[thedeadman]

@solbero: Good point on the addons labels, will change them

@Sp@ce_Boy: I'm keen not to go berserk with user settings, but colour themes would be a nice addition.. On the contrast thing, that's easy enough - are we talking a little or a lot? I can point in the right direction of a value you can change to experiment a bit if you like?

@CharredChar: Yep, you're absolutely right. Have fixed for the next update. Thanks!

@gizmotoy, Mozillion: There's obviously a control missing somewhere. I'll check the latest confluence and see if I can pin it down.

@tnfenster: Sorry mate, I totally failed to reply to your PM didn't I? Diff's would be fine. you can mail them to me at chris 'at' chrisbevan.co.uk if that's easiest.

To all, I've a fair bit on the list but will try and get an update out in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, the latest code can always be found on my GIT staging branch.

[thedeadman]

Hi all,

I've just created a couple of new threads for bug reports / feature requests to try and keep things manageable!

[voip-ninja]

Probably dumb question but is there no ability to modify the views when for example I am looking at movies? I have been looking around and can find no way to change out of list view using the left side menu where views can be changed in other XBMC skins.

[Mozillion]

@voip-ninja, as part of the design this skin has fixed views, so you are correct that you cannot find them.
As noted in the feature thread, this will never be changed.

[thelatejc]

Wonderful skin mate, really great job.

Just wanted to let you know that "Log Off _profile_" does not work on my system. Have a look into it for a potential bug if you like.

Thanks.

[thedeadman]

Thanks @thelatejc. I've fixed up the logoff option and will include on next release (or download now from my GIT staging branch)

[Zept]

Hi, great skin. Use it on all my xbmc devices. But I have been trying to add some different backgrounds from the original four. Anyone that can tell me where to save them, so I can locate them in the skin settings?

[Sp@ce_Boy]

@Sp@ce_Boy: I'm keen not to go berserk with user settings, but colour themes would be a nice addition.. On the contrast thing, that's easy enough - are we talking a little or a lot? I can point in the right direction of a value you can change to experiment a bit if you like?

@thedeadman:
For contrast, it's hard for me to guess if it's a lot or a little (I would like to think my eye sight is not THAT bad and that I only need a little). I think it's also possible that just a change of colour might "fix" the problem for me too. I would definitely like to experiment with both contrast and colour tweaking. If you could PM some pointers on where to look in the code that would be great. Thank you

For video OSD, I understand you not wanting to go beserk with settings, upon some reflection: could the video OSD detect that it's on top of something and just move by itself? (I understand this might be a huge undertaking and therefore not worth the effort. Just throwing ideas)

Cheers

[solbero]

@Zept - You can change the background from 'Settings-Apperance-Skin-Settings-Global background image'. If you click that last item, you can then browse for custom images. Unfortunately, the skin does not remember your custom path location (Skin bug or XBMC bug, @thedeadman?), so you have to re-browse every time.

To solve this, you can place your backgrounds in the skin background folder. It is located at '/storage/.xbmc/addons/skin.maximinimalism/extras/backgrounds/'.

EDIT: The path above is valid for OpenELEC and for Linux in general it should be '~/.xbmc/addons/skin.maximinimalism/extras/backgrounds/'.

[User 184778]

Or "C:\Users\account_name\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\addons\skin.maximinimalism\extras\backgrounds\" if you are using windows.

[Mozillion]

For me, but I also know from experience/background that, consistency in a UI is very important, so I have two points of (positive) criticism:

Highlights
As also mentioned before, highlights are not always very clear, but they also not very consistent... I found four variants

1. inverted video (for passive highlights, i.e. greyish white background with white text, e.g. addon settings)
   
2. "inverted inverted" (used in case of white bars, i.e. highlighted text on black background, e.g. shutdown dialog)
   
3. brighter color (lighter white, not always very visibile in a light room, e.g. system settings),
   
4. textual markers (i.e. using [...] around a label, e.g. fullscreen video menu)
   

Scrollability
I am sometimes surprised to find out that it are more items than are visible in the initial view... these views are so nicely aligned that almost never stuff is cut off, but that also means that you don't know that there is more. Examples are: subtitles providers.. I had configured 5 of them, I only saw 4 and hadn't realized there was one out of the viewport or list of albums in music genres (if only one is on the next page the alphabet sorting seems to suggest you see all of them); lists of albums/artists etc. despite the Page N/total label at the bottom, which I seem to look at when scrolling but not to check if I can scroll.

This could also be handled by having a passive scrollbar (as far as I have seen there is always space for that as there is already (surprise) an active scrollbar if you move to the right).

There are just my 2 cents for this amazingly nice skin. Do with it what you will!

[thedeadman]

@Sp@ce_Boy:
You can tweak the colour settings by editing colors/defaults.xml. The value for 'unselected' is the one you want. Note that the colours follow the format TTRRGGBB (T - transparency) try ff818181 or ff616161 to experiment with darkening.

I'll have a go at auto shifting the status bar. In principle it's doable, but sometimes XBMC throws a curveball in that certain things are 'allowed' to happen in some areas of the UI but not others.

@solbero, @zept: The backgrounds setting defaults to /extras/backgrounds as you say (I wanted to offer a few alternatives that were easy for users to reach). You can hit back a few times to navigate to a more accessible folder for images if you wish. Unfortunately XBMC does not seem to retain the last directory path.

@Mozillion
I couldn't agree with you more mate, consistency is king when it comes to UI. There are bits of the skin that are a hangover from previous design ideas and they do need squashing now that the overall aesthetic is relatively stable. I'm pretty militant about stuff like that - i'm glad others feel the same way.
Ditto, providing better Indicators for further content has been on my list for a while - i'll bump it up the list.

[picaresqu3]

@picaresqu3: I looked into cinema experience a while back. I'll have another look at it and will get back to you.

All you need is to add a button to the menu in DialogVideoInfo.xml that has the following (of course give the button an id and label and style it however you want etc.).

PHP Code:

<control type="button">
    <onclick>Dialog.Close(MovieInformation)</onclick>
    <onclick>XBMC.RunScript(script.cinema.experience,movieid=$INFO[ListItem.DBID])</onclick>
    <visible>system.hasaddon(script.cinema.experience) + Container.Content(movies)</visible>
</control> 


Its just a script that plays things like trailers before the movie to make it feel more like being in the cinema. It doesn't need anything special - just a way to launch it for the selected movie.

So apparently my subscription emails stopped coming to me and I totally missed this. Thanks! Can't wait to try it out.

[thedeadman]

Yeah, it seems to work fine on my latest code. Quickest way to add it is as a listitem on list id 8000:

Code:

<item>
<onclick>Dialog.Close(MovieInformation)</onclick>
<onclick>XBMC.RunScript(script.cinema.experience,movieid=$INFO[ListItem.DBID])</onclick>
<visible>system.hasaddon(script.cinema.experience) + Container.Content(movies)</visible>
<label>Cinema Experience</label>
</item>

You'll probably want to increase the height of the control to '7-row' too.

[picaresqu3]

Yeah, it seems to work fine on my latest code. Quickest way to add it is as a listitem on list id 8000:

Code:

<item>
<onclick>Dialog.Close(MovieInformation)</onclick>
<onclick>XBMC.RunScript(script.cinema.experience,movieid=$INFO[ListItem.DBID])</onclick>
<visible>system.hasaddon(script.cinema.experience) + Container.Content(movies)</visible>
<label>Cinema Experience</label>
</item>

You'll probably want to increase the height of the control to '7-row' too.

That's awesome, thanks guys!