Skins and Touchscreens

[crackulator]

I'd like to do some work on the Knewc skins... there are a few issues there that I believe I could contribute to.

Specifically, I can't make any of them work on Android/Touchscreen, though I can get around it by using a keyboard. It seems like it's close to working, but there are bugs that defeat every combination of Kodi and NextPVR skin that I have tried.

The skin selection in NextPVR also seems like it could use some work. It's just opaque to the user what that selection does and how it's used, what should work and what shouldn't. At least, it confused me as a user, and it took quite a bit of forum conversation to figure out what was going on there.

Anyone, especially @mvallevand, want to discuss?

[mvallevand]

I am absolutely interested in getting any support I can with the skins in knewc, without @pkscout's help I doubt there even by a python UI at this time. I am assuming you are talking the python UI though since the UI client skin is done on the backend and there is no support for touch or mouse in this because Kodi python doesn't support screen coordinates. If you are talking the UI client skin I am not sure if v5 supports even user skins.

I will give some background on the app. The classic app goes why back before Kodi had an official PVR https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.ph...ht=myGBPVR and it was based on MythBox https://code.google.com/archive/p/mythbox/ I basically ported it from EWA to NEWA web services then fixed thing, added features for testing the API, added the UI Client and then had to do it all again to make it python3 friendly and support sub's v5. Sub had to do a lot of work in v5 too to help support JSON and not the XML interface he uses in Kodi.

From a skin perspective those earlier addons had a self contained skin which I tweaked to work and not crash but I didn't really know what I was does doing, I was more concerned with learning python and web services which were new to me. I really loved XBMC with Mayhem skin back then and wanted to run the NextPVR v2 on it.

When Confluence came out pkscout provided the new skins and then he did the same for Estuary. The thing about these skins is they need to have support in base classes that are installed with Kodi and not with addon. There have been couple of issues with each version of Kodi but overall they seem to be working ok know up to v18. I haven't had any in depth look to see how they work with Kodi v19 nightlies. The bottom line is if the default Kodi skin is not Confluence or Estuary, you must use the Classic Skin in knewc.

There are a few approaches to touch that you could consider

- create a knewc skin based on estouchy
- create a new self contained touch UI
- figure out what is not working in classic assuming estouchy or another touch friendly skin is the base.

Kodi V18/19 and NextPVR v5 should be the target.

Thanks again for the offer and I will be glad to help you with the endeavor, although don't be surprised if there aren't a lot of users, so feel to do it they way you'd like.

Martin

[crackulator]

So the self-contained skin is "Classic", correct? And the ones pkscout added are Confluence, Estuary, all the ones named for common skins?

What was the motive for adding the ones that pkscout added? Is it that Classic didn't work with the new Kodi skins, but it was easier to add new skins than to make it compatible?

[mvallevand]

Yes correct Classic is self contained and Confluence and Estuary were added by pkscout with some minor tweaks by me.

The motive was simple to provide compatibility with the look and feel of Kodi for those using these popular skins. Classic should work with any skin but it looks dated now. It was also designed with 720 as the base, most screen now use 1080. I did have to make a few tweaks with it to keep it working with version of Kodi but I rarely use it so there certainly could be issues with it.

Martin

[crackulator]

I see. So that's probably why the Confluence and Estuary are so dependent on their parent skins; they intentionally reference their design elements.

What about Estuary-classic? Trying to look like Estuary but behave like Classic?

[mvallevand]

I wish but no, it is called it Estuary-classic because it was the original Estuary x-newa skin and there where enough changes in newer version of the Kodi Estuary baseline that it couldn't just be fixed.

Martin

[crackulator]

Thanks, if I have time this weekend I'll take a look around that code.

[crackulator]

I think I've found my way around the codebase... looks like the first job is a little different from what I expected - it's not "fixing a couple touch bugs", it's more like "implementing touch". Most of what it does with touch appears to be just the mouse click implementation. It doesn't look too difficult, anyway. Might turn out to be some design compromises to be made with the modern skins, since they don't necessarily put everything on the screen that touch would need. Classic looks like it's mostly touch ready.

Anyway I'm working on fixing touch for the EPG in Classic, I'll send that up to you when I've got that far. I don't want to do too much until you have a chance to look over what I'm doing.

[mvallevand]

Oh you should ignore the EPG guide since I likely be moving to the uEPG addon for Kodi once it moves to python3 You could confirm it works with touch by looking at some of the addons https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2644255 that use it.

Martin

[pkscout]

You might take a look at the Estouchy skin. It's the official version of Estuary for touch screens. When I did the original Estuary mods I basically took a series of Estuary screens and then figured out how to add the data from the X-NEWA addon.