My first (Xlobby A40 compatible ) skin

[noviceboy]

Here is my first xlobby (a40 compatible) skin. Note was built with the A40exp7 latest Exe release. Not strictly 100% a skin as I made up a lot of custom events/additional screens, but should work on any music,film and pictures database. Sorry if post is a bit long but the screens needed commenting. (If the images are too large/slow loading let me know and I will compress them further.)

The „design goals" were simplicity and being easy to view from a distance. Additionally it should be controlable with remote/remote mouse and be useable by the family. So while visually it „won’t win the hearts of any hairy AV enthusiasts" there are a number of features that show just how well xlobby A40 can build powerful interfaces and that you might want to use in your own skins, regardless of how this one looks.

Note the screen designs/icons are deliberately inconsistent as the skin needs to go through mercyless field trials and acceptance testing . i.e the Wife.


When a40 is released I will test it , tidy it up and send to steven for upload, if any one is interested in it. I will also acknowledge the talented artists that made the icons, wallpapers etc. Enuf said, here are a few screenshots that show these features. Probably also needs better 3D effects to help viewing from a distance.

Here is an overlay where I put favourite screens as shortcuts on it. Comes up after pressing the heart(favourites icon) These can be different for different members of the family. Just waiting for a change skin command to complete this. ( I hate hierarchical menu systems )








To keep things simple any controls are kept on overlays. Here the controls for music are on a seperate overlay, which appears when the musical note is pressed. I do this technique throughout to keep the screens "uncluttered" and simple to see from a distance.










NEW Custom filters and Xlobby enhamced command line parameters
Using set filter commands , and custom filter screens, you can make you own search screens up. Here I select films based on language. Also something you cannot see is an offline media capability for ANY media type. Pops up a message if the media is not online and waits for the right DVD to be inserted. 95% of my film stuff is offline burned with 2-3 films per DVD-ROM. You can also user define, by file extension, what player is executed to play that type of media. Uses the new A40 Xlobby command line parameter passing







Here are some of my custom filter commands in the excellent new event manager




Photo section - New set database command and modified behaviour
Use of new set database command. Each menu sets to specific database ( holiday photos,family photos, children photos etc ) before going to a common pictures category screen.




At the item level in the pictures category , slecting a picture will go to a new screen below, ehere you can move through the full size photos.








TV recordings is waiting for the final EPG functionality

[chadwolcott]

Let me be the first to say, FANTASTIC. I just started looking at moving the controls to an overlay, after seeing your skin I will definately be doing that.

Great job, I may have to "borrow" some ideas.

[ThE ScReW]

Noviceboy, very very very very good job !

It looks real nice and you bring me to think about a few things

How did you change teh color of the background of your pictures? If you stand on it with your mouse then the color is also different, how do you do that?

Really great job!

[rhinoman]

Great Job!! I'll look forward to trying it out, must echo the positive veiws of having buttins appear from an overlay, especially if its being ir remote controlled.

[Arthur]

When a40 is released I will test it , tidy it up and send to steven for upload, if any one is interested in it.

I already couldn't wait for a40, but now it is inbearable!
A lot of talented peolple on this forum.

Arthur

[samgreco]

WOW! Please share. I could learn alot from your skin

Sam

[noviceboy]

How did you change teh color of the background of your pictures? If you stand on it with your mouse then the color is also different, how do you do that?

If you mean the thumbnails- then that is with a40exp7 latestexe .

To get a green border around the current thumbnail (in any screen) I changed the colour of the image that steven uses "xresource-selector-square" from blue to green-simple!

I already couldn't wait for a40, but now it is inbearable!

Its there to try- see annoucements thread. exp7 is A40 without all the default skins tuned for a40 events. Download and play away!

[noviceboy]

If you want a copy of this skin to play around with mail me at mailto:jonw@arcor.de. Tested and working with A40 - well it works for me anyway

I still need to write a little guide, before I load it up somewhere. If you really don't understand it wait until the guide is complete - 2-3 days.


NOTES-READ
I strongly advise you to put this in a clean installation directory of A40 before trying it out. The skin is called "family".

Events. A40 events are global and are not restricted to a particular skin , so I have supplied my eventgroups directory. My naming is inconsistent, but most of my events are called My"something". I did this because during testing (with various A40versions) I did not want new Xlobby installs to overwrite what I had done and Vice-versa.


I have left in my offline media command line, in the movies screen. Have a look, I will explain in the guide how it works-don't ask me now

You will probably need to replace the event "movies play" with the default for A40