WR2 skinning question(s)

[Jaggy]

I have one question to start with but as I go along there may be more.

I am just wondering if there is any way for me to display skin specific "@thumbnail" & "@streamtype" images?

I have tried putting a different VLC.png & VLC logo.png into my skin2\Blue-Retro-HV\_CoreImages directory but it still seems to display the image (I assume) from C:\Program Files\Devnz\GBPVR\media\RadioLogos?

[mvallevand]

The IconDirectory is a config.xml setting so it is possible to point this anywhere you'd like. If the image isn't found there it is hard-coded to look in media\Country for the flags.

You could point config.xml to your skin folder and work from there but I'd also copy all the files from media\RadioLogo to media\Country first.

Martin

[Jaggy]

Hmmm that's not very user friendly I would really prefer to not ask users to edit config.xml so they could use my skin.

No problem for my own personal use & I could just replace the images in the media\RadioLogo directory with the ones I want to use for B-R-xHV but I much prefer to keep my skin stuff only used for my skins & out of the way if users want to use/change to a different skin at some stage or for users like my brother who uses B-R-SHV on the bedroom TV & blue on the main TV.

[mvallevand]

I don't know much about skinning (I need MixMan's album just to add the album art) but I suppose for the skin related png's I could take the following from PluginHelperFactory.getPluginHelper().GetSkinRootDirectory + "web radio" if that helps.

aac.png
m3u.png
mp3.png
OGG.png
pls.png
ram.png
VLC.png
WMA.png
wmp.png

Martin

[Fatman_do]

Another ideal place for plugin specific images are in the skin's own folder, instead of _CoreImages.

This allows that folder to be copied from skin to skin, allowing the plugin to work without having to "cherry pick" specific images from the _CoreImages folder.

The idea behind _CoreImages was to contain universal images shared among a broad group of plugins, thus creating an image repository used to develop themes.

[mvallevand]

Fatman_do doesn't PluginHelperFactory.getPluginHelper().GetSkinRootDirectory + "web radio" look in the root of the active skin? Are you suggesting another generic location?

Martin

[Fatman_do]

I know nothing about coding, so I cannot answer that with any confidence. Doesn't that example suggest "Skin2\SkinName\WebRadio\" as the default path?


Normally, skins are able to map where to look for images (ie. "Logo.png", "..\Logo.png", "..\_CoreImages\Logo.png") so this normally isn't an issue.

Built-in, hard coded image references are an animal of a different nature. It is acceptable to also use a large collection of extra images in the Media folders and such, so this isn't a big deal in the scheme of things (Weather is an example of this).

My comments were of a general nature referring to general skinning practices for a few "specific focus" images. Since there are so many images in the Media folder, for good reason, I wouldn't think you would need to change it. It sounds like Jaggy, would prefer the file type images to be stored locally (per skin2\PluginName) rather than globally (Media folders).

[Jaggy]

Normally, skins are able to map where to look for images (ie. "Logo.png", "..\Logo.png", "..\_CoreImages\Logo.png") so this normally isn't an issue.

That's right I have no problems with these types of images

Built-in, hard coded image references are an animal of a different nature. It is acceptable to also use a large collection of extra images in the Media folders and such, so this isn't a big deal in the scheme of things (Weather is an example of this).

My comments were of a general nature referring to general skinning practices for a few "specific focus" images. Since there are so many images in the Media folder, for good reason, I wouldn't think you would need to change it. It sounds like Jaggy, would prefer the file type images to be stored locally (per skin2\PluginName) rather than globally (Media folders).

I guess now thinking about it this is for all plugins that use the media\xxx to display images & not default to look somewhere else first in the selected skin directory & then if not found then look in media\xxx for there images.

I would think this would affect CS4 with it's different schemes even more than my stand alone skin if the user wants to use different themes on their MVP/NMT to their HTPC? Personally I just don't like the idea of dictating to the user what images they will see in all the skins after installing my skin & there are a number of images in media\RadioLogos that don't fit into the retro theme that I would like to change.

[mvallevand]

I know that MixMan has downloaded about 4000 radio icons that he was think of making available, and since they come from the radio stations those aren't configurable. The others images which I guess you are needing a mode for are the links to the Stations themselves. On the following screen


I guess I could allow skinning the StationList icons too but there are several of them. Now we are talking more about a theme then a skin issue.

Martin

[Jaggy]

Yep I guess we are talking a theme rather than a skin thing....but the theme is half what my skins are about :p

I won't be changing the radio station icons that come from the stations themselves, those in your pic I may want to change (I haven't got as far as thinking about them yet) but the main one at the moment is the Radio.png that displays a lot in detailsview