Yeah it was late last night - I altered wide icons a bit - increased the text size for the normal wide icon view and added a couple of placeholders for the big view. Nothing massive.

I can't really see it being added to to svn list though. It's still more of a mod/hack skin. I'd need to clean up a lot of my earlier code before getting into decent enough shape for that.

Well, i can't argue with ya about cleaning up the code, as i don't personally notice anything like that with average usage, but you should give yourself more credit, as i think it's better then a few skins in SVN i can think of currently. In terms of creativity, advancements, constant updating, and features, and usage. Thanks for the great work, and being so cool about always being open for suggestions and idea's.
I love it and use it solely now. That says a lot, considering there's a lot of great skins out there. Keep up the great work. Mostly i love that it feels tailored to me, with all the views i love, the style some of them are done in, and the overal layout, and keeps getting even better all the time.

Hi Sharpe!
Just one more little request. Could you add a button to go to the modded dashboard (in my case EvolutionX) in the Exit screen? I think it's a useful feature for who doesn't use XBMC as a dashboard.

Will you to take my suggestion about CD&DVD overlays into consideration?

Thanks!

Uli666

I just started finishing my movie collection and added another folder for wide icons. There is a bug in the big wide icon view on the 4.3 tv. The arrow on the right can be seen but the arrow on the left is almost cut in half
and can't be seen? Also, bro could u make the arrows thick glass & semi transparent. This will look much better than plain ol white. Nice job with the big wide.

Hiya - okay I've added the dash button to the exit screen.

Yeah certainly am considering the CD/DVD overlays - will probably do something along those lines.

@ Maximus - that's strange I'm not seeing it here:



Check your screen calibration perhaps? or maybe you've got your skin zoom set different -make sure it's at 0%.

I can't find my screenshots for some weird reason. But I just used Sharpes pic to show how the big Icons look on both my tv's. At first I thought it was just my living room tv, untill I checked my xbox out in the garage tv. By example this is the way I see it on both tv's?

http://www.4shared.com/file/27492252/7a0d1...igwideicon.html?

Thank you dude! You are great!!!

Can't wait do see the new features.

Uli666

Just a quick update - I've added an extra wrap view with CD/DVD overlays, as requested by uli666.

Wow....Pisses on himself. Got more icons coming Sharpe. Music ones....
The bad thing is I can't see this on my build(newest). Becuase my xml's are edited. I will have to wait till my buddy has some free time to get to it.

[/quote]


How can I get my home screen to work and look like this (not the background)
I did I miss an update.

Great work BTW

Download the newest build from his signature. In the skin settings check or uncheck the home screen at the bottom of the list. Then exit out. You will see this screen now. Hope this helps. I can't wait to see the new cd\dvd overlay. Sharpe knows I like overlays.

Thanks for the quick response maximus I will try it out when I get home.
This set-up has the WAF
(Wife Acceptance Factor)

Yeah!
Thanks for your work Sharpe! Your skin is getting better and better every day!

Just two little remarks for the DVD overlay visualizations:
- the reflection on the cover (the semi-trasparent white part) doesn't look very "realistic" imho. I don't know how you could improve it... maybe changing a bit the shape? Or doing it a little less sharp?
- could you keep the different thumbs more distant one from another? Like that in the background you just see the thumb coming before and after the selected one?

I hope that you can also add a new screen (instead of the little CD icon that appears in the left bottom corner) showing the cover (with CD overlay) quite big (with all related info about album, song, duration, etc.) when playing music.

Thank you again!

Uli666

I like the covers myself to a degree. I might suggest to have the reflections a TINY bit more like a reflection and not so much like a tint overlay, or at least a little less noticable (or maybe slightly more a gradient and not come down so far) , but thats very minor, as it's looking good already. I like the smaller film reel icon for the 'waiting..' icon. I can't count how many of those i had growing up. Neat effect accomplished though. Thanks. And the fact that it's done as another view, letting us still have both views to choose from.

I'm sure that will improve though. The covers already look good now though. Just something about the dvd covers. Thanks, as as always. Great job!!!

Thanks for getting back to me Sharpe. Yeah, I guess I didn't really think of a case within a case? That would be to much there. Good thing I have another xbox in the garage. I think the dvd will have to be adjusted slightly. The movie pics are square at least 256x256 square. Get back to you later on that one though.

Hi all!
Just to let you know that the development of this wonderful skin is going on, I post you some of the last changes.

New music info placement (appears after 5 seconds):




New extended music info screen (appears after 30 seconds):


Both info can be toggled in the skin preferences.

Also the reflection on DVD case overlays have been tweaked a little (Sharpe changed the screenshot in his last post if you want to take a look) and now they look way better imho.

Uli666

Good news, thanks for that. The dvd covers looks a lot better. Thanks a bunch for that. One small detail, i might recommmend to take a soften tool or maybe 30-40% opacity with erase tool, and blend the overlay line, just so it's not quite so much a destinctive line, i think it would look a little better that way, more realistic, if a more softer edge. The cd looks fine that way. Just food for though of course. Looks fantastic though!!!

Sharpe I just replaced the new busy folder with the old one. How can I make the dialog bars bigger? What xml file can I edit? Which line? I just want the busy back like u had it in the beg. Don't really care for the one in use right now.

Here's the old one mate

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2gdp4s

Thank you. Bro on the alternative home screen, can u make the selected icon bigger? This will look much better.

New update of the skin!

Reworked colors of the VideoOSD to better match the skin theme:


Reworked transparency on the DVD case overlay to give it a more realistic feeling:


Reworked the extended music info screen to make it more light and stylish:


Thanks a lot Sharpe for your work!

Uli666

Looking really good. Thanks for the hard work put into this.

Nice update. But I think the dvd's look to crowded together. Mine is fine, because I have my own system overlay setup.

Show us some pic's, we may all want it added too. And knowing how good Sharpe is to us, and our idea's.

Okay then, as requested, I've done an extra 3 icon DVD cover wrap view.

This may sound like really dumb ( noob ) question, but how do i add/get dvd icons to add to my videos? like the ones above?

Bro my countdown stopped working after I replaced the "DialogBusy" xml u sent me. Now even if I replace it, the animation still won't work? Any help appreciated. Also the new dvd wrap isn't there for me? But we know why. My custom xml's again.

http://www.4shared.com/file/28380241/863bd3fc/XMLS.html?

Can't wait to see this on my other xbox. Thanks bro

Hey Sharpe!
The new 3 icon DVD cover wrap view look fantastic! Very nice!!!
And even the new icons for folders and media files are looking very good (can you change the "up folder" arrow too?), way better than before.

Next suggestions:
- move up a little the progress bar in VideoOSD (so that doesn't stay on top of the picture)
- make the background gradient more "from black to red" (instead of the actual brown)

What do you think?

Thanks again!

@ stepppp: you can have movie icons by pushing "Info" on your remote when you are on a movie file. Like that you'll get the IMDB icon for that movie. For more infos have a look here: XBMC Wiki

Uli666

Yep done that.


Yeah looks better - done that too.


Do you mean in the default theme or the red theme?

How about me big bro?

Man, i asked for that pages and pages ago. Thanks for doing it even then.


You want Sharpe to make you big??? Kidding of course.

I'm sure we can still come up with some more idea's and things to add, but right now it's getting harder, since it's got most of the best stuff i love having a skin to have currently. Won't stop me from thinking though. How bout a widescreen formatted countdown?

sorry mate - what do you want me to do - rebuild your xpr so that your countdown gif doesn't get corrupted? I can do that but I'd need your up to date media folder. Or you can do it yourself, be easier - If you've got the original uncorrupted countdown gif (that I sent you), just put that (unaltered) in the "skin builder" media folder, along with your custom pngs then click build.bat to make the xpr. That's all I'd be doing.



That sounds really decent and would look good - hey if you've got something in mind and fancy making one I'd be happy to use it.

Hey bro, just need you to add the new dvd wrap 3 to my xml's again. I love how you spaced the dvd's out in the new wrap. Just follow the link on the previous page to get my xml again. I will try to replace the old countdown with the backup u gave me. I just thought it was an xml problem. Also please send me your new countdown not the old one that I use, just put it with my xml's when u zip it all up. Thanks bro.

Good, looks much better now! Maybe it's just a little too big that arrow...

And also that looks nicer! You just moved it all the way up to the top of the screen... maybe keeping it just a bit lower would be better?

I mean in the red theme.

Thanks for everything!

Uli666

Houston we have lift off. Yes Sharpe.....You tha man. Sorry about getting back to you guys about the dvd overlay i'm using. Its not really an overlay, but I have edited all my dvd's this way thanks also to sharp for the gloss overlay. This skin will be the king of views around here.


http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/946/dvdca6.png



http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/8621/movieswideif7.png

Okay then - another update I guess

uli666 - I've tried to address your points - let me know if the red-black is more..well "red" I guess. Done the other stuff as well.

I've also altered the home screen so that you can use your own custom wallpapers for each home control if you use the skin settings "wallpaper toggle".

ie you can now have different wallpapers for Movies, TV, Music etc etc...

Just put whatever wallpapers you like in the corresponding media folders and they'll display when you're on that particular control. Or just put whatever generic wallpapers you want in the default wallpaper media folder and it will show what's in there if there's nothing in the other folders.

Cheers

When I try and add the folders for the movies. Music, Apps and settings xbmctec crashes? So I can't add the folders? Any thoughts on this? Nevermind, after using the build it produces the folders.

Found the problem bro. If I uncheck toggle wallpaper the animation works fine. If I check the toggle to use assorted wallpaper the animation of the countdown stops working? Possable xml problem somewhere? Thanks for all the help in this situation.

It's not a problem it's supposed to do that - remember I said I didn't want curtains opening up out of nowhere when the disable cinema wallpaper / use custom wallpaper toggle was checked?

I altered your own home.xml so that it would still do the curtain opening thing because your custom wallpaper was all cinema based stuff.

Ohhh. That explains alot. So there was never a problem then. Thanks for altering my home.xml then. I feel special. Can you say Marko?

Just tried this skin -- very nice. I still prefer the minimal elegance of xTV, but I can see myself swapping over to this skin quite frequently. Especially if I'm in a movie mood.

One thing: in the alternative home menu (with the horizontal band of icons for Movies, Music, System, etc), it would be more intuitive IMHO if the middle icon showed that it is selected somehow, with a change in background, or change in shape. Sorta like the System settings menu.

But great work

There are to others that have also asked for that. I'm sure he will get around to it. Also thats funny, because this skin is so much more sweeter than anything out there. Xtv doesn't even have a cd file stacking.

YEAH! Thanks mate! Looks really sweet now! Yes, I like very much the new red-black gradient!
Maybe can you try to add a toggle to have also File manager and scripts in the home screen?

Thank you and congratulation for how cool your skin is looking!

Uli666

Thats odd? Mine doesn't have the red xpr?

Edit the file to translate into Italian? Thanks

What did u update?

Just a little icon spacing on the alt-home screen and a new icon for videos. Also I've partially faded out the other two icons to the sides of the selected icon in the alt home screen. Makes it a bit more obvious what is selected.

I found this over at the XBMC forums, and I thought that it complements your skin well. http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29434

How's that?

I've done another update:

First a little graphical one - I've altered the film strip in the alt-home menu - looks a bit "chunkier" now.

The main update though, is that I've put a load of wallpaper selection options in the skin settings screen, making it easier to customise the look how you want it.

Cheers