New Skinning Guide

[Colby]

SO I am currently in the process of a new skinning guide. I am wondering what specific or general things one might want added or to be covered for sure. I have a good idea but I dont want to leave anything out, so please respond.

[rembetis]

Well, in addition to the requisite visual "quick-start" guide to all the tabs/menus and options (the first skinning guide seems a little out of date on this front), I'd love to see a step-by-step guide for building your own skin. No need to cover really advanced topics (the forum can do that), just an outline of steps taken, in the order the demands the least amount of backtracking.

T(hanks) I(n) A(dvance)...

[rhinoman]

Dont foegt the basic's, things like cut, paste, select a group, change a name etc.

[vicom]

Also : Tips and things to avoid when skinning (best practice)

[aviatika]

Is there a way to import a skin into an existing one?
Pleeeese

[Colby]

yes, kind of
what do you mean exactly?

[aviatika]

I have a skin doing all my automation, movies and music already. I've just got it right to do the TV part on the skin that was included in the plugin, Xltv. Now I want to combine the 2, but the commands and names of the screens and events are to similar, so I can't just add it. How can I rename without losing all the info?

[Colby]

I am not sure I completely understand, but you may end up editing the xml or creating a tv page in your skin. THats what I would do. Are you saying the eventgroup in the plugin would override the event group you have? if so edit the eventgroup name. Why would a plugin not integrate with what you have? Isnt that the point of a plugin. If names are the only problem change them. Like I said I dont fully see the picture.

[aviatika]

Thanks! You gave me the answer. So if I have a eventgroup in one skin called 'goto.xml' and in the other the same, all I have to do is to change the name of one of them?

[aviatika]

Another Q? I need to change my satelite decoder through girder. When I click on the channels on the epg, i got it to change the channels. But with scheduling, the command to K!TV is later and I do not know how to send the command to girder then. I can see there are triggers going to K!TV, could I hack them?

[anthro]

As a programmer, but never a GUI coder, I am trying to figure out the basics of using XLobby. I have read the skinning Xlobby document and I don't know what people did before that! It is a great help, but there is one "connecting the dots" piece that I can't get from it. As a programmer I understand the lower level stuff, but not how these two worlds link together.

To be specific, I just want to understand one particular set of connection logic to go from a button down through the layers of indirection to an event. If I get that I will be well on my way to at least asking better stupid questions! So as an example I took one button that I could trace up from the bottom. It is the "next forecast" button for Xoapweather.

If I go to the "Event Manager", ie Setup:Events in the F2 "Setup" screen I see an explorer like list of event categories. One of these is "weather". Under wether is a "next forecast" and if I click on that I have a "command" button. If I click on that then the window to the right "Commands" displays another explorer list that has an entry "plugin." In the "Plugin" window below is a Plugin Name drop down box with "XoapWeather" and a Command drop down box with "next forecast" in it. So far so good, this ties the SKINS "weather:next forecast" to the specific low level call to actually do some work and call the XoapWeather plugin.

So next I go to the Skin Editor to try and find a particular button that is attached to the "weather:next forecast" event. I know what button on the gui does this as it is the right arrow in the weather screen. But when I try and look for the definition of that button I do not find the connection to this event. I go to Category:Events and according to the documentation it says this is where it "Assigns an event from the event manager to the category." Here is where I expect to find weather:next forecast listed. It always says "No event assigned." It could be this is where you make the association but the editor does not give you the current association status?

I guess in summary the Skin editor does not represent a display of clear assignments of buttons to objects for me. I expect to click on a button or some object and see what image it has, what event it is assigned to. Can someone clear that up? Where can I find "weather:next forecast" other than in the Event Manager?

This is example would be a great Tutorial example for the newbie.

Well, in addition to the requisite visual "quick-start" guide to all the tabs/menus and options (the first skinning guide seems a little out of date on this front), I'd love to see a step-by-step guide for building your own skin. No need to cover really advanced topics (the forum can do that), just an outline of steps taken, in the order the demands the least amount of backtracking.

T(hanks) I(n) A(dvance)...

[WannaTheater]

Great news on new guide.

How about some detail on "Multi Screen Button" and "Show and Hide"
I also haven't been able to figure out "Allign" functions (probably because I don't know how to select multiple items )

[tswhite70]

anthro - If I understand your question correctly the Event link for the button is under Skin Editor\Item\Event\Click Event (http://xlobby.incolby.com/Skinning_Xlobby_3/event.html). The Category tab is for well... Categories, ie a display collection of objects from a particular XML database (movies, music, pics, etc). You can associate events with your categories using Category\Event.

WannaTheater - Multiscreen and Show&Hide are described here: http://xlobby.incolby.com/Skinning_Xlobby_3/advanced.html
Multiscreen is pretty self explanatory - create a button, select the screens you want it to show on. A good example of Show&Hide can found on just about every skins main page - as you move from movies to music to pics, etc the image that represents the button shows up on screen.

As for alignment SHIFT + Mouse Right Click and drag to select an area of the screen, all the objects in that area will be selected as a group. Then click the alignment button you want. You can also drag the whole set of buttons around the screen or copy (ctrl-c) them and paste them (ctrl-v) - you can even paste them to another Screen if you want.

Hope that helps...
tsw

[anthro]

Yes, this was a help, but there are a couple of specific things that do not add up. In the "element" skin there is a banner at the top with multiple buttons. When you select this banner the whole section is highlighted, not just each button. If you drag it all the buttons drag at once together. Yet each button has a different action. In the Skin Editor you don't have an action associated with each button because you can't select an individual button.

In other skins when you select a button it has an Event listed for it and it therefore makes sense. Is this some sort of overlay? Where do you see the right arrow association in the "element" skin with the weather:next forecast? With the "default" screen you select a button and it is in the tem\Event\Click Event as you stated.

- Daniel

anthro - If I understand your question correctly the Event link for the button is under Skin Editor\Item\Event\Click Event (http://xlobby.incolby.com/Skinning_Xlobby_3/event.html). The Category tab is for well... Categories, ie a display collection of objects from a particular XML database (movies, music, pics, etc). You can associate events with your categories using Category\Event.

WannaTheater - Multiscreen and Show&Hide are described here: http://xlobby.incolby.com/Skinning_Xlobby_3/advanced.html
Multiscreen is pretty self explanatory - create a button, select the screens you want it to show on. A good example of Show&Hide can found on just about every skins main page - as you move from movies to music to pics, etc the image that represents the button shows up on screen.

As for alignment SHIFT + Left Click and drag to select an area of the screen, all the objects in that area will be selected as a group. Then click the alignment button you want. You can also drag the whole set of buttons around the screen or copy (ctrl-c) them and paste them (ctrl-v) - you can even paste them to another Screen if you want.

Hope that helps...
tsw

[Marbles_00]

If I recall, the banner is a category. The person who created that skin created buttons within a category. Another skin, that has impressed me, that also does this is the MediaX2.xx skin. The buttons are built up within a database, and then you create a category and select that database to use. But the general concept of creating the buttons, and event, then tagging them together is the same. Only the event is tagged within the Setup/database editor. If you select your database to edit, then select the "Advanced" tab, you will see that you can tag events to your selected entry on the database.

I've always thought that is a concept.