Media Center SE

[MFan]

SE is for simple addition. This is intended mainly for viewing/listening to media. It is designed to be used with a remote. Here is the main menu screen:



Here are the 3 screens for the movie module:







I have reworked the graphics from an earlier post and will probably refine them further. Other that simplicity, there is not much new here, except psosibly the use of cell phone type data entry in the search screen.

I am working on the music and video sections. PPC screens will follow.

Don

[m_ski]

MFan,

I really like the look of this skin and very much look forward to downloading it when you post it. It looks perfect - nice and simple for the wife and the kids, and should work well on an SDTV.

m_ski

[jmb295]

MFan,

I really like the look, clean and simple. And remote control will be very easy with it. Looking forward to giving it a test!

[MFan]

Here are some screens with more refined graphics:

Movies:

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Music:





Photos:



Weather:





Videos:



A more complete set of the screens can be seen at:

http://webpages.charter.net/mfan/xlobby/

Shown on this page are the music screens for the ppc. I am working on ppc screens for other functions.

As noted earlier, this set was designed for use with a remote control. In fact, the functionality on the music details screen and the music queue screen will not work when using a mouse or touchscreen.

I have a few more items to work out with the automation of the screens, but they are close to being ready. In conjunction with these screens, I can provide a girder .gml file to use with a firefly remote.

There is one other item that needs to be resolved before these screens can be used - the keyboard/remote support on abc overlay screens bug must be resolved. Hopefully Steven is working on this in response to a thread in the bug reporting forum.

Don

[MFan]

I have uploaded files so that anyone who wants to try this skin may do so. Down load the main files from:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/MediaCenterSE.zip

A girder file to use a firefly remote to control MediaCenterSE is available at:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/xlobby%20girder%20file.zip

This girder file also provides the functionality to allow girder to determine whether the firelfly should control winamp, zoomplay or Sagetv, based on where the MediaCenterSE skins are at. The fireplay plugin must be added to girder and, alas, the firefly plugin requires girder 3.3, which is the version you must play $20 for. This girder file also provides cellphone keypad functionality. You can use this for Sagetv, but not currently with xlobby.

Option #1: The skin, as downloaded, is designed to be used with a remote. The musicviewer and musicqueue skins will not work properly with a mouse or touchscreen. Mouse and/or touchscreen users should download the files below, unzip them and replace the musicviewer and musicqueue files in the MediaCenterSE directory with the newly unzipped files:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/Mouse%20Music.zip

This skin is designed for 1024 x 768. I noticed from other posts that 800 x 600 seems to be recommended and popular for use with sdtv displays. I am working on an 800 x 600 set of skins and will post them soon.

If you try this out and find any bugs or functionality that seems inappropriate, please let me know.

Don

[m_ski]

Looking good MFan,

had some difficulties initially as all of the categories were appearing as text but I changed this to thumbnails and it basically works. The selection boxes were not working, so I had to copy the xresource button images from another skin - did you forget to include these?

Also, the text size appears to be slightly different to whay you intended by default (see image) as it doesn't quite line-up with the backgrounds.

The buttons top right to determine what to do when you select an item seem to have shrunk down to almost zero size as well - not sure if this is something to do with my setup as I am still a bit of a novice.

It sounds like I am making a lot of criticism but this is a really great skin and will suit my needs perfectly, I think, once I get it working properly on my system.

Thanks for the hard work - I am looking forward to the 800x600 version as I will shortly be migrating my HTPC into the living room with SDTV and remote control.



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[MFan]

m ski,

Are you using 1024 x 768 resolution? If not, this may be the problem. I have noticed that if you are using categories with the per cent spacing, changing from one resolution to another really jacks the image, something like what you are showing. I tried this on 3 different 1024 x 768 computers and my tv and it worked well. Let me know what resolution you are using. Maybe this can be fixed by adjusting the spacing.

The intent was to use text for all of the queuing and playlist selection screens. I did not put the xresource in. I had intended to use the outlining that would appear at the left side of the category box - this is the musicdetails_selected button. Maybe I should modify this to show a box around the title, in addition to around the selected click action.

I may be delayed in responding as my internet access has been some what problematical.

Don

[m_ski]

Thanks MFan,

I have now solved the problem though - it was because I only updated to the latest xlobby.exe after loading your skin in. I guess because the older exe did not support some of the functions you were using it removed them, then when i updated the features were not in place.

It is all working well now and looking very good indeed.

[MFan]

m_ski,

Glad to hear that you got the skin running, although I do not know which features I used that were recently added to xlobby. Let me know of anything you think should be changed.

Here is the skin for 800 x 600:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/MediaCenter800.zip

For touchscreen or keyboard/mouse users, add these files, replacing the existing versions:

http://www.xlobby.com/files/MFan/Mouse%20Music%20800.zip

I am working on additional ppc screens to round out the set and a few 'improvements' I think are warranted. More later.

Don

[gu5tav0]

This is a great skin and perfect for me (remote and sdtv user). However, I am having a problem with the music browser. My music database is organized by Artist-->Album. When I press the artist button on the skin it displays the artist correctly. But, when I hit enter on any of the artists, it sends me straight to the first album. I can see for a split second, all of the albums. However, there is no way to get to any other album than the first. I am pretty sure my database is fine and Artist-->Album browsing works fine under the Heavymetal skin.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated because I would really like to use this skin.

Thanks

[MFan]

gu5tav0,

I can not duplicate this with my music database. I have my database configured in such a manner that each album is a file folder entitled with the artist and album name. From your post, I understand it that you have a folder for each artist and that within that folder are a collection of folders with one folder for each album by that artist. Please let me know if this is the correct interpretation.

I will load the heavy metal skin, which I borrowed from, and see how the artist screen differs from mine. May be time to borrow some more.

Over the next day or 2, I will build a small music test file in the manner I described above and see what should be done to make the artist screen work more universally.

Don

[gu5tav0]

@MFan

My music is organized where first I see a list of artists, the next level is a list of albums, then tracks.

I somewhat fixed the problem:

I navigated to the music page where all the artists are listed. Then I opened the skin editor and click on the artists field (area where all of the artist or album coverart is shown). I changed the event from "goto:music viewer" to "music:album open". This did the trick.

However, It is still a little querky for me. The default view of my music has no text to label the artists (just coverart). When I press the artists button, all artist text is displayed. Next, when I choose an artist all albums are displayed. But, the text under each album says "various artists". I am assuming this is because I use the "album open" event to display the albums and that makes xlobby think all albums under one artist are grouped together but have multipled album names (not sure if that makes sense, but it is hard to explain).

[MFan]

gu5tav0,

I looked at the heavymetal skin and the difference between that and mediacenter is that there is no event assigned to the category. I am not sure why I assigned musicviewer as the display screen in the category and added an event to do the same thing. Probably, try the skin without any event for the category - I will make this change to my set.

This change should cuase the action to be the same as heavymetal's. Since I apparently don't have my music database set up the same as yours, I am asking you to test this out and let me know. I think I understand how your music database is set-up (the same as I described in my earlier post?) and will try to do the test I alluded to earlier.

Don

[m_ski]

MFan,

I have been learning a lot about xlobby skinning in the last few days thru looking at your skin and the more I look the more I realise how complicated yet powerful it all is. I think it would have taken me an absolute age to come up with a skin of my own.

However, I do have a few comments about your skin which I think would improve it - and I don't yet have the skills to do it properly myself.
* The current selection in most of the category displays (albums, playlist, pictures etc..) needs to be more obvious. The green outline is good but just not really clear enough for use on a TV from the couch.
* When in the album details screen the album track needs to be highlighted as well as the current selected button as these are very small highlights.
* When scrolling Right to Left in the top line of the music screens catergory display the text for the current album at the top of the screen updates in two halfs due to the overlapping with the category display (This is on a 1GHz laptop so it may be better on my home PC - I am away from home on business for 2 weeks at the moment so won't be able to try for a while)

Thanks for all your hard work.

[gu5tav0]

@MFan

I'll test it out when I get of work this evening; thanks for the suggestion.