noob skin developer questions

[frumbert]

I'm starting to dabble with the skins, and have some questions:

• Can I make skins at my tv's native resolution of 1366x768, or am I stuck with 720x480? What file specifies this resolution?
  
• Can I put a gradient on a text button, rather than just specifying a fill colour - or do I need to use DrawImage and build a button as a png instead?
  
• The advisor tutorial skin is missing from the wiki (404). Any where else I can get it from?
  
• Is it possible to animate elements (buttons, areas) when they are focussed or defocussed (e.g. smooth transitional slides, grow, fade, change colour) etc
  
• Other than the fact that it would bog a machine down, is there a reason animated backgrounds aren't supported? MCE2005's animated background doesn't seem to put much strain on the box.
  
• There's an animated png format called MNG - is that supportable (for fading buttons, etc)?
  
• The XBox 360 has a nice menu with slidey 'tab' things on it which represent the different functions, such as music, games, etc. Is this sort of thing possible with the current skinning system?
  

[dottore]

1) yes. as long as the plugins are not hardcoded to 720x480. olbia and sassari use different resolutions. you can set them in the <drawimage name="background" - section in the skin.xml-file.
2) yes: fillcolor="Vertical:#ffffff-#000000" or "Horizontal:....". you can even make a gradient from a solid color to "Transparent".
3) don't know
4) nope.
5) i think, gdi+ is the problem.
6) don't know, but i think, it's not supported. try it! just replace a task.png or any other image in a skin.
7) without the animation something similar could work. i am thinking of very large task-images....

[McBainUK]

5) i think, gdi+ is the problem.

And the MVP.

[frumbert]

And the MVP.

Aah, well I'd be mostly making skins for people like myself, who don't have or want to have MVP - who just have the base system and not too much beyond it. Plus I want to explore a dashboard style overview interface with summaries from other pages - possibly other applications. A little more so that the current front page.

[MixMan]

Hi

Have a look at the Advisor skins main menus and tell me what layout you would prefer. I will make a 1366x768 theme for you that you can continue to work on and modify. A Theme is the main menu + panels and OSD, so thats a good start.
A Theme will always work with the Advisor skins sub menus.

I made a 1024x768 skin but found out that there where hardcoded stuff in Search, Recordings and TVguide. Hopefully Sub will change that in coming releases....than I will release a Advisor HD skin.
I think that GBPVR 1366x768 is too slow in that resolution, due to GDI+. I am experimenting to find a way to get a Hi Res skin to work fast enough.

[tipstir]

Look at some examples from DVR designers for their menu system. Takes time effort to get it right. I design my skins for both PC, TV, MVP. My next new skin release of Passport (G) will be out next month (October) I hope? That will be based on Pioneer Passport DVR Skin...