Chad's Skin

by **chadwolcott** on Fri Dec 19, 2003 7:17 pm

Well, per Steven's request, I'm starting a thread regarding my skin. I'm new to skinning and xlobby in general so be gentle please. If you have any questions, comments, requests or problems please feel free to post them here.

It is a work in progress, so I suspect I'll be updating semi-regularly holidays (and family) permitting.

Chad

by **MFan** on Sat Dec 20, 2003 2:10 pm

Chad,

The skins you posted are very nice. Lots of good ideas to take away and some cool new buttons to use. I am grateful for your implementation of categories in your menu. Reverse engineering your application allows me to start learning how to use categories. I hope you do not mind my 'stealing with pride'.

Unfortunately, I guess I will now have to redo my relatively meager set of skins.

Thanks for your post,

Don

by **acemt01** on Sat Dec 20, 2003 6:37 pm

Chad,

How do you get a .jpg image of your screens. I would like to show what I have done with your skins. thanks.

Mark

by **jrg** on Sat Dec 20, 2003 10:57 pm

ace, just hit the pirnt screen button, mine is above the insert key. This put the image in your clipboard.

I just paste it into photoshop and save it as a jpeg.

by **chadwolcott** on Sun Dec 21, 2003 1:13 pm

I use a program called snagit for screen captures. It works very well

by **Roscoe62** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 5:51 am

Chad,

I've downloaded and applied your skin. It looks very good so far, but I can't find any way to edit the PPC skin. On the default skin the help button leads to a page where the PPC skin editor can be selected. Is there any way to edit the PPC skin on yours? I can't seem to find it.

Cheers
Ross

by **Roscoe62** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 6:28 am

Sorry!

Another group of questions.

In your readme.txt file you mention changing the location of the coverart in the buttons.xml file.

1) Does this mean that all the coverart has to exist in one place? I currently have coverart within each album/dvd directory within the main music/movie directories respectively....and also

2) All my coverart is in JPG format. It looks like the xml file is set up to look for .PNG files. Does the coverart have to be in PNG format?

3) Does it just choose an album/dvd cover at random? How does this work on your system?

4) I posted this question in the other thread, which has now been closed, but didn't get an answer from you - you have buttons for "play DVD" and "movies" - Sorry to appear slow but I don't really understand the distinction. Are some ripped movies and some offline, or are some DVD rips and others in a different format (avi, mpg), or is this a way to handle dvd discs sitting in the DVD-ROM drive?

Thanks again
Ross

by **chadwolcott** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 1:36 pm

1. No, the coverart that I mention in regards to the buttons.xml file is for the menu page only and has no impact on the movie page.

2. the xml file is using specific pngs that are in the buttons directory for the images on the right side of the screen in the menu area.

3. No it does not do this, see above.

4. Play DVD will launch Theatertek to play the DVD in the DVD drive, Movies will display whatever you have set up in the movies section. In my case it displays all my ripped movies and my DVDs (for searching purposes only).

by **MFan** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 5:18 pm

Roscoe,

Having opened up Chad's file, maybe I can clarify. Chad's instructions for changing the location of the picture files in the XML file applies if you do not have xlobby as a root directory. For example, I have xlobby as a folder in Program Files. Accordingly, I changed the references in Chad's XML file to be 'C:\Program Files\xlobby\... This will allow the skins to get the pictures that Chad intended. Of course, you can change the XML file to point to any pictures you like.

With this change, I was able to look at Chad's skins as he intended them.

I think this may have contributed to your confusion. I hope this helps.

Don

by **Roscoe62** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 6:56 pm

Don and Chad,

Thanks for the clarification! That does help. It looks like I'll have to modify the xml file as I also have xlobby sitting in the program files directory.

Can anyone recommend a good xml editor?

As far as question 4 goes YESSSSS!!!!! I've been waiting for this one! That's great news!

At the risk of asking too much, how hard would it be to set up a button to do the same thing for an inserted physical CD? - i.e. a "Play CD" button that lauches winamp to play an inserted CD but still allows control using the xlobby PPC buttons?

by **chadwolcott** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 8:10 pm

Sorry Roscoe but I don't think that's currently possible withoug using girder. I don't think winamp can accept a Play CD command via sendmessage. You have to use a WM_COMMAND to process that event so I think that's something Steven will need to add.

by **chadwolcott** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 8:32 pm

I'm sending an update to steven now. Here's a cut from my "changelog"

1. Changed almost all buttons to my "theme"
2. Removed Girder-controlled SageTV Screen, replaced with sendMessage commands
3. Added 3 new ppc screens, ppclivetv, ppcsageguide and ppcsagelibrary
4. recreated up/down/left/right/enter navigation buttons for all ppc screens that used them

by **Roscoe62** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 9:19 pm

Thanks Chad,

I'm sure I'll be able to set something up within Girder for that.

One last question. Editing your PPC screen skins - how is it done?

On Steven's default skin, access is through the main menu "help" button.

Is it possible to edit your PPC screens? If so how?

by **chadwolcott** on Mon Dec 22, 2003 10:50 pm

just open the skin editor and on the Go To Screen tab, select the screen you want to edit, easy as that

by **Roscoe62** on Tue Dec 23, 2003 12:04 am

Thanks for that.

By the way....my seeing-eye dog says hi!

Ross