The Collection Series

[Old Dog]

The Collection Series
- The Color Collection
- The Floral Collection
- The Pastoral Collection

The Collection System
The Collections series share layouts for the various GBPVR plug-ins.
The system is based on the default GBPVR skin, "Blue" so it does support
all plug-ins that Blue supports.

The system was recently updated with new buttons and layouts for Video Library,
Music Library, and Net Radio.

In all, new layouts have been created for the following GBPVR components:
- Main Menu
- TV Guide
- Search Guide
- Live TV
- Recordings
- Video Library
- Music Library
- Net Radio
- DVD
- Weather
- On-Screen Display
- On-Screen Controls

Standard "Blue" layouts exist for:
- Comics
- DVD Ripper
- Fast Find
- FM Radio
- Guide 2J
- My Music
- My Videos
- Video Archive
- XRecord

Screen shots, more information, and downloads are available at http://starling01.home.mindspring.com/Th...ction.html

[Joost]

I am a fan

[Old Dog]

Has anyone used one of the Collection skins on an MVP?

If so, how does it look?

I don't have an MVP so I'm clueless.

Thanks,

[nightwalker]

Has anyone used one of the Collection skins on an MVP?

If so, how does it look?

I don't have an MVP so I'm clueless.

Thanks,

I've tried them all on the MVP. They look very nice on the computer but for the MVP they all have one shortcoming, so says my wife and i agree with her. The fonts are too small. There is a lot of real estate to use and to be honest i find no skin really uses it to advantage. The closest in my opinion is the Fat Blue Hi Vis skin. It uses a larger font when possible. easy to understand task images and not a lot of bright colors. The MVP really hates Red and Yellow and even Cyan. Contrasting color without the very bright ones seems to be the key. Negative space is fine for art and fine dining but on a skin, my opinion is to use it so even someone who has no idea about how to work a PVR can just sort of intuitively figure it out.

There are some very nice skins available and i know they've been a lot of work and a labor of love but if my wife can't figure out how to get to where she wants it's all for naught.

I hope this is of help to you. I found the way you've made the main menu different from the rest so it makes it easy to just change a background when you get tired of it to be a nice touch.

[Old Dog]

I've tried them all on the MVP. They look very nice on the computer but for the MVP they all have one shortcoming, so says my wife and i agree with her. The fonts are too small. There is a lot of real estate to use and to be honest i find no skin really uses it to advantage. The closest in my opinion is the Fat Blue Hi Vis skin. It uses a larger font when possible. easy to understand task images and not a lot of bright colors. The MVP really hates Red and Yellow and even Cyan. Contrasting color without the very bright ones seems to be the key. Negative space is fine for art and fine dining but on a skin, my opinion is to use it so even someone who has no idea about how to work a PVR can just sort of intuitively figure it out.

There are some very nice skins available and i know they've been a lot of work and a labor of love but if my wife can't figure out how to get to where she wants it's all for naught.

I hope this is of help to you. I found the way you've made the main menu different from the rest so it makes it easy to just change a background when you get tired of it to be a nice touch.

Having read complaints about visual distortions in skins on the MVP, I became concerned about The Collection series.

If I understand correctly, though you mention several issues with skins in general, the only deficeincy you have noticed with The Collection is small fonts.

That's not too bad considering I had another priority.

To date, I have been sensitive to issues related to overscan on 4:3 TVs. Many skins are chopped at the edges on these sets. Unfortunatly, overscan has become a positive attribute to many consumers and this is actually exploited, hence increased, by the manufacturers. With this in mind, I consider it important to have the information a little smaller and visible rather than larger but out of sight.

To this end, I have down-sized many of the layouts about 5-10% so that the information could be kept away from the edges of the screen. I have indeed down-sized some of the fonts in this process.

Since this is my first pass, I suspect I have done more than needed, but I must have some kind of feedback specific to margins to know for sure. If my margins are wider than neccesary, I can adjust them and possibly increase the font sizes.

By the way, which plug-in layout would you say is the worst culprit?

Thank you, and give my thanks to your wife for the feedback.

Best Regards,
David

[nightwalker]

All of the series are well within the borders. Of the plugin's that i was looking for and at, the Video Archive was the closest to the screen edge, but well within the usable/readable areas.

I'd suspect it would be very hard, or impossible to make a nice readable skin for the MVP if you don't use it. I've been working off and on on the same skin for 6 months and still don't have it quite right but it's basically only for the MVP i don't use GBpvr on the computer side at all. What i have found is if it looks good on the MVP it'll look great on the computer monitor but not always the other way around.

Keep it up, I think you've done a fine job of adding to and giving choices. To me choices are what makes it all worth while. After all the work and tweaking to get things to perform and operate correctly, playing with the look of it is not only the fun part, but the part that determines weather someone will use it or not. I'd say you're on the right track.