Skinning XGuide

[fla]

I just uploaded another beta version to the wiki that makes the guide chooser popup (Yellow button/Ctrl-Y) skinnable. The skin-guides.xml now has a few special elements to replace all the formerly hardcoded numbers. I also optimized the render method for this popup so moving the cursor up & down with the remote should be less sluggish.

My live system's hardware also only works well with overlay so it can't move to pvrx2 but my dev system is using the latest gbpvr version. Tried out your XGuide skin, looks sharp! Many users will appreciate a high resolution XSuite skin when it's finished.

[Kevl]

Many thanks Fla,

I will download and try out your latest offering.

My system can use VMR9. I use a Radeon 9600XT. When the codecs are set up correctly I can get rid of the jerkiness many complain about but the video looks soft (slightly out of focus) when compared to overlay. Maybe I could sort this out with more tweaking but to be honest I am not prepared to compromise video quality. The "benefits" of VMR9 do not outway the degradation of video quality - for me anyway. Also GBPVR99.12 seems to work fine and I really have no need of animated menus etc.

Re skin resolution. I have long thought that most of the criticism that GBPVR visuals had (often referred to as graininess) was entirely due to the skins being 720x480.

All that was needed to fix this was to simply scale them up and then let windows shrink them again suit the res of the output device. I think that Meedio uses this technique and its menus are razor sharp. It is a great shame that most GBPVR skins are 720x480. I used the fine SkinResizer app from Javawiz to help me scale the skins. It works very nicely.

When I have got the skin looking nice in all respects I will upload it so that it can be used by others.

Have now downloaded the lastest version from the wiki. Have mofified all skins to use the new values. The keyboard now looks very good. The alpha transparency values also help. Have attached modified skins based on your latest upload. There are still some popup text that is not behaving. But I'm much further forward.

Kev

[fla]

There's a new beta version on the wiki. It makes the XSearch main screen's ListWidgets skinnable. Look at fastfind\skin.xml's Letter, Title, Time, Channel special elements. Note that you need to press the yellow button (Ctrl-Y) to switch to channel mode and see the effects of the Channel special element.

Suggestion: Make sure your skins work in PVRX2 as well since that's what most people will eventually be using. I tested my default blue skin with both.

If you can post your updated work in progress when you're done that would be great since I use it to test XSuite with a higher resolution on my dev system as I work on this.

[Kevl]

Will work on skins tonight with your latest file.

Will post new skin file as soon as I have got it working etc.

Kev

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Further progress.

Have used the XSearch lines you added and have improved the layout and look of the XSearch Screen.

I have also changed the XGuide CTRL-Y popup (which allows subguides to be selected) and now this looks in keeping with the general meedio theme also.

I'm missing something on the XSearch screen. I cant seem to see a way of setting the highlight rounded rectangle border. This is stuck at white on the top 3 selection windows and on the keyboard. But it dissappears on a selected keyboard button - the selcted keyboard button seems to shrink.

Still more good progress.

I still haven't decided what to do with the popup backgrounds. Meedio simply puts up black boxes with buttons and text. But this doesn't look so nice in GBPVR. The underlying coloured graphics outside the popup box look odd. I might put a border on the popup background. Minor details only at this stage though.

Kev

[fla]

Another new beta version on the wiki that should fix the border color issues you mentionned. Also, the XSearch history popup is now skinnable. This popup appears when you hit the green button (Ctrl-G) in the keyboard widget. You must have a History.txt file in gbpvr's main directory for example.

Code:

Nova
Late Show With David Letterman
60 Minutes

Look for things in fastfind\skin.xml like SelectionBorder, SelectedKeyboardKeyBorder, UnSelectedKeyboardKeyBorder, HistoryPopupList, HistoryPopupBackground.

Note: In order to move forward more quickly, I'm not putting in much error checking. If your skin is missing some of the new elements you might get a crash.

[Kevl]

OK Fla

Will download latest file and do some more skinning adjustments.

I am also in the process of adjusting the GBPVR OSD. I am in the process of changing the OSD buttons etc to use the graphics entities from Meedio. These are much higher res .png files than GBPVR uses and they look really crisp also.


Kev

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Have modded Xsearch with your new parameters.

Notes.

In the fastfind skin text style ButtonText is defined twice

The right most vertical column selection rectangle is not inheriting the border colour (it is still white) the other columns are fine.

The placement of the text beneath the 3 selection columns when a show is selected is uncontrolled.
The display of the text items is in need of adjustments and the start and stop time strings are not displaying correctly.

It is not obvious how to change the colour and position of the text on the top right hand of the screen (shown in black on my skin) in

line with the XSearch title string.


On a more general note. I think I have seen it mentioned a number of times that the buttons which appear on the GBPVR main menu are

hardcoded as XSearch, XGuide, Xrecord. I think some might prefer to be able to rename them.

Latest skin file is attached.


Kev

[fla]

Just posted another new version that should address the things you pointed out. Look for PluginDisplayName in 3 files to set the display name of the three XSuite plugins. Look for a couple new composite images MainScreenInfo, SelectedShowInfo in fastfind\skin.xml to configure the XSearch main screen text (element TimeElement was deleted since the time is part of the new composite image).

A few more popups and button work and XSearch is done! XGuide is already done except for it's dependencies on XSearch. XRecord should also benefit from the XSearch work but it will need some changes too. Keep up the good work!

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Am about to download your latest files and will then tweak them as required.

Another thing that occurs to me in the meantime.

In the Xguide screen there is a label topmost leftmost of the screen which says XGuide.

This is a tad redundant as the huge EPG display below it makes it blindingly obvious what the screen is :-) I would think there would be merit in making this string display the title of the filtered group that the EPG is displaying so by default it might say "All channels" and then via the CTRL-Y screen it should display the name of the selected subset. Just a thought. Not sure how easy this would be to code etc.

Anyway I will crack on with the skin mods.

I have also improved the look of the Blue, Red, Green and Yellow.png image files (used in Xsearch and XRecord). They used to look like coloured blotches (and low res coloured blotches at that). Now they look like domed LEDs with shading. They look damn fine to my eyes - others might disagree :-).

I will include them in the next skin file I upload.

Kev