Plugin developers read

[sub]

Its not dampening creativity in any way. You can still create a full skin for each and every plugin if you like - exactly the same as today. I'm just trying to make sure that if a skinner creates a skin that only supports a few screens, the rest will continue to function, albeit using the defaults for the screens that didnt get the special treatment.

[Old Dog]

Will one be able to go from a "Blue" look to a "Olbia" look then jump to a "ContourHC" look and end up with a "XMedia" via this mechanism?

[Old Dog]

Its not dampening creativity in any way. You can still create a full skin for each and every plugin if you like - exactly the same as today. I'm just trying to make sure that if a skinner creates a skin that only supports a few screens, the rest will continue to function, albeit using the defaults for the screens that didnt get the special treatment.

Thats my point, its not a magic bullet.

Gotta go.

[sub]

You seem to be entirely missing the point. No one here is saying its a magic bullet. Its just a small change that I think is a step in right direction. Infact, its not even anything new. Its about 6 months old, and this post was just a small reminder to developers that they should implement support for it.

[sub]

Will one be able to go from a "Blue" look to a "Olbia" look then jump to a "ContourHC" look and end up with a "XMedia" via this mechanism?

Thats not the goal. You'll still be able to use Blue/Olbia/ContourHC/XMedia if you want. What it does mean though is that if ContourHC doesnt implement support for plugin 'X', then plugin 'X' will still work, and more importantly not crash GB-PVR.

[Fatman_do]

Jeff and McBainUK.

Are you guys doing something similar but different?

(Jeff)
Common Dialogs
Music Player
Weather
Video Archive
(Don't have ShowSearch on this box yet)

(McBainUK)
Volume
Gmail

also
SportScores from Spartan, which is using "stuff" from McBainUK (stuff may not be proper techinical term.)

All these plugins populate a clean skin that has no 3rd party plugins supported. In other words, those folders show up in this skin, with contents the same as in "Blue".

I am not trying to throw anyone under the bus here, just pointing out an observation. (I was trying to find out what plugins are lacking this feature).

[Old Dog]

Thats not the goal. You'll still be able to use Blue/Olbia/ContourHC/XMedia if you want. What it does mean though is that if ContourHC doesnt implement support for plugin 'X', then plugin 'X' will still work, and more importantly not crash GB-PVR.

The fallback thing? I love that, but thats here and now. Just need to get the plug-in developers to use your new constructor. Has nothing to do with this standardization effort.

Before I go any further, let me say that I am not opposed to this effort. I think its a good thing, I'm just not real enthusiastic.

Why not?

Re-read Torque's post.

1/2 of my full time job is doing web programming. From a single stylesheet, I can change the look and feel for every existing page of a web site and know that any new pages can be added with little to no work so they fit in with the rest of the site exactly. What I hope the baseskin file will do eventually.

Who benefits? The web site administrator (the skinner)! One person, and not the end user at that.

But it does nothing for my five-year-old-end-user with his remote control.

-Really Bad Dog

P.S. Standardization always stifles creativity - Dog's Law.

[Old Dog]

You seem to be entirely missing the point. No one here is saying its a magic bullet. Its just a small change that I think is a step in right direction. Infact, its not even anything new. Its about 6 months old, and this post was just a small reminder to developers that they should implement support for it.

I missed this. Don't know how but I did. You're absolutly right, this thread is just about the fallback thing. Somehow one of the posts threw me off track.

Can't edit or delete my previous post, so just forget it.

Best Regards,
Old Dog

[Jeff]

Jeff and McBainUK.

Are you guys doing something similar but different?

(Jeff)
Common Dialogs
Music Player
Weather
Video Archive
(Don't have ShowSearch on this box yet)

(McBainUK)
Volume
Gmail

also
SportScores from Spartan, which is using "stuff" from McBainUK (stuff may not be proper techinical term.)

All these plugins populate a clean skin that has no 3rd party plugins supported. In other words, those folders show up in this skin, with contents the same as in "Blue".

I am not trying to throw anyone under the bus here, just pointing out an observation. (I was trying to find out what plugins are lacking this feature).

Currently I do a bit of both. If the current skin does not have a sub foldr for one of my plug-ins I copy the contntts of the blue skin subfolder to the current skin. I started doing this with the first releases of my plug-ins before the baseskin.xml concept and the fallback to blue had been defined in GBPVR itself. In the latest version of the weather plug-in I use the new methods sub has defined, however I also still copy over the skin as before so I don't think it has any real change. At some point I will stop copying over the slins and just rely on the built-in GBPVR methods.

Jeff

[Fatman_do]

Currently I do a bit of both. If the current skin does not have a sub foldr for one of my plug-ins I copy the contntts of the blue skin subfolder to the current skin. I started doing this with the first releases of my plug-ins before the baseskin.xml concept and the fallback to blue had been defined in GBPVR itself. In the latest version of the weather plug-in I use the new methods sub has defined, however I also still copy over the skin as before so I don't think it has any real change. At some point I will stop copying over the slins and just rely on the built-in GBPVR methods.

Jeff

Never noticed it before, nice attention to detail.