home
products
contribute
download
documentation
forum
Home
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
All posts
Latest activity
Members
Registered members
Current visitors
Donate
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Search titles only
By:
Menu
Log in
Register
Navigation
Install the app
Install
More options
Contact us
Close Menu
Forums
MediaPortal 2
Skins and Design
Upcoming Skinning Contest
Contact us
RSS
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="da-anda" data-source="post: 649086" data-attributes="member: 86409"><p>I don't think we need two skins for that - should only be a matter of the selected view. Not sure if you're familiar with XMBCs Confluence or Rapier skin, but those have a good mixture of fanart related views and ones concentrating on the content.</p><p>My personal taste is, that when I'm in a view dealing with information about my media, then I want to read that information instead of having a useless fanart covering 80% of the screen and the information is packed to a minimal space, has a too small font-size one needs goggles to read it or is only showing 2 autoscrolling lines of the plot and you have to wait ages until it repeats from the beginning so that you finally can start reading it. Don't get me wrong, I like fanart views, like when browsing movie posters in a film strip etc, but once I decide to read more information about my media (be it movies, tv-shows, music artists), this information should be in the focus - not the fanart anymore.</p><p>So in my eyes, a good skin is providing both possibilities, depending on the context that's currently viewed. Fanart-Only skins are in my eyes to specific for a small user group - the aim should be to provide a skin the majority of the user base is pleased with and is easy to use, even for housewifes or children.</p><p></p><p>Getting a bit of topic here, but I got the feeling it fit's right now:</p><p>In my eyes a media center (like any other software) has to be easy to install and shouldn't need much (if any) configuration to work in the first place. The software has to hide complex tasks it might have to deal with from the average enduser. If one is more of a pro he should be able to have a possibility to adjust advanced configuration options (maybe via a external configuration file/tool), but the basic configuration options should be covered by the gui of the software (I like the way XBMC is doing it).</p><p>My first experiences with MediaPortal where just the other way around. While installation itself was not too hard for me as experienced PC users (alhough lot's of dependencies had to be fulfilled) the necessity to find my way through the complex configuration managers was simply too much. I asked myself, why do I need to leave the media center only to add a new folder to my movie database, or what do I have to do to get covers and fanarts, and what are fanarts? Installing plugins was (and in my eyes still is) a bit of a pain in the a... The installer is a good start, but again, it should be a GUI only task - as well as the configuration of the plugins. The users are sitting in front of a HTPC, thus a few meters away from the screen. Having a full-HD screen resolution the regular OS windows etc. might be a bit tooooo small for easy reading and handling from the couch - that's why one likes to use a media center software and not the Windows Explorer and VLC, right?</p><p></p><p>Just some thoughts of mine.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="da-anda, post: 649086, member: 86409"] I don't think we need two skins for that - should only be a matter of the selected view. Not sure if you're familiar with XMBCs Confluence or Rapier skin, but those have a good mixture of fanart related views and ones concentrating on the content. My personal taste is, that when I'm in a view dealing with information about my media, then I want to read that information instead of having a useless fanart covering 80% of the screen and the information is packed to a minimal space, has a too small font-size one needs goggles to read it or is only showing 2 autoscrolling lines of the plot and you have to wait ages until it repeats from the beginning so that you finally can start reading it. Don't get me wrong, I like fanart views, like when browsing movie posters in a film strip etc, but once I decide to read more information about my media (be it movies, tv-shows, music artists), this information should be in the focus - not the fanart anymore. So in my eyes, a good skin is providing both possibilities, depending on the context that's currently viewed. Fanart-Only skins are in my eyes to specific for a small user group - the aim should be to provide a skin the majority of the user base is pleased with and is easy to use, even for housewifes or children. Getting a bit of topic here, but I got the feeling it fit's right now: In my eyes a media center (like any other software) has to be easy to install and shouldn't need much (if any) configuration to work in the first place. The software has to hide complex tasks it might have to deal with from the average enduser. If one is more of a pro he should be able to have a possibility to adjust advanced configuration options (maybe via a external configuration file/tool), but the basic configuration options should be covered by the gui of the software (I like the way XBMC is doing it). My first experiences with MediaPortal where just the other way around. While installation itself was not too hard for me as experienced PC users (alhough lot's of dependencies had to be fulfilled) the necessity to find my way through the complex configuration managers was simply too much. I asked myself, why do I need to leave the media center only to add a new folder to my movie database, or what do I have to do to get covers and fanarts, and what are fanarts? Installing plugins was (and in my eyes still is) a bit of a pain in the a... The installer is a good start, but again, it should be a GUI only task - as well as the configuration of the plugins. The users are sitting in front of a HTPC, thus a few meters away from the screen. Having a full-HD screen resolution the regular OS windows etc. might be a bit tooooo small for easy reading and handling from the couch - that's why one likes to use a media center software and not the Windows Explorer and VLC, right? Just some thoughts of mine. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
MediaPortal 2
Skins and Design
Upcoming Skinning Contest
Contact us
RSS
Top
Bottom