[millhome]

Hi all,

I have first used Confluence and now switched to Metropolis which is a great skin.

There is one feature that I am missing:

With Confluence installed, I could play back a video, switch back to the menu and browse other videos, while the video kept playing in the background (to some degree faded through opacity/transparency setting).

Unfortunately that doesn't work in Metropolis: I can play back the video and browse the menu at the same time, too. But, I cannot see the video in the back while browsing the menus (instead there is standard backdrop image of Metropolis), it would be nice to have the video always in semi-transparency in the back (as in Confluence).

I was thinking I could maybe delete the standard backdrop image from Metropolis settings (Home options), but for some reason I wasn't able to delete it.

Does anybody know how to adapt the skin so that video keeps playing in the background even while searching the menus?

Regards,
Stefan

[jingai]

In Metropolis, the currently-playing video will only show in the fan art window on the Home screen in the default Home layout. This is just by design -- the main background fan art is an integral part of Metropolis and will never be covered up.

[millhome]

thank you for your answer, yes, I have seen the video as background fan art on the Home screen with the menus on both sides.

Is there any way to change that designed behavior, by changing some transparency setting in some skin.xml e.g.? I mean, there should be some way that it works, sometimes I can see movie covers as semi-transparent in the main background fan art when browsing a video repository.

[jingai]

You could change it if you edited the skin's XML by hand of course, but there is currently no built-in way to make the video display as the background.

[millhome]

That's good news that it's possible to change that behavior through XML, can you actually point me to some configuration file in particular? Thanks!

[jingai]

It's not as simple as a configuration option. I'm kind of dancing around giving you a direct answer because my time is limited at the moment and what little time I do have needs to be spent on the existing issues to get the next release out. Telling you how to do this would equal doing the actual work to make it happen

Someone else might be able to make the modifications for you, though.

[millhome]

I already noticed you were evading a direct answer ; ) Maybe this feature could be an option for some future release as I believe it's comfortable to watch the video in background while looking for other video episodes? : )

[jingai]

Feel free to submit a feature request on GitHub for it.

[millhome]

ok, thanks, keep up the good work!

[DProudmoore]

I made this modification in my version of Metropolis, so that the video will play and also be diffused by the background when browsing menus etc.

In the includes.xml I have

Code:

    <include name="Background_Common">
        <include>Dimensions_Fullscreen</include>
        <include>Animation_CommonFade</include>
        <include>Animation_FadedByMenu</include>
        <fadetime>200</fadetime>
    </include>
    <include name="Background_Video">
        <include>Background_Common</include>
        <visible>Player.HasVideo + Window.IsActive(home) + Skin.HasSetting(Home3)</visible>
    </include>
    <include name="Faint_Background_Video">
        <include>Background_Common</include>
        <visible>Player.HasVideo + [Window.IsActive(programs) | Window.IsActive(pictures) | Window.IsActive(filemanager) | Window.IsActive(settings) | Window.IsActive(music) | Window.IsActive(musiclibrary) | Window.IsActive(video) | Window.IsActive(videolibrary) | Window.IsActive(systeminfo) | Window.IsActive(skinsettings) | Window.IsActive(picturessettings) | Window.IsActive(programssettings) | Window.IsActive(weathersettings) | Window.IsActive(musicsettings) | Window.IsActive(systemsettings) | Window.IsActive(videosettings)]</visible>
    </include>
    <include name="No_Background_Video">
        <visible>![Player.HasVideo + [[Window.IsActive(home) + Skin.HasSetting(Home3)] | Window.IsActive(programs) | Window.IsActive(pictures) | Window.IsActive(filemanager) | Window.IsActive(settings) | Window.IsActive(music) | Window.IsActive(musiclibrary) | Window.IsActive(video) | Window.IsActive(videolibrary) | Window.IsActive(systeminfo) | Window.IsActive(skinsettings) | Window.IsActive(picturessettings) | Window.IsActive(programssettings) | Window.IsActive(weathersettings) | Window.IsActive(musicsettings) | Window.IsActive(systemsettings) | Window.IsActive(videosettings)]]</visible>
    </include>
    <!-- Global objects -->
    <include name="Global_Background">
        <!-- No Background Video -->
        <control type="image">
            <include>Dimensions_Fullscreen</include>
            <include>No_Background_Video</include>
            <texture background="true" fallback="background.png">$INFO[Skin.String(CustomBackground)]</texture>
            <colordiffuse>BackgroundColor</colordiffuse>
        </control>
        <!-- Background Video -->
        <control type="videowindow">
            <include>Background_Video</include>
        </control>
        <control type="image">
            <include>Background_Video</include>
            <texture fallback="background.png" diffuse="diffuse_fanart.png">$INFO[Skin.String(CustomBackground)]</texture>
            <colordiffuse>Home2FanartDiffuse</colordiffuse>
        </control>
        <control type="image">
            <include>Background_Video</include>
            <texture diffuse="diffuse_invert.png" fallback="background.png">$INFO[Skin.String(CustomBackground)]</texture>
        </control>
        <!-- Faint Background Video -->
        <control type="videowindow">
            <include>Faint_Background_Video</include>
        </control>
        <control type="image">
            <include>Faint_Background_Video</include>
            <texture fallback="background.png" diffuse="diffuse_fanart.png">$INFO[Skin.String(CustomBackground)]</texture>
            <colordiffuse>VideoDiffuse</colordiffuse>
        </control>
        <control type="image">
            <include>Faint_Background_Video</include>
            <texture diffuse="diffuse_invert.png" fallback="background.png">$INFO[Skin.String(CustomBackground)]</texture>
        </control>
    </include>

And in my home for example, which is based on MacGuyver's horizontal home menu I have

Code:

        <!-- Main menu background -->
        <control type="image">
            <include>Dimensions_Fullscreen</include>
            <include>Animation_CommonFade</include>
            <include>Animation_FadedByMenu</include>
            <fadetime>200</fadetime>
            <texture background="true" diffuse="diffuse_fanart.png">$INFO[Container(9000).ListItem.Icon]</texture>
            <colordiffuse>Home2FanartDiffuse</colordiffuse>
            <visible>!Player.HasVideo</visible>
        </control>

The other thing I had to do was add the visibility of background fanart to also be conditional on !Player.HasVideo

[DProudmoore]

Oh, this is the diffuse_invert.png that's mentioned in that code:



And an example of what it looks like:

[MacGyver]

Looks good. I wish you had modified a newer version of include_home3, like the one from "consolidated-home" or "personal". The one you used was from an early test build, that's why it doesn't match well.
The newer version looks like this.