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Madnox Rework - Genreral discussion #1

Closed mistervee closed 6 years ago

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @mistervee on April 21, 2017 23:30

Removed and reworked;

What this means is lots and lots of skin breakage apart from the newly updated xml's.

Copied from original issue: mistervee/skin.madnox.backup#1

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on April 22, 2017 0:32

@mistervee, I will install and test this weekend. Do you want me to open issues here or just comments, since a lot is still WIP?

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on April 22, 2017 1:4

@mistervee, after a quick play, the one thing that prevents me from testing further is that when I try to customize the main menu, the skin shortcuts main dialog is shown on top of the previous dialog, making it almost impossible to read the menu options and do the customization.

Also, I noticed in the movie and TV show browsing windows that the media flags are blue by default, and I couldn't find where to change this.

Finally, the Colors option in the skin settings shows an empty screen. It says Options, but there is nothing underneath the title.

I am running the skin on a Leia nightly from April 16th under Windows 10 Enterprise.

I will continue testing tomorrow.

Thank you for doing this rework!

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano

Just updated the skinsetting.xml. Hopefully that should fix the skin shortcut issue.

You will find a lot of breakage of things outside of skin settings and weather. The color settings have not been coded yet. So there are bugs and lots of them.

This is only to test the look and functionality of weather and skin settings. So no bug reports needed as i know there are many.

So just looking for a tick of approval and suggestions on whats missing or could be added. 95% of the skin xml's will need to be at least partially re-coded. It will be months of work and don't even want to look at the other xml's until people are in agreement.

To clarify things to look at in settings and my weather

Added Screenshots to first post to highlight the changes.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on April 22, 2017 15:36

@mistervee, I like the changes! I tested everything you wrote in the last post, except the fanart selection for main menu items, as I couldn't figure out how to use the images from the skin backgrounds option I used in the Artwork option of the skin settings. When I select "background" for a main menu option, I get a dialog to look for an image in the file system of my machine, not one of the images from the skin backgrounds addon. The only place where I get a dialog to choose from one of those images is when clicking the option that should say "Select Icon", but now says "SH 31746".

In any case, you have my vote to continue down this path. Please let me know if there is anything additional beyond testing that I can help with.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @MadMikeDoc on April 23, 2017 11:52

@mistervee , erm that's a lot of work you've done and a real lot you are offering to do. I'm all for this but feel I have to help you in whatever capacity I can as I can't ask you to re-work the entire skin by yourself!!!!

I honestly don't know where to start and what to do it seems, so if we do this you are going to have to be project manager and just tell what to do to help you.

I'll pull the latest and start going through it to see if I can understand what you've done and what you are proposing as part of the rework.

I'm not sure there's enough thanks for the time you've spent already let alone what you plan to do as well, but thank you.

Yes, I approve of a complete skin re-work and look forward to helping in use achieving that.

Regards,

Mike.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

A long post, my thoughts and personal feelings:cry:....... (some quite to the point some a bit anal)

I have stopped and started and never released any skinning projects since the widgets update. I feel i know the kodi skinning engine inside out. An anal comment being really you cant know it all but every project i started was too similar in looks to aeon nox 4. I now switch between madnox and nox silvo so much i cant decide, but madnox has so many options to make it to my taste i cant resist. The main issue i find is little bugs in madnox. So here i am wanting to sort all those bugs out and used my new found knowledge to make a skin to go down in kodi history. :thumbsup:

@MadMikeDoc Over the next week i will add a whole bunch of open issues to cover certain elements of the skin. This will help track progress and things can be ticked off as we go along.

Also i will put together a rough wiki that will cover design guidelines. This will be things like fonts, colors, folder structure, param include templates and aligning skin elements. This will help us keep things nice and consistent through out the skin. For me this will help with brain farts as in forgetting things like what color or what alignment i should use for this xml.

If you have a chance i would recommend using sublime text for skinning. It is a pain to set up but takes the complexity of finding what include is in what xml and finding out what listitems and visible conditions are working. It updates in real-time to what state the conditions are in. I can help in setting this up. Notepad+++ has its uses, but sublime is quicker for skinning all around. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=221682

@bartolomesoriano and @MadMikeDoc Last thing to help us keep things consistent is using an image editing program (paint.net) and your dev machine being 1080p. Something that will measure coordinates from screenshots.

I will set up some templates for various part of the skin so a layer can be added and a screen shot can be dropped in to check alignment of the various skin elements. I will add this to the wiki. From a graphic design perspective it makes a huge difference in looks if a few textures are 1 pixel off.

Every xml that i have recently updated i used this method. It really makes things crisp, sharp and clear.

Keep in mind we have to consider various thing and ask yourself questions:question:

@meowmoo haven't heard anything from yourself any thoughts?

:boom:Lets make this happen as a team. Madnox must be in the kodi repo. It's too good not to be!!!:boom:

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @MadMikeDoc on April 24, 2017 11:49

@mistervee,

Look forward to the wiki etc so I can try and help you out in this task. The initial idea behind Madnox was just to add things that schimi and I wanted to see in a skin but it grew from there with requests but we still only added if we thought it would enhance Madnox.

But this is part of the problem for some things in your questions and will have to be looked at and worked on.

Including Skin Helper I believe is beneficial when wanting to add eye candy but I guess it can cause issues, but core Kodi just doesn't do everything it should hence why things like Skin helper exist. There are hacks, especially to do with music artwork that may not have been update to SH solutions.

Some options can go and there associated code, for example the 'Enable new view selector'. This should become the default for view selection and then all the side bar stuff can be removed. I don't think so latest views are even being added into the old side bar view selector.

I think I'm going to stop Krypton development and focus completely on this Leia re-work. I don't really have much motivation in doing things and struggle to think of new ideas since schimi left us, but I feel this re-work might just bring me back into the game and greatly help me upgrade my skills with your help. So probably Bugs only but I'm sure they'll be other things cropping up needed in Kpryton during it's life.

If we start to remove things, views / options etc then we could start to lose part of what Madnox is but then again things change as they evolve and Madnox for Kpryton will always have it has now.

I've looked into Sublime, but I couldn't even get Phil65's addon installed. I don't mind buying it if it proves helpful, I know Mr. Silvo uses it as well, but at the moment notepad++ does me fine, probably just means it takes me a bit longer to do things?

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on April 30, 2017 23:14

@mistervee , @MadMikeDoc are you using something like this for aiding in skinning/debugging? http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=129094. Here are the updated files for that, I find they work in Leia, I still have not looked to see if any window/dialog name changes are needed. Skin debugging.zip

mistervee commented 7 years ago

Thanks @bartolomesoriano i have used that.

It is a simple aid but simply i only use this for the keyboard.xml

<keymap>
    <global>
        <keyboard>
            <F5>XBMC.ReloadSkin()</F5>
            <F6>Skin.ToggleDebug</F6>               
        </keyboard>
    </global>
</keymap>

The skin.toggledebug is in built to kodi. If you look in the skin's addon.xml it says debugging="false". It pretty much turns this setting on or off. It also replace what the customoverlay.xml if for.

The grid is handy if you make you own template for aligning textures. I normally don't use that part but take screenshots and dump them into https://www.getpaint.net/

Also i probably mentioned it, sublime text i find the best for skinning and degging. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=221682.

It is a pain to install as there are no real directions on how to do so. @MadMikeDoc I just re-read you last post in regard to it

After you install sublime open it and install the package control https://packagecontrol.io/installation#st3 Then ctrl+shift+p. that is you list of commands. find PACKAGE CONTROL: Install Package and select kodidevkit.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @meowmoo on May 5, 2017 23:2

@all sorry that I respond so late, but the notification got lost in the 100+ notification I got here and never check them :/

Sounds awesome what you guys are planing! This is a huge task, and I love to help you out if I can, with my limited free time, but what you doing right now is way out of my skinning league, its not even the same sport.

Im reading all the issues and wiki right now, and when I look at all the changes going on right now I don't really understand anything at the moment ;) I need to do some reading on this param stuff and try it by my self to see how it works, maby than I could be a useful help

The only coding I ever done in my life was Changing/fixing a few things in madnox, with the kodi skinning wiki on a second screen and lots of try and error :p

If there are some easy/boring things to do, Im your man, I sure will do the German strings :)

At last a BIG thank you! Madnox IS the best skin, i I tried them all, and I'm really happy that I can use it in future kodi builds and maby see it in the kodi repo :D This is an incredible huge task, and I'm pulling my invisible hat in respect!

Edit: I turned off all unnecessary notification :D

mistervee commented 7 years ago

First post updated. Hopefully explains a bit with the recent commits.

@MadMikeDoc @meowmoo @bartolomesoriano

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 14, 2017 17:2

Thanks @mistervee, it sure explains what I've seen in the latest commits. What is your vision in terms of media/language/subtitle/codec etc. flags? Are we still gearing up to using image resource addons? I saw recently some new movie genre icons, are we not going to use the image resource addons that you created?

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano Yes and no.

The main issue is skin.strings cant be used inside of a container. It was working with a hackish workaround that would be an issue to maintain. So for anything that will be used inside of a container we need to provide the images (like movie genres) or only allow the user to download one pack.

For the flags i have copied the textures from nox silvo skin. There is a toggle button in skin settings for colored media flags, It will ask you to install the colored studio icons if you want to use that option. White studio icons will be installed by default in the addon.xml. I dont see a point for creating a pack for the other flags when it takes up only 6mb of space and the skin is sitting now a comfortable size of 50mb. The skin must not exceed 100mb and i would like to really try to keep around 60-70mb

The issue i have found with the existing movie icons is that they are all png format (even though they have a jpg extenstion). I have tried to reduce the file size of each image but they still take up too much space. I really just found a pack on the kodi forum that was small in size (around 3.5mb for 107 images after i compressed the files), can easily be added to, and has a big selection of genres. For video genre backgrounds skin helper will automatically pick a ramdom image from the genre in your library.

For the default menu backgrounds just need to trim down the existing ones (1 per menu item), but there is an option in skin settings that uses the resource addon to change this.

Open for suggestions or changes.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 15, 2017 14:31

Thanks @mistervee , I understand. Right now I am missing most the language/subtitle flags, but I guess these will come when we start adding other views where they can be shown.

The existing default menu backgrounds I think it's important to keep, since this is part of the legacy we have from schimi2k's work on this skin. Right now the skin code is not working properly to select backgrounds from a resource addon, it just asks to to browse to a folder in your machine to get the backgrounds.

On another (kind of related) note, with the latest changes the video info dialog is unusable, and I know we have to go one step at a time, but I also hope you can get to it soon.

Also, once you get to modifying more the skin shortcuts dialog, one thing to keep in mind is that when you go to select an icon (the label for this is incorrect, by the way) for a menu item, we are right now asking first to select a background from the chosen resource addon for menu backgrounds, which is incorrect, even though you can dismiss that. With the trimming of the extras folder, I guess we need a new source for icons for the menu items.

Lastly, please let me know how else I can help to advance the skin. I have not worked on the subtitles dialog, since the Leia version I was using (agile) has issues with subtitle addons. Yesterday I switched to regular Leia, so I should get that done in the next couple of days.

Thanks!

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano

As you noticed lots of stuff is not working. I couldn't see any other way to clean everything up, as i added more code things became harder to track on what is new and what is old. So i just removed most of what is not in the new code with the plan to add things back as we went along.

I see your concerns. Some major elements of the skin are not working as they should and will prevent progress in certain areas until they are re-coded/restored. The subtitle dialog is a good example, there is no way to access this as the full screen video controls are not there. In a way this as a good thing as it will visually give focus on what needs to be done next.

From a couple of abandoned skin projects i was working on before this, i have xml's ready to go that just need to be updated to get the madnox style. So hopefully i can restore the main menu functionality and info dialogs quite quickly and at the same time add a lot of new features.

The thing i can think of is the videoOSD.xml needs coding. Without that you cant access the subtitle dialog. All that need to be done is a horizontal group list of the required buttons and an include for the button. So only the most basic functionality and deleting all the old code. Really you could just copy and paste from estuary then re-arrange the skin elements to give the madnox style. (which is what i have done with some of the dialogs). Extra features and options can be added back later.

If you need any textures i can make and adjust them to suit. (becoming quite proficient at using paint.net) As any texture used even if from krypton madnox will need tweaking to make skinning easy and keep the file size down.

For the existing default menu backgrounds i plan to include one for each menu item. The full set can be made into a resource package. If we include all of them it's 165 images which adds 44mb to the skin.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 16, 2017 1:12

@mistervee, thanks! Your approach makes good sense to me. If you are OK with that, I will try my hand tomorrow at updating the Video SD so I can update the subtitles dialog.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

Sound good.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 16, 2017 23:44

@mistervee, please take a look at my first try at the VideoOSD. I borrowed the textures from Krypton MadNox. I included "BottomProgressBar" from Krypton Madnox in includes.xml, and copied (and tweaked) from Aeon Nox Silvo the grouplist. I didn't do the include in Include_CommonObjects for the buttons, since I wanted your feedback first on the look of the OSD, and what is the best way to accomplish the new MadNox look in this case. Thanks for your help.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano

Nice work. I Like it.

A few comments and suggestions;

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 17, 2017 1:54

Thanks @mistervee! I will make all the changes tomorrow. Is there an example I can follow for specifying a color diffuse for the focused icon for the buttons?

Also, I didn't see the icons/player folder, did you push that yet? Don't know if you saw my comment on debug, I can't get F7 or F8 to work, didn't see the new skin settings for those in any of the xmls.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

Something like this for the focused texture. 

colordiffuse="$VAR[HighlightColorVar]"
mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 17, 2017 2:6

Got it, thanks @mistervee.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 18, 2017 13:41

@mistervee, please take a look at my second attempt on the VideoOSD. I used a param includes for the buttons, don't know if this is a performance hit or not. I am not happy about how the textures look, can you please change so that they have the look we are striving for? Also, the buttons are still the same, as I did not find the icons/player folder that you mentioned before. Thanks.

I am thinking that, once the VideoOSD is fine, I will modify the dialogs for all of the VideoOSD options (bookmarks, audio settings, video settings, OSD settings), as well as the subtitles dialog. Thoughts?

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 18, 2017 23:1

@mistervee, I went ahead and modified the fullscreen settings dialog (custom_1118_videoosd). I think that one turned out all right. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano Fixed a few things in the VideoOSD

If you you have any questions or if you are not sure of the changes i have made please ask. I am here to help.

There is a bunch of other stuff that needs doing like pvr and implementing the options. I will make an issue on the Video OSD with a few screen shots. Not sure what the best look is for this. My preference is to have the buttons on the bottom of the screen.

The Video osd settings perfect. I just set the bottom separator to false.

If you look at git it will show mores changes than i have mentioned. That is due to simply how the code is aligned with tabs and white spaces. What program are you using for coding? There are plugins that will align the xml code and remove white spaces.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 19, 2017 2:57

@mistervee, thank you. I will look closely at your changes to understand better how to get the textures right, and will ask what I don't get.

I like the idea of the osd on the bottom of the screen also, and I am looking forward to your take on this. Where would you place the progress bar? Please also remember the buttons, since the icons/player folder you mentioned before is not there yet.

I am just using notepad++ right now to code. Is the preferred style tabs or white spaces? Each indent level is 4 spaces, is that right?

I will go ahead and modify the other dialogs that are options from the video OSD. Which would you say is the best left side dialog/blade/menu I can use as a model?

Finally, what is the best time for you for Skype? I know you are 14 hours ahead of me, so it is almost 1pm Friday the 19th for you, correct? I think Skype would be really great instead of typing everything.

Again, thank you, I am learning a lot.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano @meowmoo @MadMikeDoc

If you are using notepad++

There is a plugin called XML Tools. This will auto check your file for any error's that may cause the window not to work. To align the xml in to a nice readable format 'Pretty Print (xml only). Then you dont need to worry about what tab spacing you are using as it will do this automatically. It will also automatically close any control tags.

The second thing is to remove trailing white spaces. I am noticing a few are appearing with some xml updates.

http://imgur.com/a/FHrBD

mistervee commented 7 years ago

From @bartolomesoriano on May 23, 2017 22:5

@mistervee , sweet! Exactly what I needed. Thanks.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano @meowmoo @MadMikeDoc

Here it is.

I used the delete key lots and lots. Only essential and updated xml's remain. Removed the media flags, backgrounds and a few other things as they were going to be changed anyway. So everything is stripped down as much as possible.

I will add the issues back over time, my focus now is to work out transifex.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

I putting transifex in the too hard basket for now. Spent a few hours trying to figure it out.

As i understand this skin can submitted to the kodi transifex service for language updates. This wont happen until its complete.

So no point in updating anything apart from en_gb. If any language is needed before completion, it is upto the person who needs it to make a there own translation file (for example bart with spanish).

bartolomesoriano commented 7 years ago

@mistervee, if you couldn't figure it out, I doubt I will be able to, but over the weekend I will fork the repo and give it a try. In any case, I am happy to continue making the Spanish translation and pushing it to GitHub, and keeping it updated as we update the English strings file.

bartolomesoriano commented 7 years ago

@mistervee, with the rebase you also took out the backgrounds for each of the settings categories, was that intended? Also, some of the main menu backgrounds remained, while others are gone, was that intended as well?

bartolomesoriano commented 7 years ago

@mistervee, I transferred most of the issues. There is a problem transferring the Video OSD issue, it stops at comment 35. I left it like that.

mistervee commented 7 years ago

@bartolomesoriano

For settings category they were backgrounds from nox 4. I intend to change them.

The backgrounds removal was intended. Most of them were taken from black glass nova skin. I have messaged TGX to get permission for re-use.

All good for the video OSD. Thanks for moving the issues.

meowmoo commented 7 years ago

when I wanna add a new view, I starting on porting "rightlist", using the list code as base.

which id should i use for the view can i just use the old madnox png's, the the faded black baground for the List for example

MadMikeDoc commented 7 years ago

@meowmoo use the existing id the view has in Krypton.

If you need pngs from krypton then use them for now, but I'm doing Fanart List at the moment and have changed a lot to do with List view contents i.e. broke it out into includes_views so you might want to wait until I push which will hopefully be in a day or 2.

meowmoo commented 7 years ago

Layout is almost done, it looks like the "old" one. No fancy stuff added, i will change the id tonight, and waiting for you push, to see what's going on.

meowmoo commented 7 years ago

can someone please post the keymaps again i only remember XBMC.ReloadSkin()

Skin.ToggleDebug :/
MadMikeDoc commented 7 years ago

@meowmoo

XBMC.ReloadSkin() Skin.ToggleSetting(DebugGrid) Skin.ToggleSetting(DebugInfo) Skin.ToggleDebug
MadMikeDoc commented 7 years ago

`

XBMC.ReloadSkin() Skin.ToggleSetting(DebugGrid) Skin.ToggleSetting(DebugInfo) Skin.ToggleDebug

`

bartolomesoriano commented 7 years ago

I think it was F6 for ToggleDebug and F7 for DebugInfo and F8 for DebugGrid.

meowmoo commented 7 years ago

Thanks :)

MadMikeDoc commented 7 years ago

@mistervee

Hi, any news on the status at all?

Mike

mistervee commented 6 years ago

@MadMikeDoc @meowmoo @bartolomesoriano

Sorry mike i missed your message. I have no time frame, just that i will be push an update the future.

I have seen a lot of people on the forum asking about development. Might be time for me to post that it is a WIP with no time frame?

meowmoo commented 6 years ago

Sure go ahed. hope to hear some good news here "soon" :)

mistervee commented 6 years ago

Ok now in the WIP forums.

The Github repo is also set to private.

mistervee commented 6 years ago

@mikesilvo164 @MadMikeDoc @bartolomesoriano @ArieS1204

Hi all,

Been a while, i hope you are all well.

I have taken a two month break to clear my head and think about how to tackle Colors and themes. So the last few weeks are the result of the latest commit.

I have decided to not use the color picker for each area of the skin.

Instead this applies to the entire skin. This has been reworked into Color and Themes Selector under skin settings.

NOTE This is still a WIP so i have only coded for the Settings area and the SelectDialog.xml. So expect some issues with other parts of the skin.

Have a look in - Skin Settings/Themes

Then Skin Settings/Colors

You can backup and restore Themes/Colors in SkinSettings/General/Themes and Colors. The plan is to have a bunch of default themes from here or the end user can create there own and save it and share on the forum.

So in a nutshell.... I have plenty of coding to do in regards to getting the Colors and themes working skin wide and we are in a good position to start coding the various views for the video/music library and home screen widgets. There are Color/Theme/Other Variables and $PARAM includes setup ready to use.

So i am asking for volunteers to start working on the library views. I am hoping @mikesilvo164 might be happy to lead the way for this if time permits?

@ArieS1204 Let me know if you a free to do some texture work.

Any help would be much appreciated. Otherwise all is good, I will just keep chipping away.

Cheers All Mr. V

bartolomesoriano commented 6 years ago

@mistervee , thank you! I hope you are well also. I will download and test as per your suggestions. I can start working on anything else you would like me to as well. Since I am the least experienced of the group, is there a simpler view you think I could start with? Is the idea with each view to use the new variables/includes to revamp the code already there? I could take a look at the list view for videos, and work with you to make sure I understand the code changes required and that I am doing them correctly. What do you think?

mistervee commented 6 years ago

Hi @bartolomesoriano

The current list view needs some work so that not really the best xml to look at. All the views will have to be coded from scratch. So unfortunately we cant copy and paste from aeon madnox. The code and visual style can be used for reference as a guide though.

Give me a day or two, I will compile a list of variable/includes and view types we need to make. It will make a lot more sense when that is done.

Cheers

bartolomesoriano commented 6 years ago

@mistervee, thanks! I will wait for your input.