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[fredmon]

Are there any Kaleidescape skins out there for XBMC ?

I would like my xbox to look like the GUI on this product:

http://www.kaleidescape.com/

[fredmon]

PLESE DELETE. My web browser is acting up. Stupid IE 7 Beta.


Are there any Kaleidescape skins out there for XBMC ?

I would like my xbox to look like the GUI on this product:

http://www.kaleidescape.com/

This post has been edited by fredmon: Jun 29 2006, 12:46 AM

[fredmon]

PLESE DELETE. My web browser is acting up. Stupid IE 7 Beta.






This post has been edited by fredmon: Jun 29 2006, 12:45 AM

[fredmon]

Anyone willing do do a kaleidescape skin? Or simply remove the side menu options from the Videos screen so that cover art covers the entire screen? I've always thought that the side menu was too large. It needs to be hidden.

[rockdawg]

I agree that it would be cool to remove the side buttons under My Videos and have an entire screen (or at least most) of DVD covers.  It would make navigating large libraries a little easier since there would be fewer overall pages.  It would also maximize the usefulness of the screen since most of the time a user is there they are looking for a movie to play.  Maybe the button options could be assigned to a popup window activated by a button so they are still easily available?

Unfortunately, I don't have the required skills to make this a reality nor do I have any idea how easily this could be implemented, but I would be curious to check out something along these lines.  Maybe toss this idea at Slumberpod since he is actively making alterations to PM3 and could possibly be convinced to try to create this.

[slumberpod77]

yeah, i have already said i will look into whipping something up once the Remix project is more off the ground . i don't actually think it would super hard since the majority of the onscreen graphics for that view would be thumbnail graphics, meaning less work for me.
i was thinking the actual main library views for Programs, Videos, and Music would be like icons filling up the whole screen, and then some sort of overlay which displays info about the currently selected object. it would require a custom keymap, but i think it would be cool to make this overlay toggleable, so like you hit some un-used button and it makes the overlay appear or dissappear. either that, or maybe just have a set of buttons somewhere on the edge of the screen but make them really small. the thing that would help most is a good video of the interface in action.

[fredmon]

Does anyone with skin creation experience want to take on this small project to modify the My Videos\Video screen for PMIII? I actually think everyone else would want the side menu options hidden to allow more dvd cover art on the screen.

This post has been edited by fredmon: Jun 30 2006, 11:06 PM

[rockdawg]

QUOTE(fredmon @ Jun 30 2006, 06:02 PM)

Does anyone with skin creation experience want to take on this small project to modify the My Videos\Video screen for PMIII? I actually think everyone else would want the side menu options hidden to allow more dvd cover art on the screen.

Read the post above you.  He's probably the most likely candidate to do it.

Nobody is going to jump on it tomorrow, but give it some time and I'd be surprised if we don't see some variation of it implemented.

[slumberpod77]

you know, one way to do the 'hidden' buttons would be to make them invisible but focus-able.
what that means is that when you get to the edge of the grid and then move off the grid, focus could jump to the buttons even though they were invisible. at the same time, you could set them up so that they are only visible when focused. what buttons do you guys want available? i am assuming you don't really need that "switch to icons/switch to list" thing since you will be using auto-switch, right? that leaves:
-Sort By
-Switch View
-Watched/Unwatched/All
-IMDB (this one seems unneccessary)
i think i can set up actual buttons for each of the library views, like a button you click to go to actors view for example.

now that i'm thinking about it, just whipping up the My Videos window XML would be a piece of cake.

[fredmon]

QUOTE(slumberpod77 @ Jul 1 2006, 12:29 AM)

you know, one way to do the 'hidden' buttons would be to make them invisible but focus-able.
what that means is that when you get to the edge of the grid and then move off the grid, focus could jump to the buttons even though they were invisible. at the same time, you could set them up so that they are only visible when focused. what buttons do you guys want available? i am assuming you don't really need that "switch to icons/switch to list" thing since you will be using auto-switch, right? that leaves:
-Sort By
-Switch View
-Watched/Unwatched/All
-IMDB (this one seems unneccessary)
i think i can set up actual buttons for each of the library views, like a button you click to go to actors view for example.

now that i'm thinking about it, just whipping up the My Videos window XML would be a piece of cake.

Thanks for jumping on this slumberpod77. Perhaps if you could make the buttons/text smaller and place them at the top or bottom of the screen it would create usable space on the left side on the screen. Perhaps even a small button in the corner of the screen could pull up a transparent-like submenu. How does that sound?

[slumberpod77]

started screwing around, and realized first of all that i need to know some dimensions for box art.
as you can see, i have a bunch of different kinds of box & poster art that i'm using currently.
190 tall by 135 wide would allow for three rows and 5 columns on screen with a 1 pixel wide border per item. some border is required to make the items navigatable, otherwise you lose your cursor a lot
5x137 = 685. that leaves a 35 pixel wide margin which would probably work out just fine for the button stack, either on the left or the right.
gimme some more info on the image sizes you folks use/would prefer.

[fredmon]

QUOTE(slumberpod77 @ Jul 1 2006, 02:51 AM)

started screwing around, and realized first of all that i need to know some dimensions for box art.
as you can see, i have a bunch of different kinds of box & poster art that i'm using currently.
190 tall by 135 wide would allow for three rows and 5 columns on screen with a 1 pixel wide border per item. some border is required to make the items navigatable, otherwise you lose your cursor a lot (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
5x137 = 685. that leaves a 35 pixel wide margin which would probably work out just fine for the button stack, either on the left or the right.
gimme some more info on the image sizes you folks use/would prefer.

From what i'm a seeing you are on the right track. I can not thank you enough for taking the time.
Not sure about what image sizes to recommend but 3 rows and 5-6 columns for 4:3 aspect ratio seems about right. In 16:9 mode you can increase the column size to about 8 like the kaleidescape UI.
I think the goal is to fit as much as possible on the screen while keepingthe cover art readable enough to avoid having title text at the bottom of each image.

[fredmon]

Which path/file are you editing? I do not see any xml files relating to my videos in the NTSC folder.

[slumberpod77]

this is because of the way the XBMC skin system works. NTSC and 16:9 files are looked for in their respective folders, but if they are missing the engine falls back to the PAL 4:3 files. the one i started messing with is pal\MyVideos.xml. i will prolly do a little more work on this later today.

[fredmon]

QUOTE(slumberpod77 @ Jul 1 2006, 12:59 PM)

this is because of the way the XBMC skin system works. NTSC and 16:9 files are looked for in their respective folders, but if they are missing the engine falls back to the PAL 4:3 files. the one i started messing with is pal\MyVideos.xml. i will prolly do a little more work on this later today.

I edited that file and did not see the changes when i loaded the videos screen. Is there some sort of cache I have to clear before changes will show ?