[anandus]

Started using this mod/skin since this week and I absolutely love it!

[Amra]

Started using this mod/skin since this week and I absolutely love it!

Thanks, I always appreciate kind words.

For you and anyone else who may be following this thread, I'm finishing up the next big version and hope to post it sometime next week, probably by next weekend. I'm just doing some testing and minor formatting fixes.

After it is posted, I will try to figure out the new Addons for the next release post XBMC 10.5

Here is a short list of what has been changed/fixed/added since the last version, as well as a few preview images.

Code:

- Fixed some formatting issues with RSS Feeds turned on
- Fixed Episode view overlay alignment
- Fixed animation on Landscape view
- Added Hitcher's April 12 fixes/updates
- Added Low List view for video
- Added Media Info views for video
- Added option to use TV Show Logos by mcborzu
- Added over 70 Anime Studio logos (thanks/credit bambi73)
- Added/Fixed some Media Flags Video Source code
- Added fallback images for banner & landscape Tv images
- Added option to hide TV Show Episode/Unwatched totals
- Added two optional video case overlays (DVD & Clear). Thanks/credit to Dr Stranger@XBMCForums and manicho@DeviantArt
- Increased font size slightly for Episode view nonfocused items

Below are the optional DVD cases in various views.
.

If you don't like the DVD cases, there is an alternate Clear case option. Note that both the DVD cases & Clear cases are OPTIONAL.


I've also added a few more Video views. The first one below, Low List, has quickly become one of my favorite views.


And I just finished coding two Media Info views (Media Info & Media Info List).
.

[tuckbodi]

Hi Amra, nice job as always. Kudo's to you and Hitcher for bringing Alaska (& mod's) this far.

Quick question (going off the top of my head here as not in front of my ATV). I've started to use Ember Media Manager to get my artwork, etc. I think it was your mod (or maybe the core Alaska) which uses banner.jpg for TV Shows but Ember does not output a banner.jpg. I have to go into every TV Show folder and dupe the folder.jpg and make it banner.jpg in order for your mod to show the wide banners. Is this something standard, or just in Alaska, and/or can I change this somewhere?

Thx

[Amra]

Hi Amra, nice job as always. Kudo's to you and Hitcher for bringing Alaska (& mod's) this far.

Quick question (going off the top of my head here as not in front of my ATV). I've started to use Ember Media Manager to get my artwork, etc. I think it was your mod (or maybe the core Alaska) which uses banner.jpg for TV Shows but Ember does not output a banner.jpg. I have to go into every TV Show folder and dupe the folder.jpg and make it banner.jpg in order for your mod to show the wide banners. Is this something standard, or just in Alaska, and/or can I change this somewhere?

Thx

The banner.jpg is something that has been added just for Alaska so Ember won't help with it. I believe there was a mod in the Alaska forum posted by someone originally & then Hitcher added it to Alaska Revisited, then I liked the idea & added it to BIG Alaska.

The best way to handle the banner.jpg files is just to go to thetvdb.com, look up a show, find a banner you like, click on it & then save it to your TV Show's folder as "banner.jpg"

I know that may sound like a PITA but it really doesn't take that long. I have approx 120 TV shows & I did it in one evening when first setting up BIG Alaska. After that, just remember to do it for each new show you add to your library.

FYI... The new version of BIG Alaska I mentioned above will have a fallback image for banner & landscape views in case you miss one or two.

[Sno Crash]

Hello,

I'm using the Big Alaska mod and wanted to know how to make a minor tweak to the music playback.

When playing a series of tracks, the skin will automatically highlight the playing track in red, but the "focus" does not follow to that track. What I'd like is to have the thumbnail and fanart refresh as if that track has been selected.

Try this as an example: I started out selecting Track 2. It's highted, with thumbnail and fanart. When Track 2 finishes and moved on to Track 3, the focus doesnt follow or refresh that data.

Possible to make modification?

[gobbledigook]

looking forward to the new release

i would like to second the idea of having the now playing list for music focus on the current track

[Sno Crash]

Hello,

I'm using the Big Alaska mod and wanted to know how to make a minor tweak to the music playback.

When playing a series of tracks, the skin will automatically highlight the playing track in red, but the "focus" does not follow to that track. What I'd like is to have the thumbnail and fanart refresh as if that track has been selected.

Try this as an example: I started out selecting Track 2. It's highted, with thumbnail and fanart. When Track 2 finishes and moved on to Track 3, the focus doesnt follow or refresh that data.

Possible to make modification?

I just got a clarification on this from the main forum from one of the devs. It's not possible, and its actually quite a bad idea in reality. You don't want track focus changing on you when you try to navigate somewhere else.

The real answer to this dilema is by having FanArt in the Visualization screen. That's the most logical place to have artwork update based on what is playing.

So, the real question is - how do we get music FanArt as a Visualization setting in the Big Alaska skin?

[Amra]

New version is up. Info & link can be found in post#1, otherwise here is the direct link:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/idwl5tjzm2...0100517.7z

A lot of additions have been made, check the change log in post#1 for the details. Note that this version does NOT have Addon support yet, I am waiting for the XBMC 10.5 release before doing anything with that.

Enjoy & let me know If I screwed anything up.

[Feanorean]

Looks amazing so far, thank you!

[tuckbodi]

Note that this version does NOT have Addon support yet, I am waiting for the XBMC 10.5 release before doing anything with that.

When you say this do you mean just that it doesn't have its description.xml file setup to be seen by the addons manager or is there other complications/implications with the skin, and the latest svn's, if we do this ourselves?

[Amra]

When you say this do you mean just that it doesn't have its description.xml file setup to be seen by the addons manager or is there other complications/implications with the skin, and the latest svn's, if we do this ourselves?

I mean that if you use this version with the latest XBMC SVN, it will not have an "Add-ons" screen in settings. It will still work but you will need to change the skin to Confluence in order to access the Addons settings and then back to BIG Alaska when done.

I actually included the addons.xml & description.xml files in the zip so if you want to use it with the latest SVN then just rename the "BIG Alaska" folder to "skin.big.alaska" and put it in the latest XBMC SVN "addons" folder (where you should see a "skin.confluence" folder already).

I'm sure you are already aware, but to anyone else out there thinking it would be cool to try the latest XBMC SVN, be careful & back up your XBMC database first as the current SVN changes the database & you can not revert simply by installing an earlier XBMC version.

[tuckbodi]

I mean that if you use this version with the latest XBMC SVN, it will not have an "Add-ons" screen in settings. It will still work but you will need to change the skin to Confluence in order to access the Addons settings and then back to BIG Alaska when done.

Gotcha

I actually included the addons.xml & description.xml files in the zip so if you want to use it with the latest SVN then just rename the "BIG Alaska" folder to "skin.big.alaska" and put it in the latest XBMC SVN "addons" folder (where you should see a "skin.confluence" folder already).

Saw your files already..thx for doing that. FYI, on the AppleTV version, skin.confluence is actually in the package addons folder, and not in the Application Support/addons folder. Just wanted to clarify in case people get confused when they don't see it.

I'm sure you are already aware, but to anyone else out there thinking it would be cool to try the latest XBMC SVN, be careful & back up your XBMC database first as the current SVN changes the database & you can not revert simply by installing an earlier XBMC version.

Yep..there's no looking back!

[Mikesch]

Really like your mod, but i got a problem with it: In Poster view, endless or normal doesn't matter, everything is very jerky. Every other view is perfectly normal, Poster view in Alaska unmodded is also without issues. Any idea what to do? I would really like to use your mod, but only with Poster View and like this, it's not useable.

[Darkcloud28]

im lost ( no matter what i do , i cant import my extra icons - settings , i copy them from the old one and added them into Includes , and then add extra png into homeicons filder , but they not showing up ...
this is what im adding ...
- <item id="12">
<description>Favorites</description>
<label>Favorites</label>
<icon>homeicons/Favoritesicon.png</icon>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(Favourites)</onclick>
</item>
- <item id="13">
<description>NEW</description>
<label>FRESH</label>
<icon>homeicons/FRESH.png</icon>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10025,videodb://4/)
- <item id="15">
<description>TRAILERS</description>
<label>TRAILERS</label>
<icon>homeicons/zwiastuny.png</icon>
<onclick>ActivateWindow(10024,plugin://video/Apple Movie Trailers Lite/)</onclick>
</item>


and i always did this and it worked before ....

if i can get help , it will be so cool.

[Amra]

Really like your mod, but i got a problem with it: In Poster view, endless or normal doesn't matter, everything is very jerky. Every other view is perfectly normal, Poster view in Alaska unmodded is also without issues. Any idea what to do? I would really like to use your mod, but only with Poster View and like this, it's not useable.

If you haven't already, try turning off the Poster Fanart and do not turn on eaither the DVD Cases or the Clear Cases in the BIG Alaska settings. They will slow things down due to all the extra art. The cases will also wreak havoc with the Panel view due to the extra graphics and so many movies on screen at once.