have any more information about the error? Or a screen shot at all? I guess it might not stay on the screen long if it is failing to load the theme.

Thinking about it though (and please excuse me if I am asking a silly question) but did you put the files from the zip file into C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\skin\Titan\Themes\ rather than C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\skin\ It could give an error like this if you try to load it as a skin rather than a theme for Titan (it requires the Titan skin as a base to work from) You should see it in the 'Theme' list in the Skin settings screen rather than listed in the skin list.[DOUBLEPOST=1384993805][/DOUBLEPOST]gamedude,

Post an image / link to an image you'd like it to be based on and I'll see what I can do to make the image. Do you just want the image file or do you want an update for the theme to put a functional button on the home menu? If so would you like it in place of MPSteam? or on the 2nd page of buttons?