Hey Sharpe, just letting you know the video OSD for audio and video settings are all blank when using newer svn's then the last recent t3ch build. I can PM you a new build/.xbe for testing if you want me too.
Also, I'm going to add real-time ending time for video's OSD if your cool with that. Heads up. Find it very usefull when i used it last when i added it to the Orb skin back when. Functionality is still there i'm sure.

Cheers - I think that's fixed it - I've just uploaded the changes to the SVN. Thanks for the offer of a new build but it's cool mate, I can make my own builds now

Yeah just go right ahead with your ideas.

Hola Sharpe! Just wanted to say thanks for the new tinkering in 'fan art' view. I love the new pop up thumbnail in the center of the screen. Solves the problem of the thumbs being too small perfectly. You're constant work on this skin keeps it firmly placed as my favorite xbmc skin.

Now stop making me procrastinate, I've got a thesis to finish damn you!

Hey thanks for that Leontes /appreciate the kind words.

I've slightly altered the placement of the popup thumbnail as in the piccy below (it's on about a 3 second delay).

Good luck with the thesis mate.

Sharpe, I've just tried using this skin on my HTPC and everything works except the icons for CDs and Videos which all appear stretched. I assume it's because my output resolution is 1028x768 but I have set the aspect ratio to 1.333 and all my movies playback at the right ratio.

Hi Hitcher - yeah you're probably right I've not really checked how the 4:3 display settings look on anything other than a regular tv. I've concentrated more on the 16:9 side of things. I'll look into it though - cheers.

Ah of course, even though it's a widescreen TV it has a 4:3 resolution with non-square pixels

Yep I'd guess that's it - Did changing resolutions fix it?

Just done a quick update:

Firstly I've added the DialogFullScreenInfo.xml (supported in the latest build of XBMC). You can now get the plot to display from the title info OSD by pressing left or right. - Nice addition to XBMC that.

And finally I've altered the alt home screen settings to display 5 items instead of 3 - (I'm fairly sure djdafreund suggested this ages ago and I've only just realised it looks better!)





Cheers

Dude!!!!! Nice job. Definitely looks better with 5 (maybe just a little less transparent on the other 4 though. Like maybe 15% brighter, easier on the eyes at a glance.) Thanks for added Full screen info too. Indeed a very nice new feature added.

Haven't heard from ya lately at all. Hope your doing good. I still want to get around to add the realtime ending time in the info. "Approx. End Time:"(endtimetag) so it shows. It was added to another skin a while back, and thought it would be nice to add it to Back-Row.

I also like the big thumnail pops up in Fanart, but could we make it like 1/2 sec or 1 second, seems a little too long to wait for it to display, or another idea if possible, to make the selected one slightly bigger?

Also, could we modify 'PlotList' view to show 5 (like home menu) instead of 3, and also make the title about 2-4 font sizes bigger (right above the info stuff.) so it's a little more defined and also easier to read

Plotlist view have the curtain on a toggle, so we can choose to display the curtain instead of just black like current? (Same with 'List 3' and 'Big Icons' if possible, or have a toggle that just works for all views if easier, since i don't use any black backgrounds anyway.) Just a request though.

Send me an e-mail when you get a minute, even just to let me know whats been going on lately with ya. Hope things are good buddy.

Hiya bud

Check your email

Okay - I've implemented most of those suggestions. We'll need to swap some ideas on the others first.

I can't change the resolution as the plasma is 1024x768 and I'm connecting via VGA cable.
All the other icons appear correct except CD and DVD covers.

Hi Sharpe,

First of all I really love Back-Row, it has been my default skin for ages. I like the new large thumbnail pop up but I have been encountering something strange which didn't happen before.

When a show ends or I exit from a show and return to the episodes view the focus reverts back to the first episode in the season instead of on the one that just finished like it did before. Is this something that has been changed or is it a problem from my end? It was convenient to just press across to play the next episode.

Thanks in advance, keep up the good work!

Hiya mate - yeah thanks for that I'd mucked something up in the fanart view - It's fixed now.

I've also added djdafreund's Approx. End Time tag to the DialogFullScreenInfo.xml.

Cheers

So it's a widescreen but it looks like it's using a 4:3 resolution so it's stretching the images out - is that right?

You could try copying the contents of the 16:9 folder into the 4:3 folder see what that does?

Could you post a screenshot?

Aaaahhhhhh. Thanks for adding that tag to the info, it's a nice feature i use somewhat often. Couldn't remember which file i needed to look at to add, so thanks for doing that instead. THANKS!!

Exactly right.

That did the trick, thanks.

Is there a way for all of us with this problem to set the screen resolution and the aspect ratio?

oh great glad it worked

I'm a bit behind the times (still using an xbox here) so I can't really help with a more logical solution - maybe ask on xbmc.org?

Oh just noticed TV Fanart is now working at the TVshow level in the latest SVN for the xbox - so this video library view will now work.



Local Movie Fanart deosn't seem to be working (for the xbox - yet) but it should look like this when it gets put in. - This is from the linux version.



Cheers

Hi again - okay, I've been doing a few updates over the last week or so (available in the SVN and the alt download linky). Mainly customisable stuff - the idea being you can get away from the cinema theme if you want to easier. Added choose your own menu backgrounds / disabling the curtain backgrounds and a few other cosmetic bits and pieces. It's all configurable in skin settings.

Anyhow thanks for reading - cheers

eg.

Yup, i check daily myself. Sorry i haven't been able to do much lately. Been doing a lot of work on my other project with FoF. I've going to work on some of the stuff we talked about recently. If you could, would you code it so it uses a curtain image (or just some blank image) for the list view we talked about and just name it something like listview.png or whatever, just so i can have in be in use to start designing it, and the alignment and all. I got some good idea's to start with.
I will also start making the marquee 'Now Showing' frame as well. Keep up the great work buddy. Hit me up if you need to still.

Okay I've done that - it's named listview.png like you said.

Cheers mate.

cool. thanks buddy. ill start messing around with that next.

Hello there

I've done a few updates to the skin recently - mainly to do with fanart - now that the current XBMC SVN has the functionality for movie fanart to work on the xbox. (Should be in the next T3ch build).

Added the dvd covers to movie fanart:





Also changed the home screen a bit - made the alt home view the new default view and changed a few bits.





The updates are in the SVN and in the signiture download links.

Cheers

Man that looks great Sharpe. Nice job with the changes. Time to build again tonite. Still going to work on that stuff i mentioned. Had to redo my system i just updgrade, and switched from raid to normal, having to redo my entire hard drive of configurations. EGH!!! Oh well.

Just to let you know there's been a few more updates to the skin.

The home screen has been modified and the settings screen has been overhauled in keeping.



Cheers

Ahhhh, i actually liked the Broadway font look. Oh well, change is good It looks great still. I love the look of the movie fanart!!! Great job buddy. Hope things are good with you. One glitch i noticed is when changing a movie icon under 'Movie Info', the images are blank, but sometimes when you move to a different one (like highlight chosen one) it shows it. I tried on a few other skins, and it works fine there.

Is it possible to have the icon window a bit bigger and bigger icons shown (more onscreen) or something more similar to how Vision2 does it, it doesn't have to be the same of course, but I love how it actually shows the list along with the icon, and a huge version on the right side, so when you are going through the available movie images to use, you can see them a lot easier then the current setup, which is sort of small and sometimes you have to select one, and go back to the movie cover view JUST to be able to get a better glimpse of if it's the right one you want to start using.

Hiya mate - hope you're doing well too.

Yep good idea I've altered the file browser to use a list.

The weird thing is I'm getting the blank thumbnail browsing effect using all skins - I assumed it was some sort of XBMC bug - I'll have to have a look into it.

Yeah, that's more like it. Man, that looks great!!! Thanks for that change.

Can someone send me a link to some nice dvd front movie covers so I can use them with this skin...Nice job by the way...Hq Dvd Covers..

Nice updates. But the pics look a little funny to me. It looks like a nice movie reel with pics put on top instead of inside them. I have replaced all my pics with black photo frames around them and this looks so much better, everything looks more blended now. Maybe u can add this to your film as well. Also on the new selection cursor. It looks a bit to dark, can u lighten it up and add a little more transparency to it. This should really make an improvement adding these 2 things i think. Great work guys.

QUOTE: The home screen has been modified and the settings screen has been overhauled in keeping.
Yeah, but can we switch back 2 the big screens again? This is more to my liking than the film across the screen. Both ways look sharp though.

Also can u add a toggle for now showing for your selection cursor. Kinda like u had it before when it was red.
The now showing really makes a diff 2 me.

You can still select the Alt Home screen layout in skin settings. Thanks for the other suggestions.






Another update -

/Been doing some work to try and improve the OSD stuff.





Cheers

Oh man, i'm really liking that new look of the way you changed the status bar being used as the top part of the info bar/OSD, as well as displaying all the info now instead of being blank before. VERY NICE!!!!!!!!!!
I feel kind of bad for not being able to do much with this, as i've been SO occupied for a while now with FoF work, so i'll try to do more. It's really turning more from just nice as hell, to a little bit more of a commercial look, like the 2 other newish ones that came out

I'm thinking i might touch up a little more class to the weather one next. I just need to do some little changes to give it a little better updated commercial look like the rest is starting to look. Great job, keep up the fanatical work buddy!!! E-mail me sometime if ya get a minute.

Love the new changes ! keep this work up m8

Btw i dont think the filmstrip on the homescreen looks nice. I have
these vector filmstrips lying on my hd. I bellive any of these should look far better.

Just pm me if you want any of them. vectors are scalable so should be perfect. all the vectors
are free to use for non comercial purpoeses.

Yeah the admit 1 looks clean. I agree that an overhaul 4 a new filmstrip would be great.

Hey thanks for the encouragement mate really appreciate that - I was always a big fan of your xperience skin and it's follow up - very nice and clean. Loved the side scrolling home screen - it certainly influenced me.

I'd be more than glad to have a look at those film strips if you don't mind - thanks very much.

Yes, thats what i love about sharpe....he implements peoples ideas into his skin. The number 1 skin out there jerkys.

Thanks to theboxhead for the nice film strip edge graphics - I like them better as well - kinda "chunky" - in a good way.

I think http://img167.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s...11075950vx2.jpg would look alot better in this skin sharpe. This one looks to bland in my op. The image above would rock this skin. And slightly tilted would be wicked as well. There are endless poss.

I've gone with a different effect where the film strip scrolls with with the selection frames now.

It still looks unfinished? Maybe add some gloss and shiny reflection, and have the film cross each other in diff directions to give more of a real scroll effect?

I think it looks just fine. Although i went ahead with making the print just a little less in height (reduced the top and bottom portions by 25%) just so they looked more proportionate with the whole strip. I hope that's cool, the edges just looked a little TOO big compared to the strip itself. I kept 1 backup.png and 2 backup.png in case you don't like it that way.

Hi mate - no that's cool - I've removed the backups and ever so slightly altered your new ones to fill the canvas.

Good job!

Why is different in xbox? i think the pc version it´s much better.
The dvd covers looks really nice with fanart.
I have the newest version of xbmc (2008-08-25 SVN rev15165 'Atlantis' ALPHA4 build) and the latest Back Row 1708 rev.

btw AWESOME skin!! keep the good work and thanks for the hard work.

That's the 4:3 version - I keep meaning to update it and make it fit 4:3 tvs better. I'll get on it soon.

Okay I've updated the 4:3 version for movie fanart

It'll never look as good as widescreen but it's better than it was.

THANK YOU!! it looks awesome in my tv.
THX again.

I hope i´m not asking to much.
Could you tell me what can i modify to do the same in tv shows?
thx.

Hey Sharpe, I got a HQ (2000x1600) resolution theater curtains which actually happens to be pretty close to what we got now, so i can start on replacing those things to help transition over to higher quality. I know we are trying to keep memory not too high, but since it's only 1 or 2 picture's we will be changing, i wouldn't think that should impact things that much. Lemme know though what you think on that note. It looks beautiful, and pretty close already to looking like the one you are using, but just upping the resolution, like the other popular skins are doing lately.

Edit- The filesize is actually only 651kb (2048x1536), compared to 161kb of current curtain (800x400). And of course that includes me redoing the side curtains opening and curtain related. I don't mind.

QUOTE:Hey Sharpe, I got a HQ (2000x1600) resolution theater curtains which actually happens to be pretty close to what we got now, so i can start on replacing those things to help transition over to higher quality.

Now that would be fantastic bra. I also showed sharpe some animated curtains opening up in high quality a while back ago. Also i know u guys like the film strip, but im hoping for something more clean, sleak and better animation added in time. I hope u guys can come up with something wicked. Good work. I also don't like library mode at all. Way to difficult to set up. I hope they make it way more user friendly in time like all the other manuel settings. I prefer setting up my own shit, not letting a server set up for me.

Well, Sharpe would agree with this, it a lot of the time takes A LOT of work and a number of trials before you find the right ending look to a screen or theme style. That's 1 reason you see a lot of tweaks by SHarpe in the SVN, things are constantly tweaked over and over until we can look at things and be able to say "YEAH!! Now THAT'S the look i've been trying to get."
And then of course sometimes it looks good at 1st, until you get some free time and go back to improve something that a new idea gave you. This skin is always improving, and i am going to try to break away from another project i've been working on for the past 4 months, and do some more regular updates with this. That's why I offered to originally join working on this skin is because of Sharpe's courteous attitude and openness with users suggestions. That takes a big heart to be that open minded for a person. I'm the same way, which works very well with a team.