[Jeroen]

Warning
As of now, this release of reFocus is not compatible with XBMC nightly builds anymore. Please use this skin on the XBMC 13 Gotham release only. XBMC 14 Helix compatible builds of reFocus will be made available soon in a separate thread.

Introduction
Hello...

I think it's time for a new thread now that development of reFocus has picked up again.

As I wrote in the old release thread, about 8 months ago I started work on what would become a big update for the skin, but I never managed to get it ready for public release. Real life got in the way and I didn't touch the code for months. About a month ago I slowly commenced work on it again, aiming for an XBMC 13 Gotham compatible release of reFocus.

So that's where we are now. I consider reFocus to be in active development, but I will focus on milestone releases like I described here.

There's too many changes to list here. I don't even remember what was done before and after reFocus 0.9.5, so you'll just have to find out.

I have moved the pre-Gotham version of reFocus to a separate Frodo branch on my Github. That version will not receive any further updates or fixes.

- This new verion of reFocus is Gotham only. Do not attempt to install this version of reFocus on any previous XBMC version as it is completely incompatible!

Known Issues
- If weather fanart is enabled, but the user has not set a path to a weather fanart pack, a black background will be shown in the weather screen instead of a fallback image
- Some dialogs (notification and library update progress) should move to the side with the main windows when options menu is open
- The TV Guide/ TV Next Aired add-on window currently only supports the week view. Support for the new extended view will probably supported some day, but it's not a priority and a lot of work
- In the PVR, switching through the side menu the first time after having entered the PVR will produce unwanted animations of the main content area.

There's probably more, but these are the ones I noted / noticed

PVR Support
It's likely the PVR support has some quircks. I have no PVR setup, and I can only test what the PVR Demo Add-on can provide. Since I personally have no need for a PVR either, I am completely dependant on which bugs are reported and what I am able to test.

Required
XBMC 13 Gotham

Required add-ons
To get the most out of reFocus the following add-ons are required. These add-ons should be installed automatically when you install the skin. If they are not, please install manually using the links below. Certain skin features will not be available if one or more of these add-ons are not installed on your system.

• Skin Shortcuts
  Download
  
• Watchlist
  Download
  
• Library Data Provider
  Download
  
• Fanart Grabber
  Information
  Download
  
• Artwork Downloader
  Information
  Download
  
• TV Next Aired
  Information
  Download
  
• Artist Slideshow
  Information
  Download
  

Supported add-ons
The following add-ons are not required but the skin does have support built-in. You will need to install these manually through XBMC's Add-on Browser.

• TV Tunes
  Information
  
• Cinema Experience
  Information
  
• CU LRC Lyrics
  Information
  

Recommendations

• If you want to use the weather fanart support in reFocus I recommend this really nice pack by Dr.Toxic:
  
• If you are a PVR user, get this nice TV + radio channel logo pack by Butchabay
  
• Or these (mainly focused on the Dutch community)
  
• And more international logo's here
  

Planned features

• Fanart grabber customization (choose what fanart type you want on the homescreen, e.g. video, music or mixed) [completed]
  
• Further integration of TV Next Aired add-on information into library views
  
• more
  

Considered features

• More homescreen / shelf configurations
  

What will not be added

• Discart / Extrafanart / Exrathumbs
  
• Watched flags
  
• Backgrounds / fanart that change based on selected home menu item
  

Thank you

• The reFocus translators http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=187505
  
• robweber for his great help and feature support with his Fanart Grabber add-on
  
• Unfledged for creating the Watchlist add-on for reFocus and the great help and support
  
• Team XBMC
  
• My colleague skinners for their help and advice
  
• Anyone else contributing to XBMC in any way
  

Download / install
Instructions are available here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=187222


Screenshots

watch gallery

Donations
If you enjoy my work and would like to buy me a beer to show your appreciation, it is appreciated greatly.

[Galefury]

Finally ! Thanks, man !

LE: I get a "dependencies not met" message. I use gotham beta 3.

[kaiseruk]

my log said it was missing this, installed it and all was ok

https://github.com/BigNoid/service.libra...a.provider



Have just started using skin and setting up home menu. Have found a couple of issues:
when you go to customize home menu > tv shows, i cant go down past watchlist.
no epg information is displayed when using the pseudotv live addon (i'm using the defualt skin option)

lastly, is it possible to hide the "working" nofitication when a video is loading?


oh and thanks for the skin!

[WhiteHartMart]

Working great on Beta 3 here? Need some time to see all of the new layout but looks fantastic so far. Thank you.

[JoostXBMC]

Super! When i get home from work im going to install it! Thnx

[pettson3816]

Does it include the new horizontal menu? I'm at work right now so I can't try it out until tonight.

[Galefury]

First: wow ! Looks awesome ! Second: a few bugs I notice: like kaiseruk said, you can't go past watchlist in customise\home menu\tv shows, but you can go the other direction. In movies, cast button does nothing. In tv shows, i use banners for tv shows and slide for episodes, but when going back to tv shows it only shows background with no info and then home menu. And a suggestion: add finish time in pause screen. Thanks.

[Jeroen]

when you go to customize home menu > tv shows, i cant go down past watchlist.

Fixed on Git, thanks.

no epg information is displayed when using the pseudotv live addon (i'm using the defualt skin option)

Afaik PseudoTV uses built in skins? Not sure as I don't use it, but in any case there is nothing included in reFocus that has something to do with PseudoTV.

lastly, is it possible to hide the "working" nofitication when a video is loading?

Possible yes, but it's not going to be changed. There needs to be an indication of XBMC loading content. There used to be an animation instead, but because of: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/4212 I changed it to a scrolling label.

---

In movies, cast button does nothing.

In the movie information dialog? It's working on my end, you should be able to go down to enter the cast list.

In tv shows, i use banners for tv shows and slide for episodes, but when going back to tv shows it only shows background with no info and then home menu.

Forgot to undo something, should be fixed on git.

And a suggestion: add finish time in pause screen. Thanks.

Yeah, good call. I'll put it on my list.

[knewknow]

Looking good, and really smooth

Few bugs:
- Unwatched flag doesn't show on thumbnails view. It's turned on in the view settings
- In Customize Home Menu, search, favourites and disc need to be enabled to not show (others may have same problem)
- when I turn on TV Shows in home menu with any browse options (eg. Watchlist), I get two TV Shows entries on the home screen. One with the browse arrow and another without.

You really outdid yourself with the look and feel of this skin. Good f'n job

Also, any plans for Smart Playlists to be an option on the main menu? I typically make 2 in TV shows to keep certain items separate, without having to browse videos to get to them (confusing, and an extra step).

[Martijn]

Noticed that by default only 3 menu items are enabled. Could be a bit confusing at first when switching to this skin if you already have movies/tvshows/music set up

[FREAKJAM]

Congrats on the release Jeroen, awesome work.

I was actually expecting the new horizontal menu in this release. Did u abandon the idea? I was actually really liking the new menu.

[schumi2004]

Noticed that by default only 3 menu items are enabled. Could be a bit confusing at first when switching to this skin if you already have movies/tvshows/music set up

Noticed the same thing.
For test I activated LiveTV only but it doesn't appear in main menu.

/edit
It seems you need to enable it in Customize main menu

[Jeroen]

To the people missing items in the home screen, did you install it over an older version ?

I had the same problem on one of my devices. Turned out to be related to old settings in guisettings.xml

Same goes for unwatched flags.


It's working for me on multiple profiles, but will investigate later.

[knewknow]

To the people missing items in the home screen, did you install it over an older version ?

I had the same problem on one of my devices. Turned out to be related to old settings in guisettings.xml

Same goes for unwatched flags.


It's working for me on multiple profiles, but will investigate later.

I just tried it out on a fresh userdata folder and the missing items seemed to work, but unwatched flags still not showing up.

Edit: what I meant was the missing menu items search/disc etc. options were working. It still only started with 3 menu items

[Martijn]

To the people missing items in the home screen, did you install it over an older version ?

I had the same problem on one of my devices. Turned out to be related to old settings in guisettings.xml

Same goes for unwatched flags.


It's working for me on multiple profiles, but will investigate later.

afaik it was a fresh install. Could still be something remaining from any previous install as this on my test system but it also gets cleaned regularly.
Also tried with fresh guisettings and main menu remains empty except for system/favourites/search