CommunitySkin Skinning Tutorial

[Fatman_do]

I'm gonna do some organizing on the wiki. Wanna ask a couple of questions first.

There several places to find skin docs and I want to consolidate

Skins section: for end users to download and install new skins. Mostly window shopping

Development section: I would prefer to have anything regarding the modding or creating of skins under Development and not have Skinning.

There will be pages to describe general skinning, and Community Skin light modding (from GUI) and heavy modding and creation.

Also, there's Tips, and other places...

Unless there are objections, I'll be having Blader_se remove a couple of sections

Sounds fine. There are a couple of CommunitySkin development pages already in existance, but the content is not up to date. In can help lay some of the groundwork.

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...munitySkin
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...TextStyles
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...mmonImages

[zehd]

Sounds fine. There are a couple of CommunitySkin development pages already in existance, but the content is not up to date. In can help lay some of the groundwork.

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...munitySkin
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...TextStyles
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...mmonImages

I've got a three day weekend, with no money to spend, so I'll be a homebody anf programm and write...

[zehd]

Here's the start...

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Devel...-Tutorial1

[Fatman_do]

Thinking about the "getting started" section, I agree with your earlier post. The section about how the beginning doesn't seem to flow.

I wonder about a statement to saying something like...

"Using the SkinPlugin with the provided image and xml library, a novice can create a custom CommunitySkin theme. This is intended to take you a step deeper, and into the actual workings of a skin."

Would this give a nod to starting with a desired theme later in the tutorial?

Later, when talking about images, it would be a more prudent area to talk about changing those images and where they are located.

[Fatman_do]

This is not intended to be Tutorial material, just an explanation on how I got started, what I went through, and the start of the CommunitySkin.

I always felt something was "missing" with the skins that were available at the time I started with gbpvr.

I had read that blue was the only official skin, and all plugins needed to include skin files for blue. Because of this, it explained why various skins did not work with certain plugins. The skin author had not converted the 'blue' skin files over to their skin.

The first thing I wanted to try was dark, mostly black/white skin. I had downloaded and installed the plugins I wanted to use already, so everything I needed to start with was there in blue.


The way I started is probably some good advice.
I didn't know the first thing about skinning, and knew I shouldn't mess with something that works. With that in mind, I copied the contents of the C:\Program files\devnz\gbpvr\skin\Blue folder to a new folder called C:\Program files\devnz\gbpvr\skin\Black. Now I could make changes and if things got "out of hand" I could compare it to blue.

After I hit certain "milestones" I made copies of what I had so far (Main menu how I wanted it, ... Library screens how I wanted them, ect.)

Eventually I had ..\Black, ..\Black1, ..\Black2.

The next thing I did was quit.

I hated the process.

Skinning in blue was mostly drawing with xml.

Buttons were xml code.
Popup boxes were xml code.
List boxes were code.
List selectors were code.

Every screen meant having to do the same repetitive changes over and over and over. Several times in one skin file, then the same exact changes in every plugin file.

There had to be a better way.

I looked at other skins, and most had the same structure. BlueMCE2 was different (along with other certain colorful image based skins). It had images in a central location. I liked that I could replace those images with different ones and have instant gratification in all screens. After playing around with it for a while, a new skin hit..The Collection (Which later became PlainJane) by Old Dog.

It featured a plugin that had image swapping. (I later even wrote a tutorial about it.)

Then, MixMan introduced the Advisor skinning method (Which would evolve to the BasicSkin). This introduced the concept of moving elements to baseskin.xml file. Later, a theme changing plugin was created for this skin as well.

I ended up combining both methods into my first published skin Chameleon
(Sorry, Wiki page and image attachments are long deleted. The files on the server still).

Pretty bold for someone who was flying by the seat of their pants and learning on the spot.

(The links below are quite threads that are very long, don't read unless you have days to kill.)
After collaborative effort with MixMan, McBainUk, Jeff, and several others, things got hashed, rehashed, debated , and eventually led to the CommunitySkin.

[zehd]

Fatman_do... I'm sorry for starting something and then leaving it hang. I am totally planning on finishing.

But Whurlston has got me into .net programming, and I'm going nuts like a kid in the candy store...

My first attempt is to make a skin editor for the new generation. I have to really dig into the xml to understand it well enough to write the program (I'm getting a helluva lot of help with this) and that can't help but make me understand it well enough that the docs will be better.

But actually, my goal is that the editor will be so easy to use, that you won't have to know much about the xml tags. (Well, we can alll dream can't we...)

So I'll be around, (gotta keep my post count up) but I'm gonna be really plunging into .net. If you wanna keep adding to the skinning wiki or make edits or whatever go ahead...

[zehd]

BTW, rather than reinventing the wheel, who wrote the old skinedit program?

I noticed there's the code included in the download, and it's supposedly gnu

[Fatman_do]

Someone who had since moved on to another pvr software wrote that. http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...t=skinedit

Don't worry about the tutorial, I have a few things on my plate with the skin, and will get back to that when I get done.

[whurlston]

Someone who had since moved on to another pvr software wrote that. http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...t=skinedit

Don't worry about the tutorial, I have a few things on my plate with the skin, and will get back to that when I get done.

According to post #7, he has given us permission to do what you want Frank.

Currently I stopped the development of this software.
I moved to MediaPortal instead of GBPVR. the MP is much better, and its opensource, so the project can keep alive even when the owner won't develop it anymore.
my SkinEdit software is open-source and anyone can develop his desired features with simple knowladge in .NET C#, (SharpDevelop is a great free tool to develop with)
if anyone need, i can give him permissions to upload files & update the SkinEdit Sourceforge website.

I'll take a look at it since it's C# and convert it to VB for you. It may this weekend before I get to it though.

[zehd]

According to post #7, he has given us permission to do what you want Frank.

I'll take a look at it since it's C# and convert it to VB for you. It may this weekend before I get to it though.

I've already got a treeview filled with a new baseskin. Really cool. Tried loading the old skinedit source in sharp dev c# and had errors galore. But that's just me...

I'll hold off doing anything serious till you're done...