1.0.8 MVP Interface Questions

[ski44]

Hello,

1. Is there a way to tweak the font size for the interface on the MVP? The new skin is nice but my TV is small and the fonts are very hard to read. Something in the skin .xml file maybe?

2. I liked having the current time display in the bottom status bar when you hit the blue button on the remote. This seems to be gone in the new version. Does anyone think there is a way to bring that back?

Thanks!

[sub]

1. Is there a way to tweak the font size for the interface on the MVP? The new skin is nice but my TV is small and the fonts are very hard to read. Something in the skin .xml file maybe?

The default font size looks pretty good, but I can understand it might be small for some. There are two things you could try - either develop you own skin that uses larger font etc, or try decreasing the <FontDivisor> setting in config.xml. The default is 400. You could try something like 320.

2. I liked having the current time display in the bottom status bar when you hit the blue button on the remote. This seems to be gone in the new version. Does anyone think there is a way to bring that back?

There is no way for you to get this at the moment, but it'll make a return at some stage.

[ski44]

Sub,

Thank you for your hard work and response. The font divisor is a good temporary solutions, thanks!

The problem isn't really that the font is too small in general, it's that it's too small for my TV. The resolution isn't sharp enough to resolve the text, even if I'm right next to the screen. It does look great on my computer monitor though.

I guess I will have to learn about skins so I can make one for my TV. With the font divisor at 320, some text doesn't fit into the skin properly.

[bungle]

I was playing with the skin a bit for a couple of things, and noticed that the font doesn't seem to render the same on the MVP as on the PC. The guide looks really great on the PC, but is somewhat fuzzy on the TV/MVP. Some of that is the TV resolution, obviously, but the font renders differently, as well. Here's a screenshot and a picture showing the difference. I had the font size jacked up a bit for some tests, but it still shows the difference. "The New Adventures of Old Christine", as an example because it's long, wraps differently and seems smaller on the MVP.

Is the FontDivisor setting global? Is there any MVP-specific setting to adjust the skin (short of making a separate one)?

[sub]

I was playing with the skin a bit for a couple of things, and noticed that the font doesn't seem to render the same on the MVP as on the PC. The guide looks really great on the PC, but is somewhat fuzzy on the TV/MVP. Some of that is the TV resolution, obviously, but the font renders differently, as well. Here's a screenshot and a picture showing the difference. I had the font size jacked up a bit for some tests, but it still shows the difference. "The New Adventures of Old Christine", as an example because it's long, wraps differently and seems smaller on the MVP.

It tries to be consistent as possible, and its pretty damn close, but different aspect ratios etc affect how proportionately wide fields are, causing slight differences like this. I very happy with how close it turned out. I expected it would be more different under these types of comparisions.

Is the FontDivisor setting global?

Yes

Is there any MVP-specific setting to adjust the skin (short of making a separate one)?

No

[bungle]

It tries to be consistent as possible, and its pretty damn close, but different aspect ratios etc affect how proportionately wide fields are, causing slight differences like this. I very happy with how close it turned out. I expected it would be more different under these types of comparisions.

Yeah, I can imagine that would be a pain. I've dealt with IE/Firefox differences enough that I think I can feel your pain. I bumped the font size up a bit and shrank the channel bar size and now it looks pretty damn good on both. One other thing is the borders look a bit fatter on the MVP, and hence the text is closer to them. Most of the other elements can be controlled pretty finely in the skin file, but not the show boxes, it seems. I was trying to adjust the position of the show name text in the box. Is this impossible in the skin (presumably because that section is so dynamic)? But I gotta say, I like the new UI more every day.

[sub]

Unfortunately you cant change the box at this stage. On the MVP its a double line becaue we had a really bad interlaced flicker effect otherwise. This doesnt adjust the placement of the text though, since the outline is drawn ontop (regardless of where the text was).

[bungle]

No problem - just thought I'd ask since I was futzing with it. For anyone else interested, changing the ListingStyle size to 14 in skin2\blue\TV Guide\skin.xml made the TV Guide more readable on my MVP - the text doesn't seem as fuzzy. Maybe it fits the resolution of my TV better. It also looks good at on the PC (as does the original size).

EDIT: I made the channel bar a bit skinnier and the listings wider, so the font size might be a bit big on its own, but I haven't tested it.

[ericbiermann]

Is there a way to quickly increase the size of the font in the left toolbar? I've been struggling with
<CompositeImage name="ButtonNormal" size="14.0,2.0">
<DrawText text="@buttonText" loc="7,6" size="100,200" textStyle="ButtonTextStyle" align="Center" valign="top"/>
</CompositeImage>
But I find it very hard to understand what all of this is doing. My font size increases if changed on top of the skin doc., but then the letters are cropped because the button area is too small. There is no valign to be set top top. I added that in a desperate try!

The problem is that my wife has a lot of trouble to read the menu's (and the listings, which is my next challenge) on the 15inch screen on the MVP. I'd like to make a special MVP skin which beefs up all fonts.

Thanks, Eric

[bungle]

I tweaked Blue for the MVP: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=28691