CommunitySkin common text styles

[MixMan]

"Pure stupididy" I find that comment insulting and not constructive to any conversation or creative effort.

That is what I don't get. If it is such a bad idea, why do you do it MixMan?

Sorry, it's my honest opinion. I will not continue with the CommonImges, that now has turned into a Fatman_do CommunitySkin, backed by McBainUK wild naming suggestions, without having looked at a baseskin.xml.
Thats the reality, no matter how many excuses you write.
I'm out of the project.

[Fatman_do]

Sorry, it's my honest opinion. I will not continue with the CommonImges, that now has turned into a Fatman_do CommunitySkin, backed by McBainUK wild naming suggestions, without having looked at a baseskin.xml.
Thats the reality, no matter how many excuses you write.
I'm out of the project.

So what you mean is that you don't wan't to be part of a community effort.
That is the reality.

I am sorry, but I have looked at a baseskin.xml in my day. That comment makes not sense.

I am sorry, but no matter how many times you try to pin this as a Fatman_do skin, it is not. I am not lord and commander saying "This IS how it is going to be done." You are the one trying to make decisions without discussion or concent with others. When you don't agree on something, and you don't provide a reasonable explanation as to why, your best solution is to say "I quit" and insult the efforts of others.

You do not see me posting "I will be doing this..", "I won't be doing that.." every time I disagree with something. I work to find a solution. An agreement.

Once again, this is not a Fatman_do solo effort.

For some reason you feel all the other users concers are not worth the effort. That simplifying things for skinners, users, and plugin developers is a crazy idea.

The odd thing is, Jeff suggested more textstyles, yet again you call this a Fatman_do skin with McBainUK crazy naming ideas. Why bash a community project?

[Fatman_do]

Getting back to the point of this thread, text styles.

McBainUK,

I think the suggestion I had on DrawTextWithOutline can work, and the mechanics are there.

But thinking about it further, it is a radically different approach from what skinners or developers are used too.

Because of that, having the "screen" and "background" text styles might be more consistent with things to date.

This list looks fine then.

[MixMan]

So what you mean is that you don't wan't to be part of a community effort.
That is the reality.

I am sorry, but I have looked at a baseskin.xml in my day. That comment makes not sense.

I am sorry, but no matter how many times you try to pin this as a Fatman_do skin, it is not. I am not lord and commander saying "This IS how it is going to be done." You are the one trying to make decisions without discussion or concent with others. When you don't agree on something, and you don't provide a reasonable explanation as to why, your best solution is to say "I quit" and insult the efforts of others.

You do not see me posting "I will be doing this..", "I won't be doing that.." every time I disagree with something. I work to find a solution. An agreement.

Once again, this is not a Fatman_do solo effort.

For some reason you feel all the other users concers are not worth the effort. That simplifying things for skinners, users, and plugin developers is a crazy idea.

The odd thing is, Jeff suggested more textstyles, yet again you call this a Fatman_do skin with McBainUK crazy naming ideas. Why bash a community project?

Who has skinned for the communitySkin mostly?
You and I.
We have used almost the same Text naming for both our skins.
I have 40 Themes with baseskin.xmls that uses the same text naming that you do. Why rename text styles just for renaming it .... and the effect it will have is that I have to re-work 40 themes textstyles and the Advisor skin to make it compatible with the CommonImage new text style.....when the benefit was just a new name.
It doesn't make sense to me, to create so much work for so little gain.
Thats why I oppose renaming, just for the renaming.

[Fatman_do]

Who has skinned for the communitySkin mostly?
You and I.
We have used almost the same Text naming for both our skins.
I have 40 Themes with baseskin.xmls that uses the same text naming that you do. Why rename text styles just for renaming it .... and the effect it will have is that I have to re-work 40 themes textstyles and the Advisor skin to make it compatible with the CommonImage new text style.....when the benefit was just a new name.
It doesn't make sense to me, to create so much work for so little gain.
Thats why I oppose.

Well, that is a different reason than what you gave before.
I understand and appreciate that concern. You want us to stop right here because that is the easist thing for your skin and themes.

However, another thing to consider is that with newer features that sub is introducing, you might want to add those features in as well for greater longevity. The new <DrawCompositeImage> features to be introduced by sub should be in these xml's for maximum compatibility also. These will also be incompatible with your baseskin's.

There is the potential that if more things do get squared away, and standardized, the amount of changes you may need to make won't be that significant compared to the benefits. There may be themepacks that you have that the baseskin.xml file is virtually the same because the main menu's are what is more different.

Maybe not.

I would be perfectly happy to help you upgrade those baseskin.xml's.

I am not out to destroy anybody's work here. I am thinking long term, and realize there may be growing pains. Once all the mechanisms are set up and in place, I offer my help to anyone that needs it.

Approach this as a clean slate. What would be the ideal way you would do things if you were designing a system from the ground up. As if no other skins had exsisted before.

Common Image naming is a key part of a system that wants to use images (which we all were a involved with). Text styles is a natural follow on to that process. There will be compostie image discussions as well, and what is the best way to handle them to provide the best flexibility.

If you would rather sit back and watch how things develop for a while, and decide to join back in later if you like the direction things are going, fantastic.

I just think the argument has been beaten to death. We both know how each other feel and where we are comming from. I respect you and your decisions, I and want to remain a friend, even if we may have differences.

[MixMan]

Well, what you are doing is designing a whole new skin including plugin text naming.
To much work to make Themes compatible with what you want to do.
I will lay back and see what you come up with.
I will just keep he Advisor up to date with new GBPVR versions in mean time.

[Fatman_do]

Keep in touch.

[Fatman_do]

Textstyles proposal added to baseskin.xml file. Subject to change, pending any outstanding requests or additions.

[Fatman_do]

News Feeds plugin is hard-coded to use "GeneralText" as we would use "ListViewNormal"
Address Book is hard-coded to use "GeneralText" and "SelectedGeneralText"
Xplorer (File Explorer) is hard-coded to use "GeneralText" and "SelectedGeneralText"
XDVD is hard-coded to use "GeneralText" and "SelectedGeneralText"
TheaterListings is hard-coded to use "GeneralText" and "SelectedGeneralText" in popup movie box.

[Fatman_do]

Ok, I have gone through most plugins looking at the text styles and renaming one that were appropriate.

Couple of things came to mind.

Some of the names are a little long and not easy to remember, and deciding on the proper application seems challenging.

"Ok, I want a large piece of text in the listview for 'Artist:', what am I using?"

TextBackgroundTagTextLarge or ScreenBackgroundTagTextLarge or PopupTagTextLarge?

List backgrounds could be "shut off" in a theme, so ScreenBackgroundTagTextLarge seems likely. Text backgrounds could be shut off in a theme, how about them?

What if text in the title area is over a "titlebar" image?

This kind of lead me back to some basic areas.

Title - (Title_Bar.png)
Popup - (Background_Popup.png)
ListView - (Background_List.png)
Screen - (Background.jpg)
Background - (Background_Text.png)

I could have a normal and large version of each, including tags.
Can the names be simplified any? I thought about this..

Title area:

• TitleBarText
  
• TitleBarTextLarge
  
• TitleBarTag
  
• TitleBarTagLarge
  

Popup:

• PopupTitle
  
• PopupText
  
• PopupTextLarge
  
• PopupTag
  
• PopupTagLarge
  

ListView: (Do not use selector textstyles)

• IconTextNormal
  
• IconTextSelected
  
• IconTextActive
  
• ListTextNormal
  
• ListTextSelected
  
• ListTextActive
  
• ---
  
• ListViewText
  
• ListViewTextLarge
  
• ListViewTag
  
• ListViewTagLarge
  
• NoItems
  

Screen:

• ScreenName (Drop the word 'Text' from the end since it is not really needed)
  
• HintText
  
• ScreenText
  
• ScreenTextLarge
  
• ScreenTag
  
• ScreenTagLarge
  

Background:

• BackgroundText
  
• BackgroundTextLarge
  
• BackgroundTag
  
• BackgroundTagLarge
  

ScreenBackgroundText and TextBackgroundText seemed "too long" for what is needed to type in. If it is going on an empty part of the screen, use ScreenText, if it is on a text background, use BackgroundText.

If it would be used in a listview, it could need to be different altogether, the same with a title bar.