BlueMCE2-X cleanup project

[Fatman_do]

Why shall we stick with JPG format in background.jpg ?

The talk about trancparency is irrelevant....who uses transparency on a background.
The advantiges with PNG is more information in the image. Some backgrounds with more details will look a lot better when stretched to large screen like a 42" plasma.
My freind complained about the "blockiness" of the ContourHC backgrounds on his plasma. (but he is picky)
If someone wants to do color mods for AM, the PNG is closer to the original image and will result in better quality for some colors (I have seen the difference when modifying colors)
I always have a background.png in the Themes for this reasons.

What do you think of the button naming suggestions?

AM only supports .jpg at this time for backgrounds. That takes away a powerful tool for users by switching.

[Fatman_do]

Yes I know that AM works that way. But I'm sure that Old Dog would be willing to modify his skin and the AM, now that we change almost everything and Sub accepts/modify our suggestions for his new image based skin.

Right, but that is conditional on a change "after the fact". Do we put the cart before the horse?

I am not against keeping the images in the skin root, but right now when reskinning I think it is better to have the images in a temporary directory.
It's so easy to do a search and replace later.

No problem with that.

[Fatman_do]

What do you think of the button naming suggestions?

So far two schools of thought.

There appears to only need to be three button types so far.

One used for main menus (may be different than plugins)
One used for plugins
One used for Poups and Dialogs.

Which could be defined on where used, or convey size.

So providing three buttons (normal and selected of each) is all that is needed.

Button_Normal.png, Button_Selected.png (Used majority of places sized as an average for plugin menus)

MainButtonNormal.png, MainButtonSelected.png (Solely due to how AM is now, Used for Main Menu only. Name will only be different if a change is made to AM)

Button_PopupNormal.png, Button_PopupSelected.png (Or substitute "Small" for Popup. Used where buttons are only needed for short words like "OK" and "Cancel").
Since we have to use MainButtonSelected......."Popup" sound like a better choice than "Small".

The only other button defined that can be used is Button_Close.png

Any objections or agreements. Do we have buttons narrowed down enough?

Button_Center... should be dropped from MixMan's list. (Used in Main menus so is duplication of main menu buttons.)

Page up/down buttons should be Selected and Normal vs. focus and nofocus. They can stay as possible future additions.

[MixMan]

So far two schools of thought.

There appears to only need to be three button types so far.

One used for main menus (may be different than plugins)
One used for plugins
One used for Poups and Dialogs.

Which could be defined on where used, or convey size.

So providing three buttons (normal and selected of each) is all that is needed.

Button_Normal.png, Button_Selected.png (Used majority of places sized as an average for plugin menus)

MainButtonNormal.png, MainButtonSelected.png (Solely due to how AM is now, Used for Main Menu only. Name will only be different if a change is made to AM)

Button_PopupNormal.png, Button_PopupSelected.png (Or substitute "Small" for Popup. Used where buttons are only needed for short words like "OK" and "Cancel").
Since we have to use MainButtonSelected......."Popup" sound like a better choice than "Small".

The only other button defined that can be used is Button_Close.png

Any objections or agreements. Do we have buttons narrowed down enough?

Button_Center... should be dropped from MixMan's list. (Used in Main menus so is duplication of main menu buttons.)

Page up/down buttons should be Selected and Normal vs. focus and nofocus. They can stay as possible future additions.

I have changed names according to you suggestion.
I changed the Icon_XXXX to icon_file_xxxx to heve the listed in order.
Button_Center_xxx can go.
We can keep the AM MainXXXX.png even though they are not needed for plugins.
I made a sub directory so you can see what other images Jeffs plugins uses.

How about the Panels_XXXX names...is it OK to use Panel as a prefix?

There are problems with the Forum database, so I cant upload right now.

[Fatman_do]

I guess I don't have an opinion on "Panels" yet. These are backgrounds for text on screen correct? Have to look into it more for that. Maybe more generic terms can be made to use elsewhere.

Here are more suggestions for removal because I am not sure needed. (ignoring panels)

Background_Transparent.png
Logo_xxxxx_Vertical.png ?? (Are these used in MCE2?)
Bullet_Ball_Background.png (Can't this be a generic "Panel"?)
TVGuide_Logo.png (Is this the same as logo_tvguide ?)

What is Info_LogoInset.png?


Don't know the status of McBainUk, if he has left for weekend yet. Those are just my thoughts. It would be great to get another perspective.

I think we are getting close.

[MixMan]

I guess I don't have an opinion on "Panels" yet. These are backgrounds for text on screen correct? Have to look into it more for that. Maybe more generic terms can be made to use elsewhere.

Here are more suggestions for removal because I am not sure needed. (ignoring panels)

Background_Transparent.png
Logo_xxxxx_Vertical.png ?? (Are these used in MCE2?)
Bullet_Ball_Background.png (Can't this be a generic "Panel"?)
TVGuide_Logo.png (Is this the same as logo_tvguide ?)

What is Info_LogoInset.png?


Don't know the status of McBainUk, if he has left for weekend yet. Those are just my thoughts. It would be great to get another perspective.

I think we are getting close.

Background_transparent is a semi-transparent fullscreen image that I use to "dim" the background when a popup is shown.....like in BlueMCE2 skin by Dottore. I introduced this in BaseSKin v2.6

Logo_xxxx_vertical is used by Jeff in Video Archive and Music Player.

Bullet_Ball_xxx is pretty describing....I think
But it could be icon_bullet_xxx also. Thats better isn't it?

TVguide_Logo is a normally transparent image, that i "had" to introduce with the Pirates Theme.....the "flares" to the left of the grid. It si also good to have with very light backgrounds to present text. Black text on a light background look like "shit".....I dont know why but dark text on a bright backgrouns don't really look good. The text is "pixelated".

I use the LogoInset to present a logo sometimes.....in ContourHC, the StarTrek Theme and just with a frame to see the Inset windows with the DesignerGuide Theme.

[Fatman_do]

Background_transparent is a semi-transparent fullscreen image that I use to "dim" the background when a popup is shown.....like in BlueMCE2 skin by Dottore. I introduced this in BaseSKin v2.6

So every popup composite image is a full screen image, then you postition everything for the popup from this full screen. I thought this was done only in a few plugins in MCE2. That would have to be done by all popups to look consistant. (Maybe MCE2 specific stuff you can put in a folder for now under CommonImages like you did Main Menu-AM)

Logo_xxxx_vertical is used by Jeff in Video Archive and Music Player.

Maybe that should be in "MCE2 specific" also.

Bullet_Ball_xxx is pretty describing....I think
But it could be icon_bullet_xxx also. Thats better isn't it?

Bullet_Ball is probably good like it is because that is unique, but it could be icon_bullet....

I commented on the background could be a panel.

TVguide_Logo is a normally transparent image, that i "had" to introduce with the Pirates Theme.....the "flares" to the left of the grid. It si also good to have with very light backgrounds to present text. Black text on a light background look like "shit".....I dont know why but dark text on a bright backgrouns don't really look good. The text is "pixelated".

So this is like a "Panel" then?

I use the LogoInset to present a logo sometimes.....in ContourHC, the StarTrek Theme and just with a frame to see the Inset windows with the DesignerGuide Theme.

Ok, you use it for logo's or a frame around the inset.

Will look at panels and see where they are used and sizes.

[MixMan]

How about dropping the TilteLogos and replacing it with a TopBar.png
There a only 2 themes that uses sub menu unique TopBar images. That's BlueMCE2 and Mayhem3 all the other Themes uses the same Image.
McBainUK and the other that uses BlueMCE2, can you live without large faded text at the top?
Does anyone use Mayhem3 and want the graphics on at the TopBar?

Anyway......these are not needed for the plugins, so they can be dropped from this list, so can the Button_MainMenu.png or MainMenuButton. They are optional for the skin designer.
The whole idea with this tread is to find a common "standard" for sub menus and plugins.

My BaseSkin will have some extra features, so LogoInset can be left out.

[Fatman_do]

How about dropping the TilteLogos and replacing it with a TopBar.png
There a only 2 themes that uses sub menu unique TopBar images. That's BlueMCE2 and Mayhem3 all the other Themes uses the same Image.
McBainUK and the other that uses BlueMCE2, can you live without large faded text at the top?
Does anyone use Mayhem3 and want the graphics on at the TopBar?

I am in favor of this.

If you really wanted to use different graphics per screen, you could use se.png for this.

[MixMan]

I am in favor of this.

If you really wanted to use different graphics per screen, you could use se.png for this.

That is so true. I will think about that.

I have moved out some BaseSkin and Theme specific images, since they are not needed for Subs core skin or the plugins.

TopBar.png it is for plugin developers that wants to have some "compatibilitiy" with my themes.

Probably 3 panel images would be enough

We are down to under 60 images now.

Soon uploaded to
http://hyperlinkx.com/pmwiki/uploads/CommonImages.zip