A little about me: I don't know anything about skinning or coding, which I think is why I'm proud enough of my skin mod to display it here. I'm sure many of you guys have done similiar with their favorite skins, but this is pretty much my first attempt at anything like this, so i figure I might as well brave the masses and let you guys see.

What I did: Plain and simple, I didn't do much.... but Well basically the main thing I did was customize the home window more to my liking. I replaced the "weather" button (which only got a little use) with a "Music Videos" button, I replaced the "youtube" (hard to see this go) with an "Emulators" button, I converted the "programs" button with a "Games" button, and I also Made the "Play disc" button a "Scripts" button when the xbox doesan't have media, but when there is a disk present of course the button reverts back to its "Play disc" state. Of course all of these 'new' buttons needed new icons, so I did my best at finding representable icons for the various categories, and then edited them myself.... My Games icon is from the Back-row skin, credit to Sharpe.

Another thing that I did was Add the 3d cover flow views to both my music library and Video library... I got the code from the Back-row skin. And Yes, I messaged Sharpe and got his permission. Credit again to Sharpe. I think I could optimize these views a little bit, but again I hardly know anything about this so for now I'll keep it the way it is... which is exactly the way it is in the Back-row skin.

Also, a long time ago I did the whole 'play ur emulator roms directly from xbmc' thing.... I did this for Genesis, Nintendo, and SNES... I found and edited my own icons and made it look nice.

I do want to thank Chi3f for a great skin and for his help, he helped me get the music videos button to work properly and he also showed me how to add video to the background (this was before he added it as a function).

Some things I have to work on: I need to find out how to make the top right label in the Games and EMulators window to display "games" and "emulators" with their respective icon, instead of just "programs" Also in the 3dcoverflow views in both the video and music libraries i get a redundent display of info which I have no idea how to make disapear, it isn't there in the Back -row skin and I'm not sure what part of the Xtv code is generating it... any help on these matters would be appreciated. I also intend to change either my scripts or the default "system" icon because they are far too similiar to go back to back like they do... i just haven't found a satisfactory replacement...

Here are screenshots... I did compress them a little for faster uploading, hopefully the quality didn't suffer to badly. If you made it through this entire beast of a post than I thank you.











Here are more screen shots... I'm sorry that they take up so much room..... I should have probably just put the link, I don't know how to make them a small thumbnail to be clicked...

that is sweet mayne

looks great!

makes me want to get back into emulators again.

I love the icons and the whole dvd/scripts works

any chance of a download link?

Really sweet competes2win! All the extras that I too would probably use more. Any chance of a link to this modded version for d/l? Or is it strictly specific to your setup? Either way, looks great...

Well 3/3 positive reviews... I'm glad.

As for putting this up for download, I would be happy to if I only knew of a place to upload something...

However please note:
- The direct launching of emulator roms is something you do with this tutorial and therefore my windows for that wouldn't be in your skin. Although the emulators button will still send you to your emulators directory like the vision skin. Furthermore, if you look to my paragraph that starts "some things I have to work on" you will see all of my gripes with this version of the skin which I have yet to fix. hmmm as for all the links to the custom buttons working for you guys, as far as I can tell they should work for you... make sure if you have music videos they are located in your video files section under the name of Music Videos. Also in skin settings, both the You tube and Weather button have to be activated as they were replaced by my own buttons.

Well I guess thats that, if someone can point me in the right direction of actually uploading a file (also do i need to rar it or something?) I would be glad to, and if you have questions you can ask and i'll do my best.

OHH! and the main thing that will probably deter most of you from wanting this is the fact that it only works under 4:3... Although I do have a 42" plasma I don't run this particular xbox on it, but I will eventually get around to making it 16:9 compatible, shouldn't take long actually. But ya thats what i just thought of while brushing my teeth lol.

well i like the mods too. as for the coverflow-mod, mcgyver did a mod for xtv with the coverflow. With his mod, only the title of the movie appears underneath the cover. so maybe you can take a look at that. you can find it in the xtv thread.
Concerning the uploading of your mod, you could post it at www.sendspace.com or rapidshare.com (tho i dont like rapidshare very much). or you could ask chi3f if he's willing to put out a complete modded version of the xtv skin.


again, i like your stuff!

"Some things I have to work on: I need to find out how to make the top right label in the Games and EMulators window to display "games" and "emulators" with their respective icon, instead of just "programs"

This is not possible as far as i know. I know that Chi3f had major problems when adding the tv shows button to the home screen, and if you still use the file view (as i do), you will see that when entering tv shows, the icon and words still say "movies"

It may be different for programs, but im not sure. (im no skinner!)

damn no edit function

i was wondering would anybody be interested in helping me create an option in skin settings that you can pick and choose different components of the home menu.

competes2win wants music videos and games on the home menu but I may want power menu and weather.

im not sure how hard it would be, ive just started to mess around with editing this skin to my own preferences, and i think that it would benefit everyone to pick and choose what they want on the home screen.

any thoughts?

it's actually quite easy to edit those home buttons... hardest thing is finding a good icon to match it. And of course the weather is already a function in the skin u can toggle on or off via the skin settings.

I haven't looked but maybe if you look in the .xml files and find the code that allows for the optional youtube and weather functions that could give u a start. I don't know the limits but I think you could just make a bunch of different buttons and set the visibility to only when the skin has the certain settings... like the youtube button... and kind of like what i did with my scripts button, my scripts button is the same as the play disc button just with a different visibility, meaning it only shows up under certain conditions... Also, my emulators and music videos buttons are toggled on and off via the skin settings control of youtube and weather buttons... it would be simple as far as i can tell to actually change the label in the settings to instead say music videos/ emulators to replace the text options of turning on the youtube/weather buttons... now im just rambling.. but ya it shouldn't be hard.



Well at least I got my music videos section to say "music videos" and display my quicktime icon for it... i guess im happy with that.

Where'd ya get your emulator icon? Anyone list some good sites for free icon packs? Thanks.

I just googled "free icons" and found it somewhere I can't find the link... but it looked worse, I edited it. Initially It wasn't even close to the color it is now.

it's not completely true...... I've thought about this for awhile and if you are good at organizing your stuff, it's possible to fake the change.

to go with jabba said, there's no way to have the label change since you are accessing a bookmark and not a separate page in xbmc. however the work around that you COULD code....

is to create a folder image (folder.jpg) in your emulators folder that matches your theme. from you images, you would make a black background with white text saying "emulators." then all you have to do is code in "container.folderthumb"

the downside is that a folder icon will always show up there if one is present unless you add a container conditional.

I really love the mods on this competes2win, I'd ike to add "Music Videos" & "Emulators" to my home page. I'm not gonna ask how to do it, instead - what would I search for in the wiki? Adding buttons to the home screen? Or Home.xml? Thanks

All you need to do is look in the Home.xml to see how the list is setup, then look in the manual to see what onclick command should be used. Check the window id section and the list of built in functions.

yup law dawg that about sums it up... You will soon see that I barely did any work at all on this so called "mod." It's definitley nice though having the buttons set to your preferences... and you will probably want to do as I did and add an emulators and music video icon as well. For that You will need to unpack the textures.xpr and add your icons, and then re-compress back to .xpr format. I use the xpr extractor program found on the teamblackbolt site.

Or you can just put them in the media folder, as long as they don't have the same name as any of the images in the textures.xpr

Cool, didn't know you could do that.

Any chance this can be uploaded somewhere. I'd love to try this out.

Thanks

It's all updated and changed now I made it into a red and dark theme with a red smokey thing in the background. updated some of the icons with the pandora ones and changed some of the views. Also added a white and black smoke theme.... Maybe i'll post pics...

where to download?

Hey, for now its not up for download... mainly because I'm not a skinner, this is my own project and the xbox this is used on is only a standard tv... therefore I have not yet gone through making it compatible with widescreen... I'm not even sure what different things I would have to do to make it look ok for wide screen... probably not much but anyways.. I'll have more pics up of my recent changes tonight, and also I will put up for download what I have with the warning that as of now it is only compatible with standard tv's.

Also I think there is a good probability that the best option is for me to actually just make a "theme" based on my new red theme and smoke themes, that way its compatible with everyone... and that's easy enough to do, just add a back ground and some buttons, which of course are already done.... Maybe chief could put it with all the rest of his themes.

Again, i'm busy at the moment... screenshots and files uploaded later tonight!

I made a few 'adjustments' to my xtv mod...

First and foremost I went with a black/dark and red theme. Consistent with this I added a red smokey background. I also edited all the blue out of the .xpr so that it is a constant red. Furthermore, some of the icons were changed, most importantly I added a few of the 'pandora' icons made originally by Mikebeecham.

I did away with the 3d views for the movies section because I just didn't like it anymore. However I added a view which I think is even better. All Credit goes to Sharpe for his Dvdcase view. Also from Sharpe's skin I Used his plotview and edited it to fit the theme of my skin... I also used this plot view to make an edited 'wrap' view, which is basically the plotview without the plot box.

Also made a black smoke and white smoke theme for the xtv skin. The xprs go in the media folder of your xtv skin like any other theme. The black can be downloaded here.
The white one here.



Here are screenshots of the actual skin.








The reason I was hesitant to put this up for download was because I only edited everything for standard tvs. not widescreen/HD... EVENTUALLY I'll have to get around to this since I am hoping to sell the xbox that is currently being used on my HD wide tv... but that may not happen anytime soon. So I'm uploading the skin I do have and if any of you wants to go ahead and edit the widescreen part than go for it. But just be warned it only it's incomplete... also as explained in the first post I added my personalized buttons, emulators games, and music videos... for all these to be seen the weather, and youtube buttons have to be activated in the home menu... Also They are linked to the library view by default since this is what I use... you will have to edit some stuff if you don't use the library mode... And if you don't have music videos than no problem just disable the "weather" icon... or it may be the youtube... im not sure anymore....

So that said you can download it here

can you upload it on another site please?

my xtv mod

one question should i add those file to xTV skin or is it already a skin? becouse coverflow doesn't seem to work.

It's already a skin... i removed coverflow from the videos section and now that you mention it I guess i have issues with the coverflow in the music section. i'll see if i can fix it... but im not sure when, its not the view i use i actually have grown to dislike the coverflow... but ya like i said I'm no skinner and this is not on the top of my to do list... this is why i was against uploading this in the first place, i wasn't intending to offer a whole lot of support.

competes2win,

As per my deviantart account, I specifically requested that ANYONE wishing to use my icons MUST seek permission to do so before they use them.

You did not comply with this request.

I, therefore, respectfully ask that you remove my icons from your published modded version of the xTV mod immediately.

I fixed the issue. the fixed skin can now be found here.






Well i did give you credit in my post... Furthermore I never even visited your deviant art site, Had I seen your post there I would have for sure asked for your permission. I instead googled "free icons", clicked on the first site that came up (freeiconsweb.com) and searched those icons... on page five I found yours. Considering it was a royalty free site, and i was not making any profit off the use of them I thought this adequate... Again, had I actually gotten these icons from your deviant art site, and read your post I would have asked for permission...

I, therefore, respectfully ask that you reconsider your request for me to remove them.

No, sorry...


you dont get to seek reconsideration from me. How about i come round your house and take something without asking> Should I do that?

No..of course not.

Whether you had visited my dA account or not, you should have made sure that it was ok to go take my icons before posting them onto a public forum. I dont give a rats arse whether you credited me or not...you need to ask first.

So, no...you dont get my permission...remove them!

Considering where I got the icons, I believe that your analogy of coming to my house is flawed... a better analogy would be you happening across something of mine, away from my house, and under a sign that said "free," and taking it... with its instruction manual implying that you return it to me, lost at some other location....

Furthermore, I'm sure you probably got royalty free originals or perhaps bought an icon set... but do you really think that Sony, Casio, or Phillips appreciates you turning their products into icons... with the intent to use them on a hacked xbox??? Dubious at best.

Regardless, my upload to my skin mod is taken down... i was reluctant to post such an incomplete thing anyways.

Also, I have always asked the author of the front row skin for his approval to use his code.... I have always had the respect of others in mind... And I just feel that you're being unreasonable in the highest regard especially considering I am definitley not the type of individual that would just steal something... and again considering where I got the icons, I felt I was in the right...

Hmm,

Just wanted to ask 2 questions, but i dont know if you wanna help..(after reading the posts before me)

But ok, here are they: 1st, you have made i nice music video section, i removed it, and placed something else there, but why cant i change the name of the movie dir...example: if i go to movies in my home screen, then it has to go to,my videofiles, with in de top right corner, the name "Movies" (because it is linked to the home-screen). But i cant get rid of the music videos in te top right corner.......any ideas?

2nd: i dont know if you use rss feeds, but there still blue in the original color, i need then red.....

I think you did a very nice job, offcourse we all want too do, our own tweaking....but your version gave me a little push in the right direction, so it was easier for me to take this mod and build it, to my wishes, then using the original.

I hope you manage to make what you want, and if it makes you feel better: im happy with your mod, if you need some help, you always can pm me.

greetz

can u give another link for your newest version because the links down.

Well the whole issue with having the movies icon in the top right everywhere is I guess pretty much a known issue because of the way things are linked in the skin... someone once told me that even Chi3f didn't really know how to fix it... but regardless I don't know how to make it go away, it says movies in my music videos section as well... However, if you were go to the commonviews.xml file and find the view you use you may be able to find the control for that image and just erase it, so that nothing shows up. Sorry I can't be of any further help...

Also, I don't personally use rss feeds, but i just turned them on to see what you are talking about... I'm sorry again for not knowing exactly what you would do to change it... although i do know that you have to change the default font colors... I had no need to do this in my mods so Im not exactly sure but I'm still fairly sure that you need to find the color you want in its hex (??) code and then edit the Rss parts of the defaults.xml found in the "Colors" folder of the skin.

And thanks for 'being happy' with my mod. its good to hear.



Apparently I've been disallowed to use some of the icons I used.... read the couple of posts before yours. Therefore I'm respecting his wishes and i took the file down.

Oke,

Thats fair enough, im gonna work with that..... i will find a solution

im gonna drop the textures,home,translate files in a new xtv build...i believe that are the only files you modded, maybe then i can get rid of the first issue (the latest original build, hasnt got that problem so, it can be fixed if you put all the mods in a new build of xtv) can you please tell me if you only modded these 3 files (and dropped a red color file in de color-map)

for the second issue, i need te origal hex code that is used..so the hex code for the red color. I think its the same color as in basisc-101, so that wont be a problem.

(oh and the file that let us view the wrap mode..wich one is that?)

greetz

Xs

hmm I modded the textures.xpr of course... home.xml... commonviewtypes.xml.... myprograms.xml....myvideonav.xml....mymusicnav.xml...

Translate file whats that?

also the red that is in the colors folder doesan't do anything i don't think. I actually did try to change the text red, but it didn't work... so thats a waste of space.

all those xmls i modded i may or may not have had to add an <include> command for the new views i added, and/or delete ones I didn't want anymore. commonviews.xml has all the code for all the views, which is linked to the various xml's. to tell the skin which view to use in which portion of the skin.

That's all i guess.

OH thats great, then i can fix the little error in the movies screen...

Translate is the file that let you change the text, that is used in xtv....i used it to translate it to my language. so my main menu is a bit different then yours, for example: you can rename the main menu button for "movies" (so the first button under the home x-tv logo) to Dvd's or My Video's or whatever you want.....

You understand?

Pff it's all done... i know have a good working layout, a replaced the text music videos for the text that i want it to show. Rss headlines are done too.....

i'm almost happy, just need a couple of icons changed in the home screen and in the settings menu...
so, can you please tell me how you did the blur?

greetz, xs

And sorry for al the questions, but man, i learned in 2 days more with this skin, then a learned in the last month with other skins....

-oh to change the text in the home menu i just changed the 'label' of the various controls but anyways...

-didn't know that about the translate.xml

-I use a program called paint.net and I did the blurs with that. Gaussian blur to different degrees depends on how much you go for, since you usually have to do two levels of blur for a total of three icons, i just tried to get mine to be blurred roughly the same amount as the stock ones.

-ya and no problem about the questions.

I must say you are taking this better than I would. Seems to me, instead of cussing you out (which I am sure is against the rules in these forums) for picking up and using the icons on a site marked FREE ICONS, he should be complaining to the people at the site to have them take them down. If HE is the one that put those icons on the site, then he has no one to complain to except himself for putting them there for all to use. Oh well, seems common sense is the one thing that's not common these days.

I agree 100%, I felt that the way he acted was a bit ridiculous and definitely irrational.

haha I just checked though and it appears that his icons have been removed from that site.

lol i think i saw a psp xmb theme using the 'pandora' icons a few weeks ago.....

Well, I guess it should be obvious to us that any icons on a site called FREEICONSWEB.COM would not be free to use, right? And it goes without saying that everyone would know what everyone else's website is, to read the conditions of use of their files posted to other sites (especially the free sites, as mentioned, a site called FREEICONSWEB.COM, better do a Google search immediately, because a site with THAT name, you know you'd better find the original site they came from... even though, for all we know, it was the ONLY place they were uploaded on the web)... I mean, it was obvious to ME that he has a DeviantArt site, and not some other, to read the conditions of using icons that I found on a site called FREEICONSWEB.COM. But hey, I'm just psychic that way.

And it makes perfect sense to cuss someone out when they ask after they find out there was such a condition, instead of saying "Oh, you got them from another site where my message wasn't posted, and assumed I'd put them there. I can understand that." I mean, come one, you weren't psychic enough to already KNOW the conditions?

Umm, I'm not overdoing the sarcasm, am I?

Sorry, but the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's the kind of thing I would expect from our politicians, not these forums. I guess it really does boil down to the TWO things that aren't common in the world anymore: common sense, and common decency.

Guess I'll get off my soap box now.

JoeUser38: Yes I agree, it left a bad taste in my mouth as well... as you can imagine. To tell you the truth I actually debated to just leave the download up to spite him... But in the end I felt that that would not only be a juvenile way of acting but after I went on about how I would heed his directions had I seen them, not listening to him at that moment in time would be hypocritical... All in all I feel I handled the situation well enough....

And I thank you for your support, glad to know that people agree with me that I wasn't in the wrong.

This said I would like to conclude on this issue. What's done is done, I respected his wishes and he should be happy. I feel like I made a satisfactory mod considering my next to nothing experience. It really wasn't good or complete enough to justify a public release anyway, but there were a few people who could use it and a few people consistently asking for it, so I decided to release it anyways.

I respectfully ask for this subject not to be brought up again, what's done is done. Since there is really no longer an "xtv mod" I anticipate this thread dying out. However, with any luck I'll be able to contribute something to the xbmc scene somewhere in future.

Thanks.

amen........

tho i'm still very happy with your release...did al the things that i wanted to do, so i looks very cool at the moment.

But i can't call it a xtv mod anymore, because i modded to much, the basics are the same, but that's it....
No more words for the icon case, just go on with modding (like i do) and hopefully I/you/we can release our own skin(s) some day (because that's the whole idea after modding some skins that allready exists)

So if you have any interest in rebuilding a old simple skin to something new..pm me (i'm not good enough to do a whole new skin , but hey... i have to learn too and there are lots of people that have uploaded there skin mods, and a lot of people that where happy with that mod.....

Cheers

I agree, I actually renamed it "Requiem" on my xbox. Afterall even though the skin is structurally the same give or take, the blue highlights and everything that used to make it Xtv-'esque' is now gone. I still have the great Xtv skin in is original state as well though. All though its no longer my default of course.

Once upon a time I had aspirations to make a complete skin, but reality paid me a visit. I even had this idea for a skin with a kind of a view from the top feel to it and button bouncing animations, with an effect that the buttons were floating... hard to explain, and I never had mockups it was just an idea in my head.

Fair enough, I won't bring it up again. To tell the truth, I almost didn't to begin with, but I was in a bad mood, especially during my last post, and found my tolorance for such behavior to be rather low.

Hmm,

Little question there...to lose the coverflow view...did you only removed the cover3d.xml in the pal dir?
Because i can't get it back, did you changed anything else? (don't think so, but mabe i missing something)

greetz

i deleted its code in the common views xml in the pal directory. As well as its <include> thing in the myvideonav.xml

How can I get my videos to display like this


When I change to coverflow they just look same. Is it the skin that actually make them like that or have you saved each image using some sort of photoshop action? Would love to make mine like that.