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+----- Forum: reFocus (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=72)
+----- Thread: Release reFocus 1.4.0 for Gotham (deprecated) (/showthread.php?tid=191491)
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - braz - 2014-06-28
I realize that cdART isn't used in reFocus, but I went ahead and skinned the cdART Manager addon to match reFocus (mostly). A few things to note:
- It looks best when font colors are set to white in the addon settings.
- I removed the menu item to view local cdart, as it didn't display well and the font stays orange regardless of the addon settings.
- It will display the reFocus backgrounds/defaults/music.jpg as the background.
- It uses the reFocus color variables so should work fine with other color themes.
If you want to try it out, download it and unzip into your reFocus skin folder. You'll notice it uses a couple of images that need to be placed in the media folder.
watch gallery
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Reynald - 2014-06-28
Great job
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Jeroen - 2014-06-28
(2014-06-27, 02:36)Seque Wrote: I think that reFocus have a bug in file mode on music, you can't change view to thumbnails...I'll look into that, thanks.
(2014-06-27, 21:53)kricker Wrote: Is this possible to do, or does the skinning engine limit this ability? In confluence these "widgets" are how my son quickly determines what new show or movie he wants to watch. He will not instinctively know to navigate through the "shelf" as you call it. I also like the idea mentioned earlier in the thread about an auto rotate feature. I think that combined with the shelf content intelligently changing with the main menu item selection would work quite well. I'd be happy to dig in and try it myself if I ever get the time, as long as I know ahead of time it is possible to do. As a designer by trade, I understand and respect your desire to control and keep things as you envision them. Therefore I am happy to do the work myself for something that is a preference for myself.It's totally possible.
The biggest problem I have with this kind of setup is that the amount of main menu items that can actually have any truly useful information tied to them in a widget is severely limited.
Say you have your "typical" menu setup:
- videos
- movies
- tv shows
- music
- pvr
- pictures
- add-ons
- settings
There's useful stuff to display for movies, tv shows and music. That can be recently added items, unplayed items, in progress items, playlist, etc. That's it really. Videos doesn't have recently added items, neither does pictures, etc.
So, while scrolling through the main menu sometimes a widget will popup, but on most items there won't be one. This creates a jarring, inconsistent experience imo. I mean, what to show when on settings? That question shouldn't even need to be asked, because that means we're thinking of things to "fill the gap with", and not what would actually be useful. Showing cpu temps and ip addresses for instance is not what I consider useful information in this context
Now the above could be called a "traditional" setup. On heavily customized setups this becomes even more of an issue.
That originally was the reason I chose the way it is at the moment. No matter what main menu item you're on, you always end up in the same place showing only relevant information. But I agree about the discoverability issues. So while I am redoing the widget system to be managed by skinshortcuts I have been going through several setups, including some more "traditional" ones, none of which have felt right to me yet. So, expect things to change regarding widgets, I just don't know how yet
The above is not meant to take down your question btw. Sometimes I feel the need to share my throughts around something, it gets me thinking clearer
if I could take away the downsides of your type of setup it would be the way I would go. (2014-06-27, 22:47)Dojoroda Wrote: I really appreciate how intuitive it is, but the only criticism I have for each XBMC skin I have tried (and disliked other than ReFocus) is the lack of a help menu.Just out of curiosity, what would such a help menu entail?
Thank you for the kind words.
(2014-06-27, 22:59)barenaked Wrote: Jeroen will you share the awesome grey/orange color xml upfront? It looks just great!Sure: https://gist.github.com/jeroenpardon/cfc57b1108268cbc45b5
It's just the one bryanbrazil posted though, I only adjusted the "Color2".
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - kricker - 2014-06-28
I totally understand understand what you see as the issue with a dynamically changing widget. No offense taken at all. I think these such things should be thought out fully so the proper choices are made. The proper choices for the skin may not be the popular ones, but it is your design and your vision. For the categories that have no useful information, I would either; switch to a standard backround (which is the left most part of the shelf and slides into places as needed, leave it on the last relevant widget or switch to a playist of chosen images which would slide in as noted above.
With that said, I look forward to see what changes you have done.
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - aksarge - 2014-06-29
STOP!!!!!
You guys are making this very hard for me to decide which MOD or version of Refocus I like best,
I can't handle off of these choices!
I am a simple man....
It's great to have the choices. (I think)
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Jeroen - 2014-06-29
(2014-06-28, 15:36)kricker Wrote: I totally understand understand what you see as the issue with a dynamically changing widget. No offense taken at all. I think these such things should be thought out fully so the proper choices are made. The proper choices for the skin may not be the popular ones, but it is your design and your vision. For the categories that have no useful information, I would either; switch to a standard backround (which is the left most part of the shelf and slides into places as needed, leave it on the last relevant widget or switch to a playist of chosen images which would slide in as noted above.
With that said, I look forward to see what changes you have done.
The speed is also definitely an issue. Loading these gotham style lists takes a considerable amount of time which isn't all that noticeable when there's one row like currently in the skin. When you start to switch between these lists when scrolling through the main menu, the performance is definitely not acceptable.
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Jeroen - 2014-06-29
One of the things I am thinking about.
The home screen background will display whatever picture or slideshow you have set it to.
To indicate a widget is available, it would optionally display this little preview with the first couple of items in that widget. it uses cleart here, but using clearlogos would probably be an option as well as having no images.
The widgets are brought up by pressing right from the relevant main menu item. The main menu then slides to the left, and the widgets will look pretty much like they already do now.
Activating that preview would display the homescreen slideshow logos, as it would be very confusing.
One of the other ideas was to show the number of items in a widget in the main menu. So it would for example show you the number of recently added episodes on the tv show main menu item. Unfortunately that proved to be impossible.
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Reynald - 2014-06-29
(2014-06-29, 14:39)Jeroen Wrote: One of the things I am thinking about.
The home screen background will display whatever picture or slideshow you have set it to.
To indicate a widget is available, it would optionally display this little preview with the first couple of items in that widget. it uses cleart here, but using clearlogos would probably be an option as well as having no images.
The widgets are brought up by pressing right from the relevant main menu item. The main menu then slides to the left, and the widgets will look pretty much like they already do now.
Activating that preview would display the homescreen slideshow logos, as it would be very confusing.
One of the other ideas was to show the number of items in a widget in the main menu. So it would for example show you the number of recently added episodes on the tv show main menu item. Unfortunately that proved to be impossible.
Very nice and enjoyable option. So you will integrate support for Clearart? I'm dying wait for the new version
Refocus
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - kricker - 2014-06-29
(2014-06-29, 14:39)Jeroen Wrote: Activating that preview would display the homescreen slideshow logos, as it would be very confusing.You lost me here. I am not quite sure what you are saying.
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Jeroen - 2014-06-29
(2014-06-29, 17:04)kricker Wrote:(2014-06-29, 14:39)Jeroen Wrote: Activating that preview would display the homescreen slideshow logos, as it would be very confusing.You lost me here. I am not quite sure what you are saying.
Sorry, I meant to say disable instead of display there
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Jeroen - 2014-06-29
(2014-06-29, 15:23)Reynald Wrote: Very nice and enjoyable option. So you will integrate support for Clearart? I'm dying wait for the new version
Not really. Just in this particular case it seemed like a suitable art type because of the bottom alignment. Don't expect to see clearart viewtypes or things like that.
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Jeroen - 2014-06-30
Or showing a strip of items in a widget. When pressing right from the main menu the first item in the widget (so in this case spider-man) will zoom out of it's position to into fullscreen, a bit like pressing down in the gallery view does. Once there, you browse the contents fullscreen as it does currently.
It's all proving to be pretty difficult to be honest. Not the actual coding, but finding a way that is practical and has acceptable performance.
I am now also seriously considering leaving the whole widget thing to be like it is in the current release. It's not that I don't like the current way, but it doesn't lend itself well for other plans I have.
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - Reynald - 2014-06-30
I love what you did and this have you proposed, although I prefer a more integrated and aligned melted on the right side of the menu.
Open this Intended use widget with a double pressure on the left, I like that. I'm not sure how you could suggest some things new and simple at the same time. In most other skin is always a little forced and imposing. The idea that it is discrete and melted in the fanart, it would be nice!
i prefer this it
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - removed151214 - 2014-06-30
To be honest, the sample widgets screens you've provided don't appeal to me personally. Rather than the nice clear shelf image there's now the shelf image, which is totally unrelated to the logo/screenshot image of the widget, which is again (in one of the screens at least) totally unrelated to the bold text of the movies available in the widget. Plus it takes away from the great shelf functionality that you already have.
Just a suggestion, which I know you'll feel free to ignore, but how about keeping the shelf as it is, but providing quick access to library views filled by the widget provider - instead of a left press collapsing the menu, it would go to the relevant library view instead. That way you still keep the full shelf function, but give additional functions easily (and without any performance issues on the home page caused by the widgets loading).
RE: reFocus 1.3.3 for Gotham - kricker - 2014-06-30
(2014-06-30, 21:07)Unfledged Wrote: To be honest, the sample widgets screens you've provided don't appeal to me personally. Rather than the nice clear shelf image there's now the shelf image, which is totally unrelated to the logo/screenshot image of the widget, which is again (in one of the screens at least) totally unrelated to the bold text of the movies available in the widget. Plus it takes away from the great shelf functionality that you already have.I agree with this. They way the "shelf' looks now is far cleaner and less cluttered. Even if it doesn't satisfy the ability to quickly see all new/suggested/playlist items in the "shelf". I've been too busy to put my designer hat on yet and brainstorm viable options. For now, I'll be quiet and let you do your thing.