Posts: 797
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
33
Hi LeviJay, no worries!
Striking the balance between functionality and ease-of-use - particularly for novice users - has been the hardest part of creating this skin.
To that end, i'm afraid that user-selectable view options won't be added to Maximinimalism. The core premise of the project is to make the interface as simple and predictable as possible and I feel strongly that I must maintain this discipline (not to mention that I want to avoid being added to the list of well-intentioned but ultimately unfinished XBMC UI's!). From a consistent design perspective, managing the way XBMC displays different media types (especially when it comes to plugins) is difficult enough as it is - adding more viewtype options into the mix will only make the situation worse IMHO.
Notifications of currently playing content on the homescreen is also not possible. You will notice that playback of any content (video or music) is automatically stopped when the user returns to the homescreen. Again, this is to maintain a simple consistent experience. In music view, the currently playing content is however displayed within the confines of the music 'section'.
Cheers,
theDeadMan
Posts: 35
Joined: Aug 2013
Reputation:
1
Hi,
When I pause a song I get two bars with the song title and progress, which looks really odd. Is that the intended behavior?
Also, I really like your skin and I am considering to switch to it definitely, but the fact that it stops the playback when going to the home screen (or the fact that it stops the playback when I didn't explicitly indicate that I want it to stop, for that matter) really makes me hesitate. I don't care about "now playing" notifications, just not stopping my music if I am curious about the weather, for example.
Aside from that, it's a great job you've done so far. Thank you!
Posts: 797
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
33
@Levijay: I'll have a look at livestreams and see what I can do.
@lonjemoco: The song pause behaviour is definitely not intended behaviour. The music section is lagging behind video a bit but will catch up.
In light of your comment about music stopping on the homescreen, I can see your point. I forced the issue on video because I didn't want live video playing behind the main browsing menus. With music, this is obviously never a problem... I will reconsider.
Thanks again for your comments, I really appreciate it :-)
Posts: 797
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
33
V0.6.0 posted today. Not a massive update i'm afraid, but some progress is better than no progress :-)
Changelog:
- [NEW] 5 day weather screen added (press down on homescreen). Layout not finalised.
- [NEW] skin option: Set and use a custom global background
- Various skin-wide tweaks and fixes
- [FIXED] Music addons and file lists reworked. Should now work properly!
- Dialog 'DialogPVRTimerSettings.xml' added.
- Dialog 'DialogPVRChannelManager.xml' added.
- PVR Timer view implemented (first pass - not fully tested)
- [FIXED] Music player pause issue fixed (thanks lonjemoco!)
Posts: 797
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
33
Thanks Moneymaker. Cyrillic support is still being worked on and will be included as soon as it becomes available.
The sidebar being highlighted on return to the content menus is a compromise unfortunately. Addons are the source of the problem: if they break down and don't return content (due to say, an external web resource going down), the skin can't focus on the main menu.
That you can't choose a subtitles script is an odd one - it's doing what it should be doing from what I can see. Note that you can't download a subtitles addon from the skin settings, it has to be done via the addon manager. The skin settings just lists installed program addons.
Posts: 797
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
33
Thanks levijay,
Adding favourites as a shortcut link is on the list :-)
Posts: 9
Joined: Sep 2013
2013-10-27, 10:42
(This post was last modified: 2013-10-27, 10:44 by User 180998.)
Great skin !
Some suggestions :
- On home screen, for labels "System Info / Weather", you can use arrows instead of "UP/DOWN" , and detach a little bit this piece of information (see
screenshot)
- When selecting items in left menu, for example "TV shows", it could be better to automatically switching the focus to the list
- Adding a way to hide watched items could be great because with hundreds of items it's getting hard to navigate in lists
A question :
How do I remove a shortcut ?
Posts: 9
Joined: Sep 2013
Thanks ! That was not easy to find, because you need to go further than "Addons" item at the bottom of the list to access this remove symbol...
Posts: 797
Joined: Dec 2010
Reputation:
33
2013-10-27, 17:21
(This post was last modified: 2013-10-27, 19:51 by thedeadman.)
@webjib
Thanks for your comments.
On home screen, for labels "System Info / Weather", you can use arrows instead of "UP/DOWN" , and detach a little bit this piece of information (see screenshot)
- Agreed on both points. The text labels are temporary. Thanks for the screenshot - it does look much more effective with the extra separation - I'll adjust to suit :-)
When selecting items in left menu, for example "TV shows", it could be better to automatically switching the focus to the list
- Agreed in principle and thoroughly explored, but it doesn't work well enough in practise I'm afraid. I've discussed the reasoning behind this earlier in the thread. I'll keep trying.
Adding a way to hide watched items could be great because with hundreds of items it's getting hard to navigate in lists
- Yes, XBMC has a 'hide watched' function that I haven't yet included in Maximinimalism. It should make the next update.
Thanks,
theDeadman
Posts: 9
Joined: Sep 2013
Thanks for your answers thedeadman !
I've explored the skin a little bit more, and I really enjoy the lightness on my Raspberry.
I've just noticed something else : when you finish watching, let's say a TV show episode, most skins focus on the next episode on the list, which is practical to play the next episode with one click. But your skin focuses on the left menu when video stops.
