New innovation in GBPVR skin design

[tieke]

It's almost as if there are too many great skinning developments occurring simultaneously - Old Dog's appearance manager, MixMan's standardisation ideas, McBain's GBPVRUIElements, gruskada's GBPVRSkin Tools etc.

There is no doubt that the skinning-side of GB-PVR could be improved, and at the moment it seems like everyone's work could be made complementary - we could have a GUI editor creating standard skins that could then be variously altered and changed from within GB-PVR simply using the remote, which would be a gigantic leap forward, and reflects the amount of work all the developers have put in. Unfortunately, as all these projects have mostly been developed individually, there arises that old open-source bugbear where you end up with mutually exclusive and incompatible branching options for creating skins.

Luckily none of the approaches are yet too entrenched to make changes and compatibility impossible - how about all the relevant developers state what they really need from everyone else for their developments to work, and what is currently open for change, then perhaps they could all (or perhaps just sub) decide on the new standardised aspects that will let all the funky new widgets work together.

If the difference between two people's work is as simple as a button being called Button_Normal and MainButtonNormal, then something as small as that shouldn't hold us back.

cheers,

tieke

[Old Dog]

cheers

[Old Dog]

Part 2: Follow this link...
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=13723

[MixMan]

I have studied the AM and from what I can see you are not really honest about the files in the list. The sub menu buttons should also be in that list.
I suggest that you make the AM more configurable in its "Skin file" for the naming of the images. Then I think that AM and the Collection wil be a success.

Suggested configuration possibilities for AM in a skin, tht would make AM compatible with both Collection and Advisor.....and probably many other skins
(I have written the Collection Paths and Filenames inthe tags)

Suggested File name: SkinImageDefentions.xml ....in the Apperance directory

<-- Folders where to find images -->

<ImageFolders>
<MainMenuBackgrounds>./BackGrounds<MainMenuBackgrounds>
<SubMenuBackgrounds>./BackGrounds/Colors</SubMenuBackgrounds>
<SkinEffects>./SkinEffects</SkinEffects>
<Buttons>./ButtonSets</Buttons>
<TaskImages>./ButtonSets</TaskImages>
<ListViews>./ListView</ListViews>
<ListViewBars>./ListView</ListViewBars>
</ImageFolders>

<-- Targe Image Names for the Skin.xml and the Folders -->

<MainMenuBackgrounds>
<MainMenuBackground>MainBackGround.jpg<MainMenuBackground>
</MainMenuBackgrounds>

<SubMenuBackgrounds>
<SubMenuBackground>BackGround.jpg<SubMenuBackground>
</SubMenuBackgrounds>

<SkinEffects>
<MainMenuSkinEffect>se.png</SkinEffectsSkinEffect>
<SubMenuSkinEffect>Darker.png</SubMenuSkinEffect>
<SearchMenuSkinEffect>None</SearchMenuSkinEffect>
<TVGuideMenuSkinEffect>None</TVGudieMenuSkinEffect>
</SkinEffects>

<Buttons>
<MainMenuButtonNormal>MainButtonNormal.png</MainMenuButtonNormal>
<MainMenuButtonSelected>MainButtonSelected.png</MainMenuButtonSelected>
<SubMenuButtonNormal>ButtonUp135x28.png</SubMenuButtonNormal>
<SubMenuButtonSelected>ButtonDn135x28.png</SubMenuButtonSelected>
<PopupButtonNormal>ButtonUp124x28.png</PopupButtonNormal>
<PopupButtonSelected>ButtonDn124x28.png</PopupButtonSelected>
<CenterSelectedButton>MainButtonSelected.png</CenterSelectedButton>
</Buttons>

<ImageNames>
<MoreUp>Ellipsis.png</MoreUp>
<MoreDown>Ellipsis.png</MoreDown>
<ListViews>None</ListViews>
<ListViewBarNormal>None</ListViewBarNormal>
<ListViewBarSelected>None</ListViewBarSelected>
</ImageNames>

....and so on

What do you think of the idea ?

[McBainUK]

It's almost as if there are too many great skinning developments occurring simultaneously - Old Dog's appearance manager, MixMan's standardisation ideas, McBain's GBPVRUIElements, gruskada's GBPVRSkin Tools etc.

The elements are really designed for plugin writers. The libary allows plugin developers to avoid wasting time on creating lists, buttons labels etc and more on the functionality of the plugin.

Most skin/plugin interaction is still determined by the individual plugin writer.

[MixMan]

Hello Old Dog

But I am not as stubborn as you or I think.
I can change my mind.
I have "implemented" support for Appearence Manager Plugin in the th AdVisor skin.
But I am having a problem......It is crashing with an "object reference" error when I select Taskimages.
I have just copied your TaskImage directory structure .....strange.

[Old Dog]

Be advised that there are currently two, possibly incompatible versions of AM out there right now. The public version which is distributed with The Collection and the developer version which was distributed with Plain Jane.

The most likely conflict would be AM from The Collection trying to work with the AM directory tree from Plain Jane, or vice versa.

If you have installed Plain Jane and would like to switch back to The Collection, the safest thing to do would be to reinstall The Collection.

[Old Dog]

Hello Old Dog
I have "implemented" support for Appearence Manager Plugin in the th AdVisor skin.
But I am having a problem......It is crashing with an "object reference" error when I select Taskimages.

Read the previous post as it may be related to your problem.

From here on, I will assume you are working with the public version of AM (because you selected Task Images).

When adding AM to your skin design, the first step is to copy the Appearance subdirectory from The Collection into your skin's directory. It should come in at the same level as any other plugin.

I have just copied your TaskImage directory structure

You should not have needed to do this. I suggest you delete the Appearance directory from your skin and recopy the one from The Collection.

The next thing you need to do is reskin appearance to work with your skin design. The simplest way to do this is to

• make a backup of the Appearance\skin.xml file that got copied from the collection
  
• copy the skin.xml file from your main menu into the appearance directory
  
• modify this file as required, using the collection backup copy as a reference
  

When reskinning AM for your skin, you should eliminate all errors.

If you are unable to do this, post a copy of your main menu skin.xml and your appearance skin.xml and I'll see if I can spot your problem.

[Old Dog]

MixMan,

You seem to be in a good position to add AM to Blue. This might be a good thing for sub to consider.

[MixMan]

I got it working now.....with Collection version
The task.png was missing in the Apperance subdirectory.
I thaught that the TaskImage directory structure was copied out the subdirectories. But it was toggle on/off and the apperance skin was dependant on the task.png
I implemented the Apperance functionality for the Contour Sample Theme, since Torque supplied different background pictures.


It works fine for me now. Cool