Skinning XGuide

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Have downloaded latest files

4. Fixed. Now have nice grey button backgrounds
5. Initially I thought unique names worked fine. The lockup problem was my duplication of Search Guide - an emminently sensible name for the functionality I thought. :-). After having edited the 3 skin files and the config.xml file the menu items appeared as expected. However when I then did some channel scanning work (via the GBPVR config app.) and restarted GBPVR then all of the Xsuite buttons had dissappeared from the main menu. I went back into config.xml and the entries I had added were removed. Does GBPVR rebuild the config.xml file afer leaving the config app? Perhaps it deleted them when rebuilding. Perhaps it looks at which plugins it can find and rebuilds the list every time the config app is closed.

Which skin files shall I mod up with added comments?

Redsky???

Am now in the process of setting up GBPVR channels and EPG logos.

Kev

[fla]

Yes gbpvr does seem to rewrite the config.xml without the new entries. I think I'll have to store the display name in config.xml instead of the skins to get around that. More coding for me...

You can add comments to either the blue or redsky skins. I'll use xxdiff my favorite merge tool to port the comments to the other ones.

I've made the guide chooser background use a composite image but didn't finish cleaning up the old skin elements and it's getting late so I'll finish and post it tomorrow.

[Kevl]

Fla

Are you aware that other plugins have thier name customisable via the plugin screen in GBPVR config? In some plugins, clicking on the plugin name in the menu tree allows the
name to be changed (in exactly the same way as when a new button is added to the main menu via this mechanism then its name can be changed from new button to whatever).

Presumably this would be the easiest place to have the customisable name.

Kev

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

Ive copied the comments I added to my skin files over to the Redsky files.

Mainly the added comments are in Xrecord and Fastfind. The Xguide skins are easy to understand by comparison.

Some more comments will still be helpfull and I'll keep adding them to my skins as I continue to make further tweaks. I'll then copy them over to Redsky again.

Kev

[fla]

1) The Guide Chooser now uses a composite image for it's background. The skin-guides.xml file has changed a little and now has a composite image called GuideChoosePopupBackground. The Meedio skin should now be able to have a consistent background throughout. While I was in this file I noticed that clicking and double clicking on a guide didn't select it even though there was code there to handle it. Now fixed.

5) I know some other plugins have configurable names. If someone can tell me which (preferably open source) plugin does this best I'll port that method to XSuite.

I noticed you posted your commented skin files. I really appreciate it. It's too late tonight but I'll definitely incorporate those in the next version. Since this thread began, together we've taken XSuite to another level since skinning forced us to test every corner of the plugins.

[Kevl]

Ive been reading the forum to see if I could help with the "how to rename main menu buttons" issue.

It has been requested many times. I think I read that sub does n't support the functionality.
It may be that only when adding a new button and attaching a dos command to the button that renaming the button is possible via the plugins tab of config.exe.

Failing that then there is reference to the use of the language.xml file to change the button name. Though I have to say I think the description of how this works/is supposed to work was very vague in the post I read. But it would presumbly be an easy fix and not need Xsuite code changes.

I have thought of a couple of potential fixes. Given that the config.xml file is just a text file then if I arrange for config.exe to be called via a batch file then I could have a batch file which (on line 1) runs config.exe and then (on line 2) runs a little executable which takes config.xml and adds the needed lines to it after config.exe is closed. Its a bit of a bodge but might work. I could knock up a little .exe file which could add the contents of a 3 line text file to the appropriate bit of config.xml.

The other way might be to rename the 3 Xsuite.dll files in the plugins directory to the desired names. Not sure if this would work but if it did it would be simple to do. Presumably each Xsuite app would need to know it was no longer called say XRecord - but it ought to be able to work out what its filename is??????????



Kev

[fla]

Hi Kevl,

A new version on the wiki with your comments in the skin files. Also the PluginDisplayName stuff is now in the config.xml file instead of the skins. If you save the XRecord plugin's settings once from the config app the following lines will be added to the xrecord section of config.xml. You no longer need to have two names in the MenuLayout section and the new name survives in the MenuLayout section after saving/OK in the config app. It still requires manual editing of the config.xml but it's not something people change very frequently anyways.

Code:

<!-- If you change a plugin display name here, you must change it in MenuLayout also -->
<PluginDisplayName name="XRecord">XRecord</PluginDisplayName>
<PluginDisplayName name="XSearch">XSearch</PluginDisplayName>
<PluginDisplayName name="XGuide">XGuide</PluginDisplayName>

I liked your idea of using the filename but the method to get the filename was returning an empty string. I believe this may be because of the way gbpvr loads the plugins.

"If the assembly is loaded from a byte array, such as when using the Load(array<>[]()[]) method overload, the value returned is an empty string ("")." reference.

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

I've downloaded the latest Xsuite files. The button renaming method works fine.

I'm now in the process of tweaking skins to improve text layout. I've noticed that the XMLTV EPG info I get from the UK radio times website is very detailed. As such many of the screens have text which gets cut off.

I've also found a source of high res channel logos so am also tweeking the skins to make best use of these.

Kev

[fla]

I'm glad to hear the renaming thing works. When Meedio is done, I'll have an excuse to buy an HDTV.

[Kevl]

Hi Fla

How many lines of text do you get from your EPG source for program description?



Kev