Replicating Baddabing's HM X skin and I've come unstuck!

[Roscoe62]

I've been replicating the music section of Baddabing's Heavymetal X skin because
1) I wanted to learn more about skinning and
2) I love the look and functionality of that skin

but I still wanted to keep the inner workings of my own skin.

Anyway, I was doing the music section and I've hit a major snag. On the music screen I can view the album covers OK, but when I click a cover it does NOT take me to the musicviewer screen.

When I use the skin editor to check the category everything looks OK there. The category name is music, the info screen is shown as musicviewer...in fact everything I can see is identical to what appears in the HM X category.

I can go to my musicviewer screen and everthing looks good there too.
Category name is musicdetails, info screen is overlay:music_options_tracks (which I've also created).

I'm at a loss as to why I cannot make this link work! Under what circumstances would clicking an item in a category NOT take you to the named info screen if that screen exists?

Any help is appreciated.



BTW....going through this process I now have an understanding of how much work has gone into this skin. Fantastic job!!

[BaddaBing]

There are just a few things you need to check, using the illustration below as a guide ensure that the following settings are correct:

1) The name of the info screen EXACTLY matches the name of the screen you are calling.

2) The names of the categories in both screens are the same (check the name of the category object on the screen - not just the entry in the skin editor)

3) Both categories reference the same database

4) That %display% appears in the DISPLAY entry of the music screen

[Roscoe62]

I'm sorry Baddabing....I don't know how to post images, but I'm still having no joy. When viewing the skin editor my settings are as follows:

music screen

Name:music
Info Screen:musicviewer
Display:%display%
Database:music

musicviewer screen

Name:musicdetails
Info Screen:overlay:music_options_tracks
Display:%display%
Database:music

These are the exact same settings you have in your Heavymetal X skin.

Going through your checklist


1) The name of the info screen EXACTLY matches the name of the screen you are calling.

CHECK!

2) The names of the categories in both screens are the same (check the name of the category object on the screen - not just the entry in the skin editor)

Well, no. If I use the name "music" on the musicviewer screen I am getting a listing of albums instead of a tracklisting. This is also consistent with what your HeavyMetal X shows.

3) Both categories reference the same database


In the HeavyMetal X skin the category on the music screen references the music database, but the category on the musicviewer screen has no database selected. I've duplicated this in my skin.

4) That %display% appears in the DISPLAY entry of the music screen

CHECK!

The only other thing I have noticed is, in my skin, if I select an album cover in the music screen....and THEN go to the musicviewer screen manually, the first track on the selected album is now playing and all other tracks on the album are added to the playlist.

It's almost like it doesn't recognise that it's supposed to go to the musicviewer page.

While trying to learn more about this behavior I also checked out what Steven's default skin does, and even though the category details on both pages are the same as HeavyMetal X (well, the important ones anyway) the default skin also starts playing the album tracks as well UNLESS you first select the OPEN button first (remember the different buttons? Default was PLAY, but you could also choose from ADD and OPEN.

Another option is that, for some reason, it's stuck on the PLAY option.

It feels like I'm just rambling, but I'm hoping that some of this gives you some kind of clue as to what might be going wrong. I hope so anyway!

I'm getting some seriously septic looks from the wife because I've "broken" the music player.

[Roscoe62]

AAAAAAAAAaaaaarrrrrrggghhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cracked it!

FINALLY figured out what was going on. I left a few clues in the previous post and it was THAT that finally clicked inside my head.

In the event manager open up the folder SKIN and you'll see a subfolder called Startup, and in there you'll see an event called "at startup toggle".

Well, the command I had linked to that event in MY skin was "play album", and in the HeavyMetal skin it is set to "open album". Once I changed that setting in my skin all is working well.

I have NO idea how that setting got changed because I thought I'd always had it set to open album, but there you go.

Thanks for your patience!!

[BaddaBing]

Glad you got it working. And you are right about the 'OPEN ON CLICK', its a step I had forgotten about.