Help make new default skin

[groover km]

look at the mediacenters: they normally copy the mce-look. shouldn't we find a better solution for gbpvr? i think, our own skin without licencing problems or legal issues would be the best solution.

i have played a bit and i find, the trebuchet ms - font, which is installed on every windows computer, looks best. also, dark backgrounds with light fonts look best.

my opinion: create a simple, very readable skin, which works on both, the tv and the mvp (maybe with another background for the mvp) without using too much graphics for the buttons or popup-boxes.

Just to add my voice, I agree with the sentiments of dottore; I think this is an ideal opportunity for 'the community' to set gbpvr apart and above all the other various pvr 'solutions' that seem to be available nowadays. While functionality should not be sacrificed over aesthetics, what's the first thing you want to check out? Screenshots! A unique, user-friendly, elegant interface could be a real plus in attracting new users, raising the profile of gbpvr, more donations, extended growth, etc, etc....

with that in mind, my thoughts:

The 'default' should be simple, elegant, and preferably *not* another MCE clone.

An appealing font - such as trebuchet or verdana - can go a long way to looking attractive on the PC and TV.. sorry Tipstir, but if I want to look at Arial, I'll open notepad

A small memory footprint - IMHO - greatly improves MVP responsiveness.

Less is most definitely more... Certain things should be on the main menu - clock, date, next recording - everything else grouped in a tree structure with icons.

Just my 0.02c.

[heitjer]

I just like to vote for a 256 color option as well - not neccessarily as a default, but for the many XCard users this is a better look than any higher color options.

*heitjer*

[tieke]

I'll be honest, while I agree the flat blue high visibility skin is very functional and readable etc, it's never really done it for me. It doesnt seem to have that cool professional graphics look I was hoping for. Its a little too plain. (sorry tieke!)

No problem the High Vis skin was never intended to be a GB-PVR Showcase skin - in fact it is deliberately as un-showcasey as possible without becoming heinously ugly. It has always been a simplified skin intended for bare use rather than wow factor (although I do try to keep a consistent feel).

If a new default skin was created, I could always look at altering the high-vis one to have similar colours and fonts if an alternate MVP skin was needed, but although I considered making a flashier main skin when I started using a computer rather an MVP in the lounge, I ended up keeping the main and MVP interface the same for usability issues.

As far as shiny new skins go though, djdafreund and reven's version of the XBMC PMIII skin looks pretty promising, although obviously desn't fulfil the "point of difference" requirement

cheers,

tieke

[tieke]

While we're on the topic, as far as readability goes, I really liked it that Paul Austen's plugins gave a menu option to increase and decrease text-size on the fly (eg Music Plugin and Check E-mail Plugin) which would simplify the varying resolution requirements, but of course could be seen more as a plug-in than a skinning issue.

[nkh]

I would like a combination of a horizontal and vertical menu, where you can have groups (tv, music..) horizontally and then have the sub menus vertically over or under the groups. Like the menu on the Sony PSP I guess. I do realize that it'll be difficult to implement as it combines skinning with specific settings in GBPVR (groups with sub menus)...

as i was designing this skin

Wow, that looks really classy! I would love a default skin like that.

[alibert]

Hi,

I would like a combination of a horizontal and vertical menu, where you can have groups (tv, music..) horizontally and then have the sub menus vertically over or under the groups. Like the menu on the Sony PSP I guess.

I think such a combination of a horizontal and a vertical menu like in the psp-screenshot would be fine, too.

-alibert

[dottore]

yes, and for this we need an option in the main menu-skin to have taskimages in the buttons, too.

for example:
<compositeimage name="selectedbutton".....>
<drawtext text="@buttontext"...../>
<drawimage filename="@taskimg"...../>
</compositeimage>

and then have a taskimage in the plugin-directory of the skin which is NOT the task-image which we have now on the main menu. i hope, you understand ;-)

in short: every main-menu-button could come with not only text but also a nice little image, even if it is not the selected button (like the psp-menu).

[dottore]

....a bit like this:

[nkh]

....a bit like this:

Not too shabby somehow very B&O like (in a good way).

[StanO]

I have been tooling around with the basic skin. I have found that it was easy to change the background and the colors. In addition, my clock and pending recording info were off screen (using MVP) and I was able to adjust them.

The question is how easy would it be to make simple skin mods part of the GBPVR utility? Background, color, button shapes, typeface etc.?

I also would like to see a skin that has a grid, so that you would not have to scroll.