[DEV] SkinPlugin

[McBainUK]

I've created this thread to discuss SkinPlugin improvements and/or new features.

• Together with rationalising the options in the resources folder, a better UI for editing themes.
  
• Adding more editable skin items (eg OSD).
  
• Better MVP/NMT support.
  
• more?
  

[McBainUK]

Maybe a re gig of the plugin layout. I was thinking of a single page layout, something like the default search guide plugin. A menu breadcrumb idea where each selection loads another. When you load the plugin page there are 4 main buttons, selecting one of those then loads another selection and so on.

* Load Theme
* Edit Theme
* Save Theme
* Main Menu

Theme series could be grouped by name with variations as a sub selection. Edit theme could be broken down into:

* Layout

Theme Layout
Mainmenu Layout
TV Guide layout
Fonts

* Graphics

all the various graphics grouped by folder

A description might be useful to describe each option and explain that certain main menu layout require certain main menu masks for example. Also maybe the preview images maintaining aspect ratio: so 4:3 for Sd and 16:9 for HD.

I've attached a crude mock up to give the idea.

Care to expand a bit more, perhaps with a mocked up screenshot showing items in the lists when (for example) I'm changing the image for a "Normal Button".

I've finding it hard to picture what would be in the main/select/sub lists :o

[Hairy]

Okay here goes!, pretty rough idea mind you.

What I imagined was kind of similar to how the default search guide plugin works. So "Main" would be buttons for load theme, edit theme, save theme and main menu. "Main (sub)" would be the layout and graphics buttons. "Select" would be the graphical or formatting option you want to alter. "Select (sub1)" would be the folder name and "Select (sub2)" would be the xml or graphics to load.

Something like the sequence below:

[Hairy]

The above should really help with :"rationalising the options in the resources folder", because each element will be in an appropriate theme named folder.

I have a request kind of related to this. Would it be possible to rename the graphical elements to reflect how they are named in the ".._CoreImages" folder. When developing a theme you need a couple of copies of the same graphic, one named for the plugin and one named so it can be directly dropped in to the ".._CoreImages" folder.

[McBainUK]

No, because the images in the resources folder are named to describe what they look like now where they could be used eg "WhiteButton" could be used for a Button_Normal or Button_Selected.

[Hairy]

It's not a big deal but I was thinks of stuff like:

Popups "_CoreImages":

• Popup_Large
  
• Popup_Medium
  
• Popup_Small
  

Popups "Resources":

• Background_PopupBig
  
• Background_Popup
  
• Background_Popupsmall
  

Text backgrounds "_CoreImages":

• TextBackground
  
• TextBackground_Narrow
  
• TextBackground_Wide
  

Text backgrounds "Resources":

• Background_Text
  
• Background_TextNarrow
  
• Background_TextWide
  

Stuff like that.

It's no biggie I just thought I'd mention it.

[McBainUK]

I see what you mean now. I expect that's historical - SkinPlugin was made before the shake up of the CS _CoreImages and the new naming format.

Can be changed, and probably should be. If you find any more perhaps you can edit your post - can be used as a list to work from then.

[mvallevand]

I noticed that there is a possibility for better MVP support and I'd like to up that a bit to MVP/NMT support. To get the performance needed for HD using the MVP protoocol, GBPVR sends incremental updates based on the render hash list and while the Blue skin does a good job, several people have complained that the Mayhem3 skin is very slow likely because the same screen involves several overlapping screen draws (plus there are often errors in the dimensions). I am going to try the CS this weekend to see how it works and I will give some feedback.

Martin

[McBainUK]

Great. Thanks for your input mvallevand.

edit: 3rd party skins like Mayhem3 and CS3 tend to be more image based then Blue, could this be a factor?

[Fatman_do]

I noticed that there is a possibility for better MVP support and I'd like to up that a bit to MVP/NMT support. To get the performance needed for HD using the MVP protoocol, GBPVR sends incremental updates based on the render hash list and while the Blue skin does a good job, several people have complained that the Mayhem3 skin is very slow likely because the same screen involves several overlapping screen draws (plus there are often errors in the dimensions). I am going to try the CS this weekend to see how it works and I will give some feedback.

Martin

The default theme right now isn't very exciting, but it would probably give a performance baseline for most themes.