Hey Everyone, In a thread I made earlier I asked about putting system information in the emulator section. Apparently no one really was interested. That's ok, but I wanted it anyhow so I've been working on a custom emulator window. I'm using a custom window because I got confused when trying to incorporate this stuff into a 'view' don't ask me why, I barely know what the heck I'm doing.

I just wanted to show you guys my work. Keep in mind that the skin I'm using is my own xtv mod (which I've also redid in the past couple of days.) My skin mod won't be available for download, so I won't bother posting pics other than this emu section.... sorry, the skin is basically a conglameration of all of my 'favorite' views, in a black/red theme, added and customized buttons, and Macguyvers scroll wheel for an alternate homepage....

anyhow this is how it looks, sorry for the large pictures, I did compress them though... By the way, I don't take any credit for this really, except for the idea. As you can see, even though my skin is an xtv mod, this look much like Basics-vision media view 2.... this is because I modeled it after it. I didn't actually use the code since like I said, I got all mixed up trying to make a view how I wanted, and ended up writing the xml for the entire window my self... with referenceing and some of the basics-vision graphics of course. I couldn't even get the "panel" container thing right... but im rambling. Thanks Jezz and ninet9mustang for a great skin, and chief of course for the xtv skin.





lol don't make fun of me.

Hey, that looks pretty nice. That's cool since thats really the only stuff i play as far as programs also. Emu's, Forza, and the last Burnout. That looks good so far.

Cool, Thanks! Like you, I don't use the programs section all that much. I do like Burnout 3, and tony Hawk but those are about the only xbox games I play these days. I do play with my emulators all the time though. I realize the whole info thing is not really necessary, but for some reason I kind of like having it there.

Nice Work. I've alway thought that having a library view for games and emulators would really be the finishing touch for the xbox version of XBMC. How brilliant would it be to have a scraper for games the could add reviews, summary, box art and thumbnails, with each console as a separate category? I imagine that the biggest problem for total integration would be that the emulator games would have to be able to start from XBMC, using something like the ".cut" file method perhaps?! I imagine it would be possible to create this at least for xbox games, if you could find a good games site to scrape from, and that alone would be amazing.

Competes2win, I find it surprising that there was no interest in this. I would imagine that once it was up and running everyone would want this. If i had the know-how (and one less thesis to finish) I would try myself.

BTW where did you get your console info from?

lol indeed I have not gotten much feedback on this, although i was expecting as much when I got absolutely no replies to my first thread requesting info on how to do such a thing.

I agree, a scrapper would be great for both emulators and xbox games. I also requested a plugin be made for the retrox script which allows u to load games directly from the xbmc script, if it was ported to be a plugin this would allow us to set the plugin as a source and thereby basically integrating it into our xbmc. This would be ideal although much like this, I have not gotten much feedback. So it doesan't look promising for someone to do it... and I definitely can't do it. I did the .cut method for some of my roms but after having about 10 in the same window it slowed xbmc to a crawl, so that's pretty much useless except for your absolute favorite games perhaps.

As far as my info, I took it from wikipedia, while adding my own touches,
Talking about thesis, i began this xbmc project which took quite some time for me since i don't know what im doing for the most part, and I have my honors thesis to complete by the 15th... What the heck was I thinking, I wonder? lol this thesis is kind of a big deal too if I want to graduate. What level is your thesis? mines just undergrad, for the honors college at my University.

I've always wanted a Library view for the programs, and I've mentioned it before. Think about it, for original Xbox games (non-homebrew), there is a perfect site to scrape from: Xbox.com For all but a few games, it would even pick up the wide icons. I seem to remember there are some third-party sites with info on games that a scraper could be designed for also.

But it seems with the Linux/Mac/etc branches that everyone is of the mind "No one uses the Xbox for games anymore anyways, it would be a waste." I'm seeing this in most skins now too. A complete falsehood in my mind, and a mantra I'm getting tired of hearing on the forums. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the hard work on XBMC, but if you aren't going to support a feature, then give a VALID reason, not one that is blatantly false (just because YOU don't use a feature, doesn't mean others wouldn't, and if they were to do a poll, I believe they would find that they are NOT in the majority).

I personally don't use my xbox for gaming purposes outside of my emulators, at least not very often. I actually got rid of all but three of my games, Doa ultimate, Burnout 3, and Tony Hawk PS3... but as you say just because I don't use my xbox for this, doesan't mean no one else does. And besides I think it would be awful nice anyways to have my games scrapped with info... Now that I think of it, nothing is really stopping me from doing the same with my games as with these emulators...

And although I agree with you for a large extent, I have not really heard anyone really express interest in a programs library view before now... and it's not like my work has been a hit lol, so if this is the case than it may indeed be a valid argument for the dev's not to put in the work required to make this 'library view' happen for a desire not thoroughly expressed by the masses. Not to mention that from what I gather, scrappers are hard work because they have to be updated with every site update... But I think if your interested you should put in a request over at the official xbmc forums. They are more developmentally minded over there... and I would second your request for sure. Meanwhile however, I feel like I can get my xbmc to look how I want in both the emu and games sections... Thanks for the post

I love this view as well as the info, it's really interesting. I don't play xbox games on my xbox anymore but I use xbmc and play the emulators quite often and I think this is really cool.

loving the info window... very neat, would defintly love to see something like this, nice mockups, i like

Great update.

Why not make your mod available here? I love emu's more than the newer games. Could you do something like this for the skin Back-Row? This should be implemented into xbmc as a must? Please reconsider putting this up here, and maybe help skinners here to implement it as well.

Hi, NineT9Mustang, good seeing you around a bit again these days. Thanks for the compliments, although those are screen shots and not mockups. I'm not very good at skinning, and was unable to get what I wanted by editing a pre-existing view for some reason, so what I did was make a custom window, launchable from my emulator button on the homescreen... I'm not quite finished I still have three more emulators left to do, but now its only a matter of copy/pasting the repeated code and replace the labels and textures.



Lol and its even more rare to see you post Neverwill. I know of you from your emu skinning days, though I wasn't really around back then. but thanks for the compliments, I really don't know why no one thought of making a view with emulator info...



Hey there man, unfortunately there really isn't much to "implement" the information isn't scrapped or anything, but that would be awesome if it could be. The information is just one big label that I typed, paraphrasing wikipedia mostly, so you the user can basically add anything you wish. As for releasing it, I hate releasing "mods" to skins because I feel like I didn't really do anything. But feel free to PM me and I can help you perhaps start your own window, since it's fairly easy... and if you use Back-row then I'm sure there are some nifty graphics in that skin that you can use to replace the ones I am using. The best way to make this available would be for someone that knows better what they are doing than me, incorporate this idea into a view so that similiar to the very common "wide icons view" different versions of it could be used with different skins... I don't have time really to look into this, though I have one more view idea involving a horizontal wrap list I'd like to try out before I call it quits.

Yea, well most NFO's are just for show (Movie nfo, TV Show nfo, Episode nfo, Music nfo, etc)

But yea, i plan on putting nfo's for all my stuff, so its nice to be able to know ill be able to do it to my Programs section soon

Good to see you around as well

Thats really cool man.........

Ant Movie Catalog scrapes www.allgame.com for game info... should have just about every game you'd be looking to scrape info on

I want this