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[kotix]

I made this skin for the contest so i would like to know your opinion or suggestions about it:
Symbol
Ciaoo.  <

[shorty]

That looks great, im gonna try it when i get home from work & upgrade to the newest XBMC       <

[l u n t]

Okay, here's my opinion. Don't take it too personally I'm just saying what I think.

It's pretty good. Perhaps a little too obvious and complicated.

i.e. The shape in the middle links too obviously to the xbmc logo.

I realise that's the intention, but it doesn't really need to be re-emphasized.

Too many textures makes it complicated for the eye. I like the way you use a clean gradient in the right window in contrast with the surrounding stuff though. But then there is a different texture top and bottom and again on the coloured buttons.

Perhaps there's too many colours?

And the last thing I don't really like is "Home", I don't like the broadway style font. I don't really see how it ties into the rest of the design. I would probably change that to the same font as everything else but make it bold.

I'll shut up now.




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[seven5]

ok, first off let me thank you for not just adding new textures and icons to your theme like 99% of the skinners out there. You have actually made a NEW interface to xbmc, and thats why they made the gui engine the way it is, so its easy to do this, yet no one does.

I like the theme alot, but i'd have to say that the colors of the buttons are hiddeous as are pretty much all the textures. I love the layout and can't wait to try it out myself, but i say work on it a little more and make it look more integrated, the xbmc logo is a bit big also.

But i love that you have the most recent added vids and stuff... I'd also love to see a horizontal  list bar with the name and poster on it for scrolling, i think it'd be great.

keep up the theme though!! ITS A GREAT START!!  <

[kotix]

Well I just say thank you!! Because I started using photoshop 3-4 weeks ago just to make this skin, so you can understand I'm not a graphical designer at all but I'll do the best I can to improve it.
I'm already modifing the icons with something more pretty and there are also some animated gifs for the buttons.
What I would like to know if you guys are comfortable with the buttons layout in the other menus, because they are not in the usaul vertical position.
Just let me know...
      <

[nimbles]

dude i really like this , i even put it as my default for the mo (been using it for around 2-3 days now) cos
1) been using Project mayhem and Media Experience for a while
2) I like the layout- i agree to an extent with the colour layout- being a little bright

I like the "recently added" feature too which is a first although i guess more of the skins will have this soon.

one criticism (not a major one and please don't take this me dissing you in my music, my videos etc, if using the icon view (with small or big  icons- you can display two rows) the navigation is a little unintuitive- e.g. when in my videos , if i'm on the top row and press up i go down to the panel which has search, play dvd, stack etc., also pressing left does this if i'm on the left most column
(however doing the opposite doesn't return me to where i was. e.g. say i'm on the top row of the icon list of my videos- if i make a mistake and press up then down i actually end up at the "Sort by:" button- similarly if i'm on the left most column and press left then right i end up at "play dvd". I feel becaus ethe panel is relatively far away from the icon list it is quite easy to lose track of what is selected.

the thing is it is slightly different in my programs and my music as well.

I'm sure this is a result of you taking the brave step of having the "control panel" at the bottom of the screen as opposed to every other skin which sticks to the left hand side panel, and therefore they all use the same keymapping config. (e.g. with the panel on the left- and only one column of options as opposed to yours which is 3x3)

I hope this makes sense i don't mean it in a detrimental way only constructive, and to make it more functional-

This post has been edited by nimbles: Jun 17 2004, 05:47 PM <

[seven5]

good for you for taking the criticism. Is there anyone out there that is a good designer that would like to team up with Kotix to get this skin looking great?

If so do it, this skin has a LOT of potential, and i for one am looking forward to installing it when i get home and messing around with it.

if i make any changes for the better, i'll send them to you kotix.  <

[nascent]

As a newbie to all this and thinking of building my own skin, I was just wondering if we needed permission to use the design included in the xbmc logo guidelines? For example this is the image included with the guidelines...

(IMG:http://www.lacahudiere.co.uk/website/images/xbmclogoguidelines.jpg)

Your skin seems to be based on this design and I wondered if you had got permission or if it was OK for the contest anyway?  <

[kotix]

Well it's true it's similar to the one of the logo guidelines but in the same way many of the other skins are similar to the default one, so I guess it should be ok for the contest because I builted completly by my own.
Nimbles, you are right with the problem with the thumbnails panel because I made a mistake: in  the videos the movements between the thumbspanel and the buttons are different from the other pages and the best I can do is to set the other pages(music,pics,etc) in the same way of the videos.
At last if somebody have an idea of the better font to use for the titles just let me know.
Cheers     <

[JayDee]

How about if:

1: You checked so it was ok to copy the skin straight off as you did.

or

2: How would you feel if someone move a few lines around, change some textures and call it a brand new skin done from the ground up when it is clear that it is a knock off?

UPDATE

Tamper, the member of Team XBMC who made the skin guidelines is now here.

Please read his comments on this!!!

/UPDATE

This post has been edited by JayDee: Jun 17 2004, 07:09 PM <

[l u n t]

The guidelines one is awesome. They've nailed it completely.

Absolutely beautiful design. I'm going to go for a hunt now.  <

[tamper]

I'm here now.

I wasn't surprised to see that someone has made a skin based on my original designs published in the XBMC logo guidelines. I've already had requests from others asking to 'build' this skin.

And I turned them all down. Why? Well, because I'm working on bringing this skin to life myself. Note that unlike the core development of XBMC, none of the branding or front end designs that I've worked on can be considered open-source.

Also, I'd ask the community for the courtesy of refraining from designing skins based on my published layouts.

kotix - I don't know whether your Symbol skin would be eligible for the contest or not. From memory, the rules to ask participants not to base new skins on existing ones. I appreciate you only had a screenshot of my skin to work from, but I'd still consider your skin a derivation of my work.

Here's hoping the skin contest brings a fresh array of original skin choices to XBMC.

Cheers,
tamper

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[kotix]

Yes of course I was inspired by your skin Tamper, I loved it from when I saw it in the guidelines.
Many people in the xbmc forum was asking for a skin like yours.
I'm sorry I didn't know that you asked the community to refrain from design one based on it, i could imagine it and infact I didn't want to make it exactly the same, it is similar of course in the home page but I didn't use any of the textures you have used except for (your wonderful) logo and maybe the buttons.
Consider also the work  I've done in the others menus: almost all the existing skins are based on the default one, all of them have the same layout and maybe with mine somebody can make up something different from usual.
Well I'm still changing a lot of stuff in the skin like icons etc.. also the home page will change a little bit.

Anyway the contest is not so important for me, my think is to do something for XBMC as I wrote in the description it is more a contribute to all the XBMC and of course Scene  comunity.

Cheers!!



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[kaylapuppy]

Is there a skinning tool available for xbmc ? If so what is it called, and I will look for it.  <

[seven5]

QUOTE

2: How would you feel if someone move a few lines around, change some textures and call it a brand new skin done from the ground up when it is clear that it is a knock off?

You mean like EVERY single skin available for XBMC?

XBMC has THE worst skinning scene ever. One of the main things that xbmc had over xbmp was its gui engine and the ability to move stuff around to make NEW types of interfaces. NO ONE has taken advantage of it. Even the great ProjectMayhem is just the same as the defaul skin with a little change ehre and there, but the basic gui is there.

Lets get some creativity out there guys. MOVE the interface around, make it diffferent.  <