Skinning XGuide

[fla]

I still didn't upgrade my TV. I'm leaning towards a rear projection TV to get the size I want with the budget I have. You're right, there were so many hard coded numbers in the XRecord code, it took a lot of time to make it all skinnable.

There are four types of lists, Group, Video, Advanced and Hetero. The list in your image is the advanced list. There is a line in the Language section that controls how the advanced list gets layed out.

Code:

<Advanced active="true" rows="2" columns="4" box="false" startGapTop="70" rowGap="180" startGapLeft="110" columnGap="125"/>

If you press Pause/Ctrl-Q it toggles between the advanced and group lists. The video list is the one that you see when you browse the shows that popup when you click on a group in the group or advanced lists. The hetero (also known as mixed) list is an alternative for the video list. It is used by default in the movie section but in the stop menu the "Set mix" item will force that group to use the mixed mode or Hetero[geneous] list instead of the video list.

[Kevl]

Hi Fla,

Many thanks as ever. If you are going to buy a DLP rear pro set make sure you cant see rainbows. Some people cant at first but after a few weeks they notice them and it spoils enjoyment.

Re the skin.

Many thnks for the info. I had not realised that the language section was whre I needed to look. I would nver have guessed. I'll give it a try. I will also try the CTRL_Q thing also. I never knew there was so much hidden functionality in Xrecord.

I may be some time .... :-)

Kev

[fla]

Hi Kevl,

I definitely need to do some more research before buying a TV. There are so many more variables than when I bought my current TV 10 years ago.

Just posted a new version to the wiki that adds the NormalShowNamePending/SelectedShowNamePending composite images to fix some overlapping text with long subtitles in the Pending screen. There are no code changes, only xrecord's skin.xml has changed.

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Spent hours adusting Xrecord skin today.

Lots of progess but still lots to do. I have started adding notes to the skin file as I slowly work out what various element actually do.

My method is to mod the skin file, and then load GBPVR to check the changes were correct (or indeed actually made changes where I expected). Then I close GBPVR and repeat - many times. I'm sure there is an easier way but I dont know what it is. Hence this process takes an age.

I have some of Xrecord looking OK but I still have lots of misplaced text etc. Also because I haven't used Xrecord in anger lately then lots of the buttons say "you have no movies", "you have no pending shows" etc. So it is probably looking worse than I think.

Anyway, more progess but more questions.

On the Xrecord screen the 3rd button down on the Left is called Reoccuring.
When the button is clicked a list of items results. When an item in the list is clicked then a popup is launched. What is the popup called? I expected ReoccurringPopup or similar but I cant see it.

On the popup screens (which I am in the process of adjusting so that they overlay the large rectangle on the Right hand of the Xrecord screen) there are buttons which say e.g. Close, exit cancel etc. Which element sets the button size for these buttons. In my manual file the buttons in question are at the bottom left of my popup.

Feel free to have a look at the attached skin file. I split in two because of the upload limit but it is my complete 1280x720 work in progress meedio clone skin for the PVR parts of GBPVR. I am still on version 99.12

Kev

[fla]

That popup is named "recordingpopup" since it appears when you select a recording from several places not just from the reoccurring screen. It uses CompositeImage RecordingPopupBackground and SpecialElement RecordingPopupButtons for the layout. The composite images for rendering the actual buttons are XSearch's SelectedButtonImage and NormalButtonImage composite images.

I know very little about skinning also. I think there are wysiwyg tools for skinning but I suspect they may require the plugin to be using a certain toolkit. When removing the hardcoded numbers, I also went through the same process or restarting gbpvr many times.

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Many thnks for the pointers

re your response.

The composite images for rendering the actual buttons are XSearch's SelectedButtonImage and NormalButtonImage composite images.

Do you mean XSearch's Button Images?????????? or did you mean XRecord's Button Images??????????

Kev

[fla]

Ya that's XRecord. :o

[Kevl]

Hi Fla


In XSearch there is a keyboard which enables letters to be typed to filiter the contents of the 3 list boxes above it.

The text string typed is displayed above the keyboard.

Can the position of the typed text string be adjusted? If so what is the item called.



Kev

[fla]

Hi Kevl,

CurrentValueElement and CurrentValueElementAddFutureRecordingPopup adjust the location of the XSearch main screen keyboard text and in the AddFutureRecordingPopup respectively. The size is also there if you want to clip it to a specific rectangle size.

[Kevl]

Thanks Fla

Last eve I was working again in XSearch. I am working to make it look like the rest of GBPVR in that the buttons on the popups are turned into a column on the left hand side of the screen and I have added a whole screen background rather than have the ideosyncratic popups appearing on top of the main screen. To my eyes this looks much nicer.

However as I peel away at the complexity of the Xsearch skin (a walk in the park compared with Xrecord :-) ) then I notice some popups mentioned which I dont think I have ever seen actually rendered.

There is reference right at the bottom of the skin file to a historypopup???? What is this and how do I invoke it???

There is also stuff in the skin file to handle conflicts. But I have never been able to generate a conflict as the App. cleverly traps them and warns me when I try.

Is the conflict popup screen redundant now???? How should I force a conflict to test the look of the screen it throws up.

I'm adding lots of comments to the files as I make changes. I'm now using the technique of adding a coloured rectangle to popups etc in the skin file so that I know which screen is being referenced in various parts of the the skin file. I think I'm starting to get to the bottom of it.

When I have got my screens looking nice I will post them and will also update your standard skin files to include my comments. My comments might save folk time in the future - or confuse them even more :-)



Kev