Hello there

This "skin" started out as an attempt to make a mod of Smokehead's PDM skin (which I always really liked). Along the way loads of cool things happened to XBMC as the developers worked their magic. I kept adding things to it and it's sort of evolved.

It's very much a minimalistic skin (especially compared to some of the excellent new skins appearing these days) and perhaps suffers in comparison. But nevertheless I thought I'd make it available to see if anyone could use it. It's really just a bit of fun so don't expect too much - I'm still learning loads.

I've been heavily influenced by the gorgeous xTV in making some of the views (hope the xTV guys don't mind that too much - love xTV)

So thanks to Smokehead for PDM and all the other fine skin making fellas out there.

Download Link:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V1SH1D4H

Interesting idea! there's also resemblance to xtv...

Nice skin - downloading now
you and the guys over at xtv should brain storm together
I think you guys would come out with an awesome skin

hey I saw this skin on youtube like 3 weeks ago.
you're not Ratchie1969 are you

Yeah that's me mate - hi

As for the brainstorming thing - I'm so not in those guys class - What they can do is incredible (but thanks for the props).

any downloand mirror? my ips dont like megaupload.com

Sorry, is RapidShare okay?

http://rapidshare.com/files/27291120/Front-Row.rar.html

nice work dude

RapidShare is perfect. Thank you so much. gonna give this skin a try. Thanks again..

Nice skin! Simplistic, elegant, media centered... A few bugs that I will post about tomorrow but overall a very nice skin!

Cheers bud

Please do post any bugs - I'd appreciate that loads.

- Latest version is found in my sig link btw - I've altered it a bit to use the new Sub Menu coolness that came out with the latest XBMC build.

Hi just a little update - I've fixed a few bugs and made a few simple colour themes - click the sig link below for the up to date download.

Hello,

nice Skin. But where is the Audio Record Button? ;-))

Thanks

MAD

You know it's a function I've never really used so it kinda got of overlooked I guess

I've put the button on the music OSD - it's a little circle symbol.

Cheers!


Love that case mod btw - awesome work

Thanks for the Flowers.

Now i had to create a new Case for Front-Row. A real stylish Home Theatre looking Case. :-)

MAD

I've made a few updates to this if anyone's interested, a few new themes and so on...





The download link is in my sig.

Cheers

nice work, Sharpe!

I've made some updates to this skin.

First off I've given it a proper name in it's own right now - Back-Row. (The idea being that it's themed on sitting on the back row of a cinema).

I've updated some of the icons and views as well.









Anyway I'm still learning loads and enjoying myself messing with this. Thanks for checking it out and here it is if any one can use it.

The download link is in my signature below.

Cheers!

Looks Very nice. Thank you.

great work!

Thanks fellas!

I like the 3d cover in the different sections, not just one. Also like both the icons and big icons view, using up almost the whole display area. A function i've been loving a skin to have. Very nice. I'm personally not quite liking the Home Window controls. Would be nice to keep the theater screen, and maybe have 4 or so icons shown in the middle in wrap mode, like PM3Mod does. Or even better yet, keep it more like the fashion of how the settings (wrap view like) but maybe have the theater screen behind it showing.
I like how the Century Gothic TTF skin font looks. VERY NICE, although if possible to make it at least 2 font sizes bigger, for the 720p users (most), it just seems a LITTLE bit smaller then it should. The nice touch also when hitting down in the Home Window display bringing up the theater screenshot, like when you have houseguest's over in your theater, those of us that have a nice one very similar to that picture actually, somewhat acts like a soft hold mode, still showing the weather and RSS feed, (softer theater background screen) until the controller hits up or down, bringing it out of the hold mode style look. I'm using the blue glass color theme, as it matches the rest of my theater (ie-Equipt, soft blue LED's down each isle of my theater, controlled via remote, and blue fashion lights aiming up the columns on each side of my screen in the front and back of theater. I've always liked blue i guess.
Well, these are simply some idea's if you were wanting some feedback. Thats about the only things i would like to see. Everything else is great as is. Even then, if you didn't want to change a thing, it's still great no matter what. I'm just change some thing myself i guess for my purpose.

Great job!!! Looking REALLY nice. Keep up the great job!!!

djdafreund - thanks so much for the feedback, that's given me a few good ideas. I'll see what I can do based on them.

/Must say I'm very jealous of your home theater setup - sounds amazing

Cheers

I've altered the homescreen backgrounds to help tie the other colour themes more into the home theater look. The curtains sort of open up when you make a selection. Thanks to djdafreund for giving me the idea.

Wow, thanks. Hey, that really look nice. Thanks a bunch for that. Looks nice. I'll see if i could draw up a mockup of the homescreen i had n'visioned (free plug for mbay-haha) to give ya an idea and see if you like it. Thanks again. Looking forward to more in the future. Great job!!!

Hello - another little update:

I've made a few changes to the home screen graphics and improved the video library list view a bit.









Cheers

The skin is coming along nicely. I especially like the list views with the large covers/screeshots. That type of view is a large reason why I use xTV. I'm gonna have to give this a trial run.

hey thanks for the feedback rockdawg /appreciate it.

Ive made a few more updates...

Finally got round to sorting out a proper favourites dialogue screen:



I've also altered the sub menu dialogue to match it:



Then added a little Exit screen image:



Once again thanks for looking and hope some of you might be able to get some use out of this.

Cheers

Keep getting better and better. Love it man!!! One thing to consider at least, do you think you could consider changin the main page to show like either 3 or 4 icons instead of just one, so it's faster to navigate to the one you want (IE-Videos, Pictures, etc.) instead of just only being able to go left and right, waiting til the icon comes up to see, then hitting again if it's not the right one.
I figured maybe having the screen background the same like it is now, but instead of just showing one, it would show 3-4 at the same time, in a wrap view style. But not quite like the settings screen look (With using the film border background, and having like 5-6 icons at the same time.) Just a thought of course. Also, possible to add more views, like 3d skin, giving the user a lot more views to choose from to better tailor customizing. Thanks so far for a great looking skin. Keep it up!!

May I suggest using more movie type icons? Like movie chairs, movie reels, tickets, Theatre icons, flashlight,
popcorn, concession stands the whole enchilada. I think your theme would really be rounded more. Also
most of your sounds don't do your theme justice. The start file is sweet. Try using movie oriented sounds. Popcorn being eaten ect...Great effort here. Just needs more guidence. Peace.

Thanks again for the feedback fellas - some good stuff to think on there.

djdafreund - Altering the home screen to do it like your idea will take a bit of time - I'll have a play and see what it looks like - thanks though.

maximusoctavious - yeah good ideas - thanks.

I've already started on altering a few things to tie in with the movie theme a bit. Got rid of the TV image on the home screen for a clapper board - think that's a bit more in theme.



Cheers

Nice job bro. Love how your open minded about perfection. I was hoping you could fix the cover view for music video's movies section. On my tv, it looks way to tall and to thin on the width? Could you stretch the width out more to equal the height? Thank you for your talent & skill and the soon to be best skin for me out there. Movies is the only way to smoke one & just relax....

Here is the image I was telling you about.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4118/screenshot002ib2.png

Here is the image I was telling you about.

<img src="http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4118/screenshot002ib2.png" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us"/><br/>By <a target="_new" href="http://profile.imageshack.us/user/maximusoctavious">maximusoctavious</a> at 2007-09-20

Here is the image I was telling you about.

You see what you've done there is take the video view coverflow view (which is an oblong like a dvd cover) and altered it a fair bit then used it to display square CD images - so it looks wrong because it's not square.

My images are square? 256x256

yeah sorry I meant - the coverflow icon isn't square - so it squeezes the square icon into the oblong shape.

OK. Someone asked me for this, so here you go.
(HOW TO ADD MUSIC VIDEO CD CASE)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/wilndt

The now playing button is a great new feature. The only thing I was hoping, was you could make the box mainly transparent except the top & bottom. & could you make the cursor selector hug the icon more so there is no space on the sides or top of the picture being highlighted? This was what I was originally thinking of when I suggested the idea to you. So you when u get back from vacation. I need some to.

I found the problem. Your cursor is way to big. Try to make a cursor like the image below, looks alot better.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2065/folderfocusra0.png

Also your cursor should fit the icon like the image below.
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7530/mymusiclh4ep5.jpg

There should be no space anywhere. & the now playing should sit ontop of your image with the rest of the cursor box wrapped around your image. Great effort on your part I must say.

That's easy enough to do - but if I set the icon to "stretch" in order to fill the square it just doesn't look right for the movie view with the standard oblong icons.

I could make a separate icon view for music icons (ie. square) that filled the whole space - like your screenie if that's what you're after - easy job. But it wouldn't make any sense for the video icon views that are traditionally dvd style covers (ie oblong) - stretching them into a square looks silly. I know you use square movie covers but that's like your own unique view - I could always send you your own version of the skin that let you have that if you wanted.

QUOTE"I could make a separate icon view for music icons". Yes another view added for just square icons would be great. I use or sorts of shapes depending on what icon I use. The weird thing is no other skin I use
has these particular problems? Thanks for your response

okay that's enough now - maximusoctavious, Nezahaulcoyote, or whatever other alias you feel like using - i can't be arsed with it anymore.

Bye.

HUH

hey thanks. i'm going to get right to this. thanks again.

Here's a few more updates

Your screen captures look great on cover view. But this is what I get?

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/91/screenshot000rb8.png

The custom icons you use have a bigger canvas size than the actual image within - ie transparent space all around the image - The way it's coded, In order for it to look "right" it needs to be all image with no space around it.

I understand.

Can u create a toggle button, to go back to all black screen while viewing my media? The way it was before the update? This way I can still use my cover view. I really like it. The all black background allowed for this. Thank you. Sorry to bother..

I added this to my video pics, to go with the now showing feature.

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/9915/shootercd1tg3.png

Hey thanks for the new updates. Man, it's looking REALLY good, loving the views too!!! Very nice blend of everything. Starting to look kind of proffesional. Using it now on my xbox in my theater already, possibly perminantly now with the beautiful added views in that room, now that it all perfectly matches.

Thank you sir, and keep up the great work. Hard work never goes un-noticed with me. GREAT JOB!!