New widescreen skin in progress, Carbon!

by **alleng** on Wed Sep 08, 2004 2:23 am

I am just starting to create a new skin. I only have a few screens done so far. I'm going for a very mininal feel. I think I will call it Carbon. :lol:

Here are some screens, please give me some feedback. :roll:

by **Colby** on Wed Sep 08, 2004 2:53 am

The layout is nice and clean. THe high contrast makes it easy to read. I cant say I care for the colors or font. It looks like it will be nice for remote navigation. There is just something missing... I cant put my finger on it. Is it texture or dropshadow or something? It all seems so flat and rectangular. What I would do is add some inner glow to the edges of the blue or a dropshadow to set the blue back a bit. Keep up the good work and if you need any help, holla.

by **alleng** on Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:59 am

What colors and fonts would work better? I don't have to use blue it is just easy to design with.

Also the blue is suposed to look like it is behind the carbon fiber, what does it need to help that effect.

by **Colby** on Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:26 pm

What program are you designing in?

Also the blue is suposed to look like it is behind the carbon fiber, what does it need to help that effect.

A simple more pronounced drop shadow would give that affect. (see pic)

I would use a thinner font, to mimic the thin white outlines on everything. Something like below. (the big title at the bottom)

by **AtTheGates** on Wed Sep 08, 2004 5:07 pm

I really like the look of this skin. Simple, clean, easy to read, and good colors (Sacramento Kings fan so I'm quite fond of black and purple/blue). The drop shadow may be a nice edition but currently the light source looks a little unnatural. Maybe if the shadows were only on the top and left edges as if there was an upper left light source. Looking foward to seeing a music page preview.

by **Aaron** on Thu Sep 09, 2004 5:28 pm

the layout looks great...

I would add a bit of color to the buttons (maybe highlights, glows, something)

very nice though!

by **Twit** on Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:38 pm

Wow, there's some talented people here!!!

Me Like!

by **Teuf** on Mon Sep 13, 2004 1:28 pm

Hi Alleng !!

I like your skin, and i think i will take some idea for mine .

How do you link a second image to a movie ? I know how to link the cover and display it , but how do you link the movie screenshot and how to display it ?

thanks

Teuf

by **dgemily** on Mon Sep 13, 2004 2:14 pm

Hy Teuf,

ImageGrab it's a french freeware, you can grab pictures from all videos files,
you can't make a screenshot but you can stick it on an other screenshot,

I did it there: http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12239#12239

later,

by **dgemily** on Mon Sep 13, 2004 3:03 pm

Sorry Teuf,

forget what I said, I read it again, and In fact you didn't ask for that, I didn't understand.

Try it with the parameter in ID to display a picture.

later

by **Roscoe62** on Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:16 pm

Alleng, I do really like your skin - the fact that the interface is uncluttered really appeals. However, I notice you've got the X-Men Evolution TV episodes set up in a way that's similar to what I'd like to do with my TV stuff.

Can you tell me whether you've got that stuff in its own database? ...and if so, how did you import them into XLobby? I'm trying to do something similar but not having much success.

Thanks for your time.

by **alleng** on Tue Sep 14, 2004 10:40 pm

Roscoe62,

All my TV shows are stored in a database. I have written a program to geneate a xlobby xml database file from the video files. Each time I add more shows I run the program to remake the xlobby xml file.

I have my shows named "ShowName - EpisodeNumber - Episode Title.mpg". I also have a text file of the same name that contains the other information. All the episodes for one show are stored in a folder that is named the name of the show.

I can upload the program if you would like to try it, but you would have to use the exact conventions.

Also I get all my shows off my dish pvr, and that is where the description comes from, mostly.

I hope this helps.

by **Roscoe62** on Tue Sep 14, 2004 10:51 pm

Hi Alleng,

Thanks for the response. I don't think your approach will work for me unfortunately as my episodes are all sourced from DVD and are .vob, .ifo based. I'd rather not convert them if I can avoid it.

However, you seem to have sorted out a good method for creating your database, and that's something I'm struggling to do as I just don't understand enough about the import template, metamasks and general expressions to figure out how to get it to work.

Details of what I was originally trying to do can be found in this post...
http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1958

but given the lack of responses I'd be happy to look at a simpler solution just to get it working. This thread probably isn't the right place to discuss this problem, but if you'd have a quick look at the above post and offer some suggestions of what could be done I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks, and I'm looking forward to seeing how your skin develops!

Roscoe

by **dgemily** on Wed Sep 15, 2004 6:45 pm

Teuf,

here: http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1980

by **humptybump** on Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:12 pm

I hate to admit, but I'm not very adept at developing skins. I tried a couple of times to start with one of the great skins available here but always fall short of my goal.

I have been very interested in the Carbon skin. from your initial post, it was obvious this skin was going to be very very clean looking and would fit really well with my HTPC project.

I hope you are still having fun developing it and I'd love to try it out sometime.

New widescreen skin in progress, Carbon!

New widescreen skin in progress, Carbon!

how's it going ?