[hoopsdavis]

Hoopadavis: Logo could be an option, why not

Jayz2K: Thanx for the idea, but the home menu remains on top, as Jurial and NOWALL already said, would be great having the window through the skin, BTW nice idea Jurial

Here is what i got:

butchabay, I like this look much better. This is what you should go with.

[jurialmunkey]

Really liking what you did with the text at the bottom and the highlight colour on clock and weather icon
Its looking really good!

I agree with Kokonutcreme about having the white top bar looks best. Though I'm sure it will be really easy to have a few colour themes to change that to suit preference e.g. Light/Light, Dark/Light, Dark/Dark

Personally I prefer the flags without the box (1st screen is def my fav).

[locomot1f]

following this skin.

i too am feelin' this skin more than equilibrium... love the use of the space, and the text.

[da-anda]

yes, media flags without boxes please.
Although I like flat and clean designs like this, it might still look good if you add a subtile dropshadow to the menu and title bar, so that the image looks moved slightly behind. It would also help as visual divider for mainly white fanarts when using the bright top menu. Only a very subtile dropshadow/vignetting though.

[butchabay]

That looks like a better use of the real estate along the lower bar than just a centred title. Would prefer a combination of the the third screenshot with the background panel behind the flags and the first with the same colour background of the menu bar and the bottom panel. People will have different preferences about the information displayed eg. codec flags, studio and runtime vs genres, rating and runtime.

I don't mind either.

As always Butch, a fan of your work.

butchabay, I like this look much better. This is what you should go with.

Really liking what you did with the text at the bottom and the highlight colour on clock and weather icon
Its looking really good!

I agree with Kokonutcreme about having the white top bar looks best. Though I'm sure it will be really easy to have a few colour themes to change that to suit preference e.g. Light/Light, Dark/Light, Dark/Dark

Personally I prefer the flags without the box (1st screen is def my fav).

following this skin.

i too am feelin' this skin more than equilibrium... love the use of the space, and the text.

yes, media flags without boxes please.
Although I like flat and clean designs like this, it might still look good if you add a subtile dropshadow to the menu and title bar, so that the image looks moved slightly behind. It would also help as visual divider for mainly white fanarts when using the bright top menu. Only a very subtile dropshadow/vignetting though.

Thanx for all your feedback, suggestions, critics etc.
@da-anda: A subtile dropshadow could be indeed a good idea ! I'll try it out ...

I agree with the majority and will keep the design, ofcourse with more color schemes to choose:

[Ovokx]

Awesome work butcha!!!

[N.O.W.A.L.L]

While the supper is cooking I just tried 3 quick mockups with poster on and plot autoscrolling ... this could appear automatically after some idle time on a title , like after 2 or 3 seconds.






Awww I just thought about the 4 columns. These should be customizable in the final release, for example with custom playlists (such as HD MOVIES), or GENRES, or RANDOM, KIDS MOVIES etc, so that everyone could have his needs satisfied (personaly I don't care about IN PROGRESS or TOP RATED).

[butchabay]

Nowall, i like the 3th one but don't think it's possible let a textbox scroll horizontally ... maybe something the 1st picture you've posted ? Let's see ...

Added a dropshadow as suggested da-anda and inverted Time / Date

[hoopsdavis]

While the supper is cooking I just tried 3 quick mockups with poster on and summary autoscrolling ... this could appear automatically after some idle time on a title , like after 2 or 3 seconds.




Awww I just thought about the 4 columns. These should be customizable in the final release, for example with custom playlists (such as HD MOVIES), or GENRES, or RANDOM, KIDS MOVIES etc, so that everyone could have his needs satisfied (personaly I don't care about IN PROGRESS or TOP RATED).

This looks great and I agree after a few seconds the cover and plot should appear.

As far as the 4 columns, I agree they should be customizable. I'm assuming if you click the "Movie" you'll see the full list of movies.

This is going to be a great skin

[N.O.W.A.L.L]

Nowall, i like the 3th one but don't think it's possible let a textbox scroll horizontally ...

I am pretty sure it is, I remember having an RSS feed scrolling from right to left on 1 lign in... hmmm don't remember the skin...
EDIT: well, Confluence!
the Wiki for XBMC RSS (Maybe you can recycle some code?)

I agree with the new shadows and date / time inversion, classy

[da-anda]

yikes, a black dropshadow. Coming a little from the drawing/digital painting area (not good at it but catched some do's and don'ts) shadows are never black, which is why the default Photoshop dropshadow looks like crap Given the red/orangeish highlight colour, I suggest to tone the shadow a little with this "light colour" - so make it a not too saturated red brownish thing. Should look better I suppose. It could also have more blur. Let me see - something like this maybe:


Shadow-Settings in Photoshop:
- inner shadow on the fanart (with the image mask wider than the canvas to hide the shadow on the sides)
- fill method solid
- colour #572b21
- opacity 70%
- distance 0
- overfill (überfüllen) 5%
- size 35px

[butchabay]

This looks great and I agree after a few seconds the cover and plot should appear.

As far as the 4 columns, I agree they should be customizable. I'm assuming if you click the "Movie" you'll see the full list of movies.

This is going to be a great skin

I am pretty sure it is, I remember having an RSS feed scrolling from right to left on 1 lign in... hmmm don't remember the skin...
EDIT: well, Confluence!
the Wiki for XBMC RSS (Maybe you can recycle some code?)

I agree with the new shadows and date / time inversion, classy

Well, the rss feed is not a textbox, so i doubt it's possible.
Yes the 4 Playlists can be customized to your liking

yikes, a black dropshadow. Coming a little from the drawing/digital painting area (not good at it but catched some do's and don'ts) shadows are never black, which is why the default Photoshop dropshadow looks like crap Given the red/orangeish highlight colour, I suggest to tone the shadow a little with this "light colour" - so make it a not too saturated red brownish thing. Should look better I suppose. It could also have more blur. Let me see - something like this maybe:


Shadow-Settings in Photoshop:
- inner shadow on the fanart (with the image mask wider than the canvas to hide the shadow on the sides)
- fill method solid
- colour #572b21
- opacity 70%
- distance 0
- overfill (überfüllen) 5%
- size 35px

Sorry i'm not confident with photoshop or such i have a white shadow using colordiffuse. Now i have set the color to CC572b21

[HassanTheGooner]

Looks great. I have a slight concern though.. will the text be big enough to read from the couch?

Btw, I think the pop up movie info in the latest screenshot should also have shadow?

[jurialmunkey]

Pop-up looks excellent! Agree that the pop-up should have a shadow also so that it appears that all the text elements are on the same level and the fanart is in the background. I was going to suggest that it would seem more natural to have the clock to the right of the date, but no need as you already done this in the latest screenies

[da-anda]

@butchabay - wow, so you don't previz anything in a graphical software? Impressive. Btw, have you noticed the other two small changes in my mockup Oh, and any concept where to place the power button? Will the top menu scroll? Also, PVR menu entry is missing. If you don't intend the top menu to scroll, an idea would be to use icons for system (gear-wheel) and power and move them to the top right corner.