ways to make gbpvr prettier

[reven]

um this has be kind of discussed before, like when refering to mediaportal and gbpvr, the most common statement it "gbpvr is more stable, but mediaportal is prettier", i was just wondering/pondering how to make gbpvr more pretty (pretty is a fun word to say ), and i was wondering if anyone else has ever thought about this, and if they had had any ideas how to achieve this? like mediaportal does this thing that slides the menus onto the screen (i find this one annoying, but its pretty), and i was thinking of redoing the main menu to look more err informative, like a nice easy way of displaying a lot of information without being to cluttered (like jeffs (i think its jeffs) panel that changes). i want to be able to display a few things on the main menu
- notifications (if someone signs on to msn, or you get a new email, or someone calls, a recording is about to start etc)
- music playback (i want to show this whenever music is playing all the time, so if music is playing this will be shown ALWAYS)
- a newsticker (the current one is very smooth, this could be, and probably is because of how gbpvr does this)
- then just other useful stuff like how much recording time we have left, the current weather etc (this one should change).
- task images (like a video graphic for "Video Library" etc)

now thats kind of a lot of info on one screen so it has to be designed well (and at the moment no skin, well maybe the street etc ones) does this all that well. so whos gots some ideas on layout?

also for plugins do you guys want the selected file to scroll the filename if its to long to be displayed ? (look at mediaportal here, xbmc also does this, and probably mce)

any other ideas? i just want to start making gbpvr pretty (it looks kind of static at the moment).

sure pretty isnt everything, gbpvr is extremely stable (and thats why we all use it and not mediaportal) but we can make it prettier (see i told you i like that word) so thoughts/suggestions/want me to shut up ?

[daphatty]

- The weather plugin in MP is nice. We could use something like that.

- Cleaner and/or higher resolution skins (which would probably require a redesign of the skinning system).

- Eliminate the use of "My" as a prefix to all plug-ins. I just find it annoying (and it seems MS does also since they are killing its use in Vista/Longhorn.)

- Merging the Video Archive plugin with the built in Recordings menu. Specifically, I prefer the way the Recordings menu handles Pending recordings but VA does a much better job of providing the details of recorded shows.

- A nice graphical free disk space option, again similar to VA, except that it tells you what the actual used and free disk space is at that point in time.

- A Today's Weather ticker would be nice on the main menu screen.

- User customizable Genre Colors for the TV Guide

- Ability to sort and view the TV Guide by specific genre (clicking the Sports button will show only sports channels, Movies button will show movies..)


I could go on and on...

[Jeff]

The video archive plug-in includes a panel that will, among other things, display the current weather and weather for tomorrow, as well as low disk space warnings, upcoming recordings, and info on playing music tracks.

In the next rev of the panel I have added the abiluty for it to display an icon too so that it can show you at a glance, for example, if a recording is in progress.

With respect to disk space, the used space should be accurate at all times since that is read right before the screen is rendered. Estimate use by pending recordings is of course just an educated guess.

As to the weather plug-in, what do you like about the MP version that is missing from GBPVR? I have added animated weather maps to the next GBPVR version.

Jeff

[reven]

- Eliminate the use of "My" as a prefix to all plug-ins. I just find it annoying (and it seems MS does also since they are killing its use in Vista/Longhorn.)

im the only one who does that, and well i like how it sounds, you can easily throw "My Videos" into the language.xml file and change any plugin name.

- User customizable Genre Colors for the TV Guide

this would have to be handled via a plugin, xmltv just doesnt support it (well you cant depend on it).

- Cleaner and/or higher resolution skins (which would probably require a redesign of the skinning system).

this is probably already possible (most plugins should support this by now, im pretty sure gbpvrs core supports any resolution, im using 852x480 skin without problems.)

The video archive plug-in includes a panel that will, among other things, display the current weather and weather for tomorrow, as well as low disk space warnings, upcoming recordings, and info on playing music tracks.

yeah this is what i mean, but its dependent on the video arch plugin, we should make a "wonder panel" that any plugin can communicate with. that has a method like

Code:

.showAlert(string title, string message, Image image) //image could be null, or two sigs

that way any plugin, if it needs to display something to the users, its displayed always the exact same way, like
My Messenger - Someone has just signed in
Recordings - A Recording is about to begin
Diskspace - You are running low on diskspace
Email - You have a new email
Caller ID - John Smith is calling
etc.
at the moment there would have to be a seperate panel for each, and seperate entries in the mainmenu skin.xml for each panel. and trying to place them so they dont overlap at any given time could be annoying. Im thinking along the lines of this program i onces used, it was a fixed panel you had on the side on the screen, split into groups, like it showed you the weather up the top, music below that, and then some other useful information, all neat and tidy, clear and consistent.

we just need to design it so it flows, it doesnt look over crowded. and maybe throw in some animations here and there.

but a independent master panel i think is needed.

[Jeff]

yeah this is what i mean, but its dependent on the video arch plugin, we should make a "wonder panel" that any plugin can communicate with. that has a method like

Code:

.showAlert(string title, string message, Image image) //image could be null, or two sigs

that way any plugin, if it needs to display something to the users, its displayed always the exact same way

Reven -

The video archive plugin panel is, in fact, independent of the video archive plug-in. That is, while the panel is built into the video archive plug-in dll you can use the panel without enabling the video archive plug-in. It also has its own set of API functions in the CommonGBPVRUtilities.dll to add and remove messages from the panel (and in the new one to set the bitmap displayed). The panel keeps a queue of messages from different sources at different priorities. It cycles through all of the messaged queued at the highest priority for which there are messages.

See the music panel widget, which displays info on the currently playng music track, for an example. It is here. There is also an example in the new weather plug-in here .

Jeff

[Jeff]

Here is a shot of the panel; it is in the upper right corner. It is skinable so you can move the date, day of the week, time, and message text around and change their font size and color. You can also set the date format through the config app.

The bottom line is the mesage line, which provides room for two lines of text as I have it skinned by default. This is the text that will cycle and could be used to display email messages, instant messages, etc. The video archive plug-in alredy uses it to display active and upcoming recordings, and low disk space warnings. You could add the same from the My XXX series. The music panel widget displays info on the now playing music track and I mentioned above the weather plug-in uses this for weather. If you added your new plug-ins to it we would have the universal panel you described; that was my intent at least when I broke the panel out from the plug-in.

The screen shot is off the next version, which has the ability to set an image as well. The size and location of the image within the panel is also skinable. Unlike the messages, the plug-in does not maintain a queue of images. It will only display one at a time. In this case it is displaying an image to show me that GBPVR is recording a program at the moment.

Jeff

[reven]

heres what i think is needed in the universal panel.

-queues system, so only displays one alert at at time (some kind of polling must be down, either from the plugin or the panel...)

-standardized messages, like "Alert", "Error","Message", like if you say
DisplayAlert(string title, string message);
it displays a "Alert" graphic (like the windows ! in a triangle, or is that java, or both?)
DisplayMessage(string title, string message, image image)
it displays the message but instead of the alert image, it shows the passed image, so it looks exactly the same as the alert just different graphic.

- and there must be a seperate message/alert from say an info panel (like the weather on a conitnuous loop) so say the looping weather/rip process/diskspace/etc panel in the top right corner and the message panel in the bottom right (or something, just so those two are seperate).

so thats the panel, but for visuals does anyone want animations similar to mediaportal? (or anyother pvr/htpc program out there, ive only ever played around with mediaportal and xbmc) you know standard things like menus sliding onto the screen etc.

[venger]

Hi Reven,

That's a really good question that you ask!
Having used both MediaPortal and GBPVR quite extensively, I have found that:

(A) GBPVR is a lean mean recording machine... from memory, i've only ever missed a couple of shows with GBPVR
(B) GBPVR's playback UI is really well thought out.. RW/FF, configurable AND runtime skip forward/back, comskip..

However, having said that, I still continue to use my MP install.. always wishing that it would be as stable and functional as my GBPVR install :o
Why?

'Coz the skins in MP looks so good on my TV
.. here, I am not too sure (IMHO) that adding more 'display info' on the main menu is a way to make GBPVR prettier...
.. if you compare (as an example the bluetwo skins in both apps).. in terms of amount of 'info', they are basically the same..
BUT the MP skin does look better.. higher resolution(?).. nicer gradients.. use of borders and shadowing combine to make the buttons look solid...
.. and that is why I like the XMedia skin .. even tho, being a basic PVR user, the extra utilities and support for all the plugins doesn't interest me..

Scrolling names? Yes, this is one of the nice features of MP UI.. but to me, it doesn't increase the 'prettiness' level that much.. unless the program description max length can be increased so that scrolling thru long strings can be really useful.. and 'pretty'...

Make skins overscannable?.. in MP, I always overscan and the MP skins look great, oversized, with no hidden text or buttons - all these with no calibration required.
In GBPVR, this is not the case for my TV - i always have hidden text or buttons. Why?

There are also other (probably more important) reasons why I still use MP.. but that's not what this thread is about

just my 2 cents...

[reven]

.. here, I am not too sure (IMHO) that adding more 'display info' on the main menu is a way to make GBPVR prettier...

i think the main menu is kind of wasted, a lot of empty space not doing anything, we dont have to full the entire thing (only about 60% of the screen max) but display some helpful information clearly and neatly, but no rubbish info (just pratical things like how much recording space you have left etc).

why the skins in gbpvr dont look as good, well that pretty much just because we dont have any really good skinners here, well graphical artists, mediaportal obiviously does. but hey i suck at the graphical part aswell. cause gbpvr with the right skin could look just as good as mediaportal (minus all the little animations etc), and be more stable.

[venger]

oops.,. sorry reven, was still editing my previous reply.. you might want to have a read again of my previous reply