User Configurable skins: mce1280x720 bluetwo1280x720 (beta) (1 Viewer)

[Boilermaker]

Updated 7/18
ftp://www.knwd.net/pub/mediaportal/skin/mce1280x720/mce1280x720.exe

In an effort to make these skins a little more user friendly, i've converted the zip file into an installer which gives the end user some choices (listed below). There is still some stuff to do, but in its current state running the installer should result in a working skin. Any feedback, suggestions welcome.

So far, the user configurable functions are:
-Choice between 6, 8, 10, 12 or 15 channels in the tvguide
-Icons/no icons in the lists
-Choice of font type (Arial, Verdana, Tahoma) and size (Normal, Small, Large)

To Do:
-Add preview images for fonts
-Add Select All, Select None button for plugins
-Update Plugins version column
-Tweak the font chioces to work well with the skin

Other Possibilities:
-configure the location of the Music/Video Overlays
-multiple choices for fullscreen Video/TV OSDs
-weather overlay (thanks to Mofux for the source code)

 

[Forgotten Illustrator]

Sounds like a good idea

Maybe have an option for positioning of Overlay. E.g. top right, top left etc I know that this may cause other problems like having to shift the position of menu and other things

An option to select which 5 links you want on the basic screen.

That will do for now ,good luck

 

[cheezey]

Nice work.

How about:

1. Select All / Select None checkboxs on the Plugin skin page.
2. It would be good to have examples of small, medium & large fonts on the GUI when you put that in.
3. As well as font sizes, how about actual fonts, you could let the installer offer a list of installed fonts? - With a warning that the skin was designed with xxxx font in mind and errors/bugs may appear if the skin font is changed.
4. How about a Home plugin configuration page, select between using My Plugins or a single Home menu, and select which plugins are to be shown on the menu.

Also, when you press Install, does the installer also select the skin as Mediaportal's selected skin?

 

[Boilermaker]

Good suggestions...i'll take one at a time
overlay positioning: using include files i think it would be possible, not sure how it would work visually tho. For example, if i wanted the overlay in the bottom right hand corner, it would sit on top of the list control on a lot of screens. So do i make the listcontrols shorter, or put the navigation buttons on the right hand side of the screen and the overlay below it, pushing the list controls to the left? There would need to be a consensus among the users before i would take something like that up...with enough interest i'll take a hard look at it.

Along the same lines as changing overlay position, it would be very easy to change the look of the overlay. Or for that matter the topbar or even the OSD for tv and video. In reality, it would be very simple to do something like incorporate the black myst mod, have a choice between the regular look or the black look, i would just have to resize all the graphics. The only downside to offering new looks is that the installer size would increase about 4mb for each choice.

Choosing the 5 links for basichome: That one i think i can do, the biggest challenge will be configuring the installer. I just started working with it three days ago.

select all/none on plugin skin page: Another good idea, see above, still learning the installer stuff. Hopefully will be added soon.

Fonts: I like the idea of the disclaimer. I hadn't thought of offering different types of fonts, just sizes, but was concerned about how it would look. I don't know how many choices i would be able to offer, the way things work right now is for each choice i have an xml file. So if the user can choose between small, medium or large, then arial, tahoma and verdana that's 9 font files. Not a problem with a small amount of choices, but can get crazy with more. If somebody knows of a better way of doing things let me know, anything more dynamic than having a skin file for each choice would make life easier.

How about a Home plugin configuration page, select between using My Plugins or a single Home menu, and select which plugins are to be shown on the menu.

Also, when you press Install, does the installer also select the skin as Mediaportal's selected skin?

I think in order to do that, the installer would have to alter the mediaportal.xml file on the user's computer. Way out of my league right now, if it's even possible.

Thanks again for the suggestions, i now have a couple of more things i can work on over the weekend.

 

[cheezey]

Fonts: I like the idea of the disclaimer. I hadn't thought of offering different types of fonts, just sizes, but was concerned about how it would look. I don't know how many choices i would be able to offer, the way things work right now is for each choice i have an xml file. So if the user can choose between small, medium or large, then arial, tahoma and verdana that's 9 font files. Not a problem with a small amount of choices, but can get crazy with more. If somebody knows of a better way of doing things let me know, anything more dynamic than having a skin file for each choice would make life easier.

Wouldn't this "just" :wink: be a matter of populating a dropdownlist with all installed fonts (I have some VB code that does this somewhere) and then doing a search/replace in fonts.xml?

 

[Boilermaker]

Wouldn't this "just" be a matter of populating a dropdownlist with all installed fonts (I have some VB code that does this somewhere) and then doing a search/replace in fonts.xml?

I wouldn't have a problem setting up the installer to offer the choices, i have no idea how to take those choices and use them to change the fonts.xml file. If there is a way to do that (and i'll search the nullsoft forums), then i could change fonts.xml or for that matter mediaportal.xml to do the things you suggested above.

 

[Boilermaker]

Bump for new version...

I was going hold off on a blue two version pending the finishing of the default skin voting. If BlueTwo 4:3 won the first pole i was going to submit bluetwo1280x720 for consideration for 16x9 skin. In which case any installer would hopefully become part of the overall MP installer.

EDIT:
Looks like somebody has been jacking around with the voting...in a fair vote 3DMP would win...and i'm a strong believer both default skins should be the same theme so MP has signature look.

If there is enough interest in user configurable skins via installers, i'll release a bluetwo version soon. , However it will look and work exactly like the mce installer, so anybody interested in bluetwo please try the mce version in the mean time.
Thanks