Touch Screen users, look here! (1 Viewer)

[PussyWagon]

UPDATE 2009-10-12 - My Music & My Videos Screenshots!!

Much media, xml files and coding comes from other skin. BIG THANKS FOR ALL CREATORS OF THESE SKINS, PLEASE CHECK THEM OUT!
Monochrome
Theatre
Xface
Xfactor
BleazleWide

Also a BIG THANK YOU for all you guys out there trying to help me. Especially Dadeo and Bleazle!

I have beginning my work on a skin that will be mainly focused for Touch Screen users. As i am one of the small amount of a touch screen user and i have been trying many skins around and not finding any of them especially good to be used with touch screen or mouse i have now started my own skin instead!

I want to say that im a beginner at skinning so there will be lots of bugs and i will most likely need much help from users out there in cyberspace.

But first of all, i would like to here from all you touch screen users. I want your ideas and creativities, what do you miss in all other skins, what could be better. How would everything work with the use of a touch screen. Features, graphics, plugin support and so on... Let me know what you need!

Also, if there is anybody out there that want to help with graphics or .xml coding let me know. I need it.

Best regards!

Update with some pictures inside MediaPortal, remember this is at early stage and much of it will probably be replaced in the end.
Also remember that I'm learning while doing this skin, so it takes a lot of time for me to have it finished. So if anyone is willing to help please PM me. My priority after MovingPictures "section" is done will be the Music section as this probably is one of the most important views for all touchscreen users.

Its hard to explain all views, but there is ofcourse some animations in most of the views. Music/Movie views for example the submenu background will slide from left to right to make the skin feel a little bit more alive. And some zoom/fade effects also...
In BasicHome (which is the only Home to be used) all backgrounds are changing depending on what button have focus. If no button has focus, it will randomly fades through a bunch of images.
Switch Menu Icon in upper left corner is made to make it easy to switch between TouchScreen and ProjectionScreen (which is how I am using it). Ofcourse this is easy to remove.
I will also have some easy way to turn lights on/off with "Tellstick plugin" in a later release.
As you can notice in MovingPicture section, I have made all ARROW buttons much bigger and easier to use with touch as this is one of my problems using all other skins. Also some buttons to easy go BACK and HOME have been added.

In music section there really isn't that much to say, some PLAY arrow images beside each files have been added for easier clicking.
The music overlay (the infos displayed on top when music is playing) will have some features like going to "NOW PLAYING" when clicked, and probably "Stop/Pause/Next/Previous" and also maybe Vol+ and Vol-.

Well, its not much... but its all for now!

The skin is called: TouchIT

 

[catavolt]

Maybe you´ll have a look on all PureVision skins. They are designed to fully support mouse, touchscreen and of course remote.

 

[jfcala]

hi PussyWagon, first thanks to want to make a skin for the touch screen users i have a zalman case, and like you, i try lot of skins (theater is the last i try) but is not so easy to use in a touch screen but it looks good.Well, that i t was good is the possibility to navigate on the menu like imon soft or in a htc(ja,ja)with the posibility to configure the basic home screen.thanks

i want to explain something with imon soft, i want to say with it, move in the menu with arows(basihome) (but that it was great it s this arows was in a "animation" like top bar in every menu or with htc that you can scrool the list with the finger.thanks

 

[jw]

i recently picked up a touch screen nettop, and as with the other MP users, i am struggling to find a decent touch screen friendly skin. At the moment i have settled with Black & White 1080p which has enough static on screen buttons to get by.

Keep us updated with any progress made on your skin, i will definitely give it a shot.

 

[kesar]

Hi PussyWagon,
I'm ready to help. Of course within reasonable amount of time I have. I don't know anything about xml programming, but in graphics I'm quite good. So if you have any tasks just PM me.
Some thoughts and requirements regarding the new skin from my side:
- some elements on the screen should be bigger - I have 8.4'' touch screen - I don't know how big you all have, but with popular skins I tested (indigo, monochrome) there is always the problem with touching the right spot, especially the arrows;
- "two-clicks to play" feature would be nice - it would eliminate accidental touches;
- iPhone GUI feature - moving the pages along with a stroke would be nice - too much work I guess at this stage;

Good luck,
kesar

 

[PussyWagon]

Hi PussyWagon,
I'm ready to help. Of course within reasonable amount of time I have. I don't know anything about xml programming, but in graphics I'm quite good. So if you have any tasks just PM me.
Some thoughts and requirements regarding the new skin from my side:
- some elements on the screen should be bigger - I have 8.4'' touch screen - I don't know how big you all have, but with popular skins I tested (indigo, monochrome) there is always the problem with touching the right spot, especially the arrows;
- "two-clicks to play" feature would be nice - it would eliminate accidental touches;
- iPhone GUI feature - moving the pages along with a stroke would be nice - too much work I guess at this stage;

Good luck,
kesar

Hi Kesar!
Thanks for your kindness. Ofcourse im very glad if you could help me with some stuffs.... I will PM you about it.
About your requests:
1. I have in mind that many elements such as buttons, arrows and so on should be bigger. Thats one of my main reason doing this skin. About arrows, check images above and you will see.
2. Two clicks to play/execute I really agree. I also want this feature, unfortunately i think there is no workaround for this as this function does not exist in MediaPortal. That would be if any developer could do a patch for this function to be integrated. It would solve a lots of problems using TouchScreens indeed.
3. iPhone feature, hehe i have also thought about this. It would have been really awesome. But this is also a MediaPortal feature using the mouse that have to be integrated. So I guess there is nothing I can do about it.

But please, if anybody have any ideas on how to accomplish some of this dont hesitate to PM.

 

[SirShagsalot]

Touchscreen Skin - Yeah baby

Folks,

I have beginning my work on a skin that will be mainly focused for Touch Screen users. As i am one of the small amount of a touch screen user and i have been trying many skins around and not finding any of them especially good to be used with touch screen or mouse i have now started my own skin instead! [/I]

I applaud your resolve.

I am in the same boat and have considered to hack up some skins to make them TS friendly.

I am running Xface on my MPPC (OrigenAE S16T case).

I find most things are easy to control.

My main gripes are:

1) Arrows to scroll through screens are too small (like way too small - need to use the nail of my pinky to shift), so I mostly use the rather nice OrigenAE remote.

2) Too much of the screen surface is active and reacts erratically.

3) Everytime I try using the foldout menu on the left hand side it changes the View (from whatever is used to the next one in the list). Worse, when trying to touch the first item in the screen the menu most of the time jumps out.

Also, I find that any such Media Apps I use in distinctly different ways. The "library kiosk" mode is for music, playing movies from the HDD (or rather browsing for them), watching TV I'd never touch a local touchscreen on the Media PC, nor would I when the main display is on use the local screen, unless I'm closer to it that to the remote. So the "touchscreen" part has actually very different requirements to the rest.

So, X-Face with the right scroll buttons in Video's/Movies/Music plus sensible behaviour of "inactive" screen areas would probably be fine, I do rather like the "coverflow" type screen in X-Face.

All of this, plus the fact that Media Portal while all inclusive is not "best of breed" in any area (examples - video playback - Media Player Classic HC is way better, so we carry the bloat of MP to start MPC-HC, audio playback - Foobar or Cplay are the ones to use , again - external player [a shout to Symphy - his ASIO Music Player for MP is very good too]) has made me think about a simple "menu" software instead. In my use at least I use MP strictly as Menu for about 2/3rds of my use (same for GF).

So, why not have a "MediaMenu" & "MediaCrawler" Software twinning which can activate external Apps (like MP for TV) and simply play back any media using "system default" (in other words WIMP-WIndozeMediaPlayer on M$ Stuff) or a set program. Menu's in the interest of speed should be static HTML Files, having html pages that contain IMDB or Album Info and "play Now" buttons would be snazzy, as would be a "Play Now" overlay button on the cover image.

The "MediaCrawler" uses Idle time or very low loading to update the html file database, downloads coverart, IMDB Info etc. This stuff already exists in several pieces all over, including inside Media Portal. Ideally fully crossplatform capable (means runs Win/Mac/Nux).

At the most basic level the "MediaMenu" application would be the system default HTML viewer, but as most web browsers nowadays are bloatware of a class that makes late 1990's Corel Draw distributions seem modest (I remember when it came on as many CD's as my original first Windows Graphics, DTP, Photoediting and Office Software had 3.5 Floppy Disks!), a dedicated "lean and mean" crossplatform application that does not understand "http", only local disk files would likely be a better choice.

Not sure how to best integrate the remote into such an app, but again, all this exists already in MP..

Ideally such a "Media-Menu" would be usable on Playback Streamers like the PopcornHour, would perhaps be integrable into Geexbox and would work on any Windoze, Li(ob)nox or MacInToss Computer.

As static index files need to be generated somewhere, one could have a few templates optimised for Remote Control, Mouse/Keybd control and Touchscreen/Remote control.

Given that we now start seeing loads of cheap touchscreen portables and nettops (eg. EEE Top and MSI Wind all in ones) the touchscreen

Add Themes (Skins) and we have a perfect "library" engine that ideally is very lightweight (how about twice the size of the original Mosaic Webbrowser - I once made a database publishing system that put a whole huge product catalog on line some time in the mid 90's), crossplatform and hopefully easy to use.

The actual applications playing Media, recording Media and so on are whatever you have downloaded, bought, found free on your HDD and so on.

MAYBE, JUST maybe there would be a point forking such a project out of MP (because from all the HTPC Apps I have tried I like MP best and that includes many "paid for" ones.

XLobby may have looked like an option at some point in time, but it has since turned into an Ozzloom Bird and nothing else seems on the horizon.

Heck, I'd even PAY for such a piece of software (say 50 Euro tops).

So, for starters Touchscreen friendly Skins are extremely welcome, but maybe other options are better in the long run?

Greez SSAL

 

[emphatic]

Wow, those screens look very good. Nice work. And kudos on using the DVD case on the movie info (details view), very clever.

Emph

 

[PussyWagon]

Thank you very much Emph!

 

[jw]

i would love to help. Not much in the way of graphical/artistic ability, but have a fair bit of software development skills. Will send you a message.