Community skin project

[McBainUK]

I propose a merger of the "skin management" tools into one, cohesive unit. Of course, this means that you guys have to swallow your pride and be open to each other's ideas but the end result will be far better than what you've been able to achieve individually.

One common platform will make it easier for you to create and set standards for/with plugin developers. Come up with a beta and recruit some plugin developers to give you feedback on ways to make their efforts easier/seamless.

I agree.

So then Fatman, you're Chameleon project seems to have had a shot at this. A system that. What can be improved? What can plugin writers do to help? What plugins / core screens(!) havnt been skinned for Chameleon yet? Just downloaded and installed the skin. Seems to have a good base of images to use for a would be skinner.

[daphatty]

I agree.

So then Fatman, you're Chameleon project seems to have had a shot at this. A system that. What can be improved? What can plugin writers do to help? What plugins / core screens(!) havnt been skinned for Chameleon yet? Just downloaded and installed the skin. Seems to have a good base of images to use for a would be skinner.

And don't forget, what features do AM and Base Skin do really well that can be integrated into Chameleon?

[Fatman_do]

Looking critically at your Chameleon project what would you like to change? What would you like to expand on? I noticed you can change Buttons and backgrounds but not anything to do with lists (a very common screen element). Would this be possible?

How would changes (if reqd) to AM/ThemesManger help you and/or Chameleon users.

And what can the community do to help the project? Just trying to get all of us talking, working together.

As a matter of fact, it is currently possible to do (but not obvious to the user at the time) to change list selectors and list veiws. To get those elements visible to the end user at run-time would require a change to AM.

Before Thempacks came along, using AM, when you started with the 'Blue' looking buttons, List selection "bars" were replaced by MCE2 ones when you chose those buttons. The same is true for other buttons as well. I included selections of those for every MCE2 button style I had. I could have placed MCE2 style list views as well to replace them. In fact, by selecting the default Chameleon buttons, it reset my skin's images all to the default state.

I would have liked to have started closer to BaseSkin instead of playing catch up. The only trouble I have with themes is I mimic a DrawTextWithOutline for buttons and screen names by using a textstyle "...Shadow". This was to get around problems using very light colored buttons with light colored text.
Without those textstyles in the theme's baseskin.xml file, it gets real ugly real fast. Mixman was kind enough to start adding that into his themes for me. The only other thing I did with those themes is add full AM support when using Chameleon. This is all fixed using patches I created but have not kept up on.

I also moved my plugins, except a few, to use 16pt fonts (larger than normal) just to give it a little difference from BaseSkin. (Otherwise Chameleon would not need to exsist if BaseSkin supported AM fully.)

What I see as ideal is using themes to get the compostion you want, then use AM to change the common elements. As a user, that is what I would like.

As a skinner, I am never happy with Chameleon. I want to support every plugin, every panel, every option. In fact, turning on and off panels individually at runtime would be cool but is something that may not be easy to do.

Download Chameleon and play with Appearance Manager and see what I am talking about. I don't care if anyone uses this skin day to day. I think it is a neat "tech demo" for ThemePacks and Apperance Manager. Browse the appearance sub folder and see all the images I have there.

I am not advocating in the least that this new project be derived or based on Chameleon (or BaseSkin or any AM skin). I will be the first to admit my skin is the worst offender for image bloat. OMG! 25+MB installed!!!

[Fatman_do]

A limitation with Chameleon is that I use much longer buttons to handle longer text strings for translations. That with 16pt fonts as a design standard, I need to patch themes to use that size button text (easy enough to do) or it looks all out of proportion using large buttons with little text.

These larger buttons wreck havok on several plugins, most I have overcome.

I have guide2j and fastfind done, but xrecord is not going to work. There is only a handful of plugins I do not have done yet.

[Fatman_do]

And don't forget, what features do AM and Base Skin do really well that can be integrated into Chameleon?

Nothing else. It supports both 100% (if patches are applied to themes). I really tried to make this skin fit alot of the ideas in the long "make new default skin" thread or something along those lines.

People wanted larger text and room for longer text strings. I put that in.

I fell in love with AM from day one. Used Old Dog's skins but they were lacking for plugin support and I thought some elements were out of place. I also at the time didn't even know what an xml was. Isn't that something web pages use? I was also one of the thousands that logged on as "guest". Even once I got an ID, I kept queit for I while. Was too afraid of embarrasing myself. I just read as much about skinning and tried every one.

Then I started myself. Failing more times than not. Eventually I started to get the hang of it. I never released anything plublic but I had a version of ContourHC (my skin of choice) that was AM compatible. I couldn't understand any xml really, but figured out by looking at other skins what I needed to do to replace the xml to images. Then, Mixman's baseskin came along and I liked how he moved more to images (like the MCE2 skin which I never was a fan of due to it looking too MS). I read up on it and started Chameleon. Once he started poping out themes, I had to jump on that bandwagon (for myself, I am a skinner, my xml's are always better than someone else's:p even if they are not. )

Ok, this thread isn't about me. Sorry for the history lesson.

Here are some of my very early posts here in GBPVR land. See if you spot a trend.
http://forums.gbpvr.com/showpost.php?p=7...stcount=11
http://forums.gbpvr.com/showpost.php?p=7...stcount=24
http://forums.gbpvr.com/showpost.php?p=9...stcount=59

I have a history of bugging Old Dog.

[Fatman_do]

Very early and very raw data of DrawRoundedRect xml codes of most plugins. I will update this later with every stinking one on the wiki tomorrow. If someone wants to dress it up until then I will post only new info.

This is an excel file that I did a cut and paste from the "inforapid" utility I have. It will look like a mess, but you get the idea on the data availible.

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

I really gotta go. Tomorrow I won't spend all freaking day here. I have to do something at work once in a while.

[Old Dog]

I have a history of bugging Old Dog.

Ah Grasshopper, I am sure that someday you will find "The Way".

[Fatman_do]

Wiki page here. All users feel free to update. So come on MixMan, OldDog, dahpahty and the rest - get your thinking and opinion caps on!

How do you think AM/Themes/Chameleon would work/complement this. Is it worth not making a new skin but just mergeing these ideas? All of you what do you think are the drawbacks to your system? What would you like to change?

Just been reading up on the Chameleon skin and it seems to do everything! What will a community devolpment do to help it? Can it be altered to reduce use of xml?

I would like to see an intergration of ThemePacks (to change the whole look of GBPVR) and AM (to customise the look). Can the ThemeManager and Appearance plugins mergre?

I missed this post earlier or more was added when I last read it. I think maybe in the picture library I left xml in there but I want to change that.

I am not against a BaseSkin/Chameleon/AM merger for a community skin, I just assume it is to complex for deveolpers to skin for (no offense on your ability, just refering to desire). If there is a desire to use Chameleon as a community developed skin, I will turn it loose and not lord over it. I know of a few more minor BaseSkin realted changes I want to make, but that is about it.

I never got one ounce of feedback on it so I really can't say how well all the skins work.

Nether one of these methods I used are my own. MixMan and Old Dog laid all the foundation.

Just to be clear. I am not trying to "brag up" Chameleon. These are things that I wanted to explore.

I think it is too much for a image based standard.

[tipstir]

Build from the Blue Skin and remove all the black backgrounds to transparent ones for start.

[Fatman_do]

Build from the Blue Skin and remove all the black backgrounds to transparent ones for start.

That is not a problem. Easy to do. The black background are just so it looks like blue. There is no requirement for that. In fact, with a standard and future tools, the user may be able to select what they want there.

Didn't I say I was going to leave for the night?