Media views

[mistervee]

WIP

Known issues Scroll bars not functioning or misaligned in various views DONE Artwork in some views do not have rounded corners DONE Various artwork does not have a proper fallback Try to add more room for tvshow/season cover flags for 1080p

To be added Wrap/No wrap options DONE Vertical/Horizontal scroll options for wall/icon views???? Banner option for 3 panel view DONE Video Preview window in views that can support it DONE Movie Set Open case/Box Art????? List of movies instead of plot for sets, when no plot available Improve Cover flow Info to reduce clutter in showcase view ect.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi @bartolomesoriano @Slipass

Hi all,

Just pushed a rather large update. The skin now has a complete set of views. 22 in total. With Bluray cases and view options for every view.

This is only working for "Movies". See the first post for known issues.

After much thought and as i got further into coding, i found a rather easy way to combine the list views as you all were suggesting (that i was against at the time). I have seen the light and fixed my mistake.

Hoping to get some feedback, on bugs or ideas for what could be done to further improve the views.

This will be the final set of views for the entire skin. So hopefully they will be complete in around a month. After that will be a couple of months of tidying up the rest of the skin. Then an alpha release.

I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel :sunglasses:

Cheers Mr. V

EDIT: thought it would be better to combine everything in one thread.

[mistervee]

New update to github;

• Added option in 'Skin settings' under 'Furniture' to enable/disable views
• Added square version of some views. Including open case for albums. Still WIP.
• Added visibility conditions for view selection for specific skin areas. My***.xml's

So generally view selection is complete for all parts of the skin. Missing fallback's for various artwork and the labels/info/plot do not show the correct info in some places. Needs a lot of polish and also need to address your feed back in this thread. https://github.com/mistervee/skin.madnox/issues/22

[mistervee]

P.S: While there is a "Press Up For Info" option, would also like to see the "Delayed Info display" option from Aeon Madnox make a return (I usually set mine to 5 secs).

Dan / Gib.

Done. New commit to Github.

[mistervee]

Just had a quick look at the TV Shows section... With Video Cases enabled, the TV station logos are correctly aligned and scaled in "Showcase" view, they're not in "Focus" view (too low and not scaled correctly). Also, while a nice idea in and of itself, on a 1080p screen, they're barely readable. I know your designing for 4K, but it might pay to put the info in the floor area as well, for the "Focus" view like your doing for the "Showcase" view.

Dan / Gib.

Fixes pushed. I will try to update the cases in future to allow more room for 1080p displays. Try is the 'word' though. What ever i can do.

[gibxxi]

P.S: While there is a "Press Up For Info" option, would also like to see the "Delayed Info display" option from Aeon Madnox make a return (I usually set mine to 5 secs). Dan / Gib.

Done. New commit to Github.

Thanks Mr. V.

Are you planning on adding the "Episode" view from 1.0 (Out of curiosity).

:)

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

Just had a quick look at the TV Shows section... With Video Cases enabled, the TV station logos are correctly aligned and scaled in "Showcase" view, they're not in "Focus" view (too low and not scaled correctly). Also, while a nice idea in and of itself, on a 1080p screen, they're barely readable. I know your designing for 4K, but it might pay to put the info in the floor area as well, for the "Focus" view like your doing for the "Showcase" view. Dan / Gib.

Fixes pushed. I will try to update the cases in future to allow more room for 1080p displays. Try is the 'word' though. What ever i can do.

No worries, just an observation. If you make the floor area similar to "Showcase" view, that would also mitigate the issue. I'll leave it up to you.

:)

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

Just a FYI: The "KodiFlix" view suffers with the same logo scaling issue as "Focus" view with video cases option enabled. Just noticed it (1st time trying this view).

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

Are you planning on adding the "Episode" view from 1.0 (Out of curiosity).

:)

Dan / Gib.

Not sure. Although i feel the skin is missing a view for episodes and songs. This might be what it needs.

Just say the word and i will code it!

[mistervee]

@gibxxi

No worries, just an observation. If you make the floor area similar to "Showcase" view, that would also mitigate the issue. I'll leave it up to you.

The design choice was to have the floor different in each view.

Just a FYI: The "KodiFlix" view suffers with the same logo scaling issue as "Focus" view with video cases option enabled. Just noticed it (1st time trying this view).

Thanks. Will be fixed next update.

[mistervee]

@Slipass

8: Wrong langugaes icons (wrong color)

I pushed a fix to the kodi repo for the language flags. Should be available for download now v0.0.2 resource.images.languageflags.rounded

For some reason the kodi texture packer did not like the image format and messed up the colors.

[gibxxi]

Are you planning on adding the "Episode" view from 1.0 (Out of curiosity). :) Dan / Gib.

Not sure. Although i feel the skin is missing a view for episodes and songs. This might be what it needs.

Just say the word and i will code it!

Hi Mr. V,

For me, in 1.0, I used to select a different view for each layer of the TV shows section so at a glance, I'd know where I was in the hierarchy. So the first level was either "Shift" or "Coverflow", followed by "Low List" (with poster art) for Seasons, and then "Episode" view for the individual episodes within a season - Hence my reason for asking.

:)

Dan / Gib.

[bartolomesoriano]

@mistervee, I also would like to have the Episode view. It was always the view I used for episodes.

Also, for when you get a chance, please remember the 3 panel view with banners. Thanks!

Regards,

Bart

[meowmoo]

I browsed my media and switched the views around, very nice done!

What I'm missing is a fixed list option for the most views like showcase and cascade and so on. In the banner wall view the media icons are almost not visible because of the last row of banners, also if you reach the the last row of banners the focus is pretty Hart to see, because it get cut of and is at the very bottom of the tv, don't know if it's possible, but start moving the wall if you reach row 6 of the banner would make it easier to spot the focus.

When browsing music the Artist name is shown twice in all list views what Leeds to lots of scrolling and a "optical mess" Like here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z1EAhUt5VyMnAIzM7QhIxli629zbDF-H/view?usp=drivesdk And here https://drive.google.com/file/d/19bCNcs3zhK7mB-a4l6YZvxiEiBqBVFfP/view?usp=drivesdk

Only show the year or nothing at all, because the year is shown in the info in all views beside simple list, would look much cleaner.

Just pointing out what I notice, and what my personal preference would be, I know you still working Hart on the skin and like said before, it is all ready incredibly nice and the skin to go in the future! Thanks for bringing madnox to a howl new level.

Sorry for the bad English/gramma/writing from a tired German tester :P

[meowmoo]

If you press info on album level there is a "random" album behind the info

[mistervee]

@gibxxi @bartolomesoriano @meowmoo @Slipass

New update.

• Rightlist view - Movies, Sets, TV Shows, Seasons, Episodes, Music Videos, Artists, Albums, Songs.
• Fallback for logo, clear art in coverflow and wall views
• Extra view types now available in pvr channels and pictures
• Added variables for the bottom info in coverflow and wall views. The info should be more consistent between views
• Code optimization for view setting visibility conditions.
• General code clean up of the views in all areas of the skin. (still WIP)

EDIT: Take a look at the first post. It shows WIP and things i have yet to code/update.

[mistervee]

@bartolomesoriano

@mistervee, I also would like to have the Episode view. It was always the view I used for episodes.

Also, for when you get a chance, please remember the 3 panel view with banners. Thanks!

Regards,

Bart

Episode view added. Named as right list.

Banner option added to the To do list, first post.

[mistervee]

@meowmoo

What I'm missing is a fixed list option for the most views like showcase and cascade and so on.

In the to do list in first post.

In the banner wall view the media icons are almost not visible because of the last row of banners, also if you reach the the last row of banners the focus is pretty Hart to see, because it get cut of and is at the very bottom of the tv, don't know if it's possible, but start moving the wall if you reach row 6 of the banner would make it easier to spot the focus.

Fixed

When browsing music the Artist name is shown twice in all list views what Leeds to lots of scrolling and a "optical mess" Only show the year or nothing at all, because the year is shown in the info in all views beside simple list, would look much cleaner.

I agree it does look a bit messy. It is not so easy trying to accommodate for all views. A lot of the variables are shared between views, for the sake of simplifying an already complex code. This looks fine to me in any other view apart from 3 panel and low list.

Try changing the sort option to Year? instead of Artist/Year

EDIT: This is intentional. If you select sort by Artist/Year the second label will show Artist/Year. It is useful if you are browsing recent albums or the album node as that those areas will show various artists.

Just pointing out what I notice, and what my personal preference would be, I know you still working Hart on the skin and like said before, it is all ready incredibly nice and the skin to go in the future! Thanks for bringing madnox to a howl new level.

Sorry for the bad English/gramma/writing from a tired German tester :P

All good. Your English is fine. Cheers for the feedback

If you press info on album level there is a "random" album behind the info

Still a WIP. I will get to the other parts of the skin when the views are finished.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi

Just a FYI: The "KodiFlix" view suffers with the same logo scaling issue as "Focus" view with video cases option enabled. Just noticed it (1st time trying this view).

Dan / Gib.

Fixed

[meowmoo]

@mistervee Change the sorting to year is exactly what I wanted, thanks for pointing it out.

[bartolomesoriano]

@mistervee , thanks for all the updates/fixes. I enjoy having an episode view again. Some issues/suggestions:

1. Using Right List view, when going to view settings, I cannot navigate from Extra Fanart to Language Flags with the keyboard. It works fine with the mosue.

2. Right List, tv shows, whether extra fanart is enabled or not, the background changes to show fanart from other tv shows. i know the backgrounds are still WIP. Just wanted you to be aware.

3. For Sets, I think it would be good to show the movie list (Title, year) as the info when there is no set overview for views that support showing info, such as List Info1/2, Low List, 3 Panel List, Coverflow Portrait, showcase, Kodiflix.

I will continue to test and let you know what I find. Again, thanks for the updates.

Regards,

Bart

[mistervee]

@mistervee , thanks for all the updates/fixes. I enjoy having an episode view again. Some issues/suggestions:

1. Using Right List view, when going to view settings, I cannot navigate from Extra Fanart to Language Flags with the keyboard. It works fine with the mosue.
2. Right List, tv shows, whether extra fanart is enabled or not, the background changes to show fanart from other tv shows. i know the backgrounds are still WIP. Just wanted you to be aware.
3. For Sets, I think it would be good to show the movie list (Title, year) as the info when there is no set overview for views that support showing info, such as List Info1/2, Low List, 3 Panel List, Coverflow Portrait, showcase, Kodiflix.

I will continue to test and let you know what I find. Again, thanks for the updates.

Regards,

Bart

1. Fixed
2. WIP. Thankyou for the info.
3. Makes sense. Will code it in time.

Cheers for your feedback.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi @bartolomesoriano @meowmoo @Slipass

New git update;

• Fixed rounded corners to artwork in all views where it was missing
• Added toggle option for wrap/fixed list in all views where it can be supported
• Added video preview window option in all views where it can be supported

[gibxxi]

All looking good so far. No major issues to report (aside from those already reported). One improvement I think might be appropriate, is for the "wall" view.

For music, the album / artist info appears at ther bottom of the view (with a small distance to the bottom of the screen). It would be better to add some kind of "floor" or gradient shadowing effect here to add contrast / difference to the wall icons and the text overlay. Since the text labels here are smaller, the detail becomes somewhat lost against the album art covers sat behind, meaning that from a normal viewing distance (10ft plus) the text is difficult to read for me at 1080p on a 32in TV.

Few issues with general skin operation, one relating to PVR and one to Kodi exiting, that possibly may be unique to me, but only occur with this skin, on my 3 systems. Will post those up in the "general" area later.

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

I have increased the font size of the main label, does this work?

[gibxxi]

Here's a screenshot that illustrates what I mean...

https://i.imgur.com/MQGVuhJ.jpg

See how the text is somewhat "lost" amongst the background / cover art? There is a gradient shadow effect towards the bottom of the window, but it's too faint to make much of a difference. From distance this is hard to read, and I don't think the text size will make much of a difference. There needs to be more contrast between the text and the album art behind IMHO.

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

I see now. Fixed now on git.

I changed the default floor shadow color to black. I forgot to mention the color can be changed in 'skin settings/colours'.

[meowmoo]

In the Banner wall view you can't select the logo option

Cascade always show 6 covers even if there are only 5 or less movies in a collection same with showcase.

[mistervee]

Fixed.

Note that if you are navigating with a mouse, the wrap list wont scroll between the last and first item (cascade and poster only). I cant see any way to make this work.

[gibxxi]

I see now. Fixed now on git.

I changed the default floor shadow color to black. I forgot to mention the color can be changed in 'skin settings/colours'.

Ah, good to know. Thanks Mr. V.

:)

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi

With regards my earlier comments (size) I'd be happier with three rows of icons / thumbs for wall view as a pose to the current two (more info = less scrolling), and a possibility of setting horizontal scrolling instead of vertical (via view-type settings) if this hasn't been added already.

Hi Dan,

In regards to you comment from way back.

Looking at horizontal scrolling for icon/wall views.

For the wall views, It is not possible to keep everything nicely aligned and have horizontal scrolling. If you look at poster view for example, to maintain alignment you would loose a row. Meaning two rows instead of 3, as the 3rd row spills off the screen. (nicely aligned being even gaps between icons)

It is possible to add this to the icon views, but something i would not personally use.

Any thoughts?

[mistervee]

@gibxxi @bartolomesoriano @meowmoo @Slipass

New git update

• Scroll bars working for all views
• Fade animation for list views for focused item, when not focused
• Added banner option for 3 panel view, (movies, sets, tvshows, seasons)

[gibxxi]

@gibxxi

With regards my earlier comments (size) I'd be happier with three rows of icons / thumbs for wall view as a pose to the current two (more info = less scrolling), and a possibility of setting horizontal scrolling instead of vertical (via view-type settings) if this hasn't been added already.

Hi Dan,

In regards to you comment from way back.

Looking at horizontal scrolling for icon/wall views.

For the wall views, It is not possible to keep everything nicely aligned and have horizontal scrolling. If you look at poster view for example, to maintain alignment you would loose a row. Meaning two rows instead of 3, as the 3rd row spills off the screen. (nicely aligned being even gaps between icons)

It is possible to add this to the icon views, but something i would not personally use.

Any thoughts?

@mistervee

I was specifically referring to wall view (for music library albums / artists) in my analysis. Sorry for the delayed reply (R/L issues). The wall view cover arts (for music) are a bit on the large side IMHO. I'd have them maybe 2/3rds their current size / scale. With 46,000 tracks, it's a lot of scrolling atm.

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

Aeon Madnox (1.0) - 3 Rows of icons visible, plus a background "wall"...

https://imgur.com/kmCp1Bw

Madnox (Beta) - No background, but only 2.5 rows of icons visible...

https://imgur.com/fhovafr

I'm not missing the background wall, but would prefer icon size to be more in-line with the old Madnox. Maybe start with four full rows of icons, then upon scrolling have 3 in the centre, the middle row of which becomes the focused / selected row, with two half rows (top & bottom) semi-hidden by the background gradiant shadow effect.

Dan / Gib.

[meowmoo]

@gibxxi

Square Icons + small icons option on, looks exactly like your madnox 1 picture, If you use the wall view and turn on the small icons option you also get 3 rows

[gibxxi]

Well i'll be damned, lol. Thanks Meowmoo, didn't know that option was in there. Ignore my previous comment then, I'm just having a senior moment.

;)

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

@mistervee

Having a minor issue with album cover artwork not appearing for random items in my music library at the initial attempt. Now I do have a fairly large library (47,186 tracks) at the time of writing, and they are all hosted on a NAS device. They do however all have "cover.jpg" files in folder with the tracks, and also embedded in the tags themselves. It seems to be a loading timeout of some description is happening here. It does not occur in Aeon Madnox 1.0 nor Estuary. It's not a permissions issue as this has been checked, and the non-loading artwork is entirely random.

While scrolling through the library (at a fairly sedate pace) random albums will be missing artwork, sometimes several per page, but in the screenshot below It's simply a single instance...

https://imgur.com/Yh8Y0rl

using the arrow keys to navigate over the affected album will properly load the missing artwork...

https://imgur.com/wK4qxu1

...but navigating off the affected album, it will return to it's prior status (i.e: no artwork)...

https://imgur.com/o8Jo6GS

...to facilitate loading of this artwork for the affected album, it is nessecary to back out of the "Album View" (which returns you to the home screen) and go back in again. Madnox remembers where in the album list you had scrolled to prior, so starts at that point...

https://imgur.com/wWxSvje

...and all will be fine, until you start scrolling down a few rows where it will occur again for some other album. I re-iterate, this behaviour does not exist in Madnox 1.0. It can be slower in loading the artwork than Madnox 2.0, but all artwork for all albums in view are loaded at the first attempt, regardless. The same goes for Estuary. Initial loading of artwork can be somewhat delayed in both these skins, but all album artwork loads 1st time, every time.

In general, my cover artwork is made up of a range of sizes, 75% of which will be 1000px * 1000px. No albums in my collection have artwork larger than this size.

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi

Not sure what could be causing the problem. Kodi simply fills ListItem.Thumb with the artwork. That is what is displayed in the skin.

Could you send me a debug log?

[gibxxi]

It might be my Powerline adapters at fault. Because it's usually the first cover art of a batch it's attempting to load as you scroll down that fails, then everything else is OK for the 2-4 rows visible. These things have QoS on that can't be disabled. All I can do is select a QoS mode that causes the least amount of impact to network latency.

I'm currently doing a full music library rescan and a clean-up of cached textures. I'll see how it performs once that's done. If the issue persists i'll PM you a debug log. Strange one for sure, as like I said, it doesn't seem to affect Estuary or Madnox 1.0. Both are somewhat delayed loading the covers (about 1-2 seconds per attempt), but that's to be expected as everything is on (one of) my LAN-based NAS devices.

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

@mistervee

I've come the the determination that the album covers issue is (probably) a caching issue unique to my setup.

Just to be sure I ran KCleaner (https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=307919) on the HTPC and cleaned the whole installation, then the textures13.db file. I've also setup a weekly schedule for this addon to run, as Kodi was taking a long time to start-up (3-5 seconds) despite drive fragmentation being 0%. Highly recommend the above add-on for database / artwork cleaning.

The original issue still exists, but only on first access to the album library in "Wall" view, and only when scrolling from top to bottom. Scrolling up from bottom to top causes no issues. Might be an open files limit or Oplocks on the NAS share the files reside on, and not anything to do with Kodi / Madnox. Will do some more testing going forwards, and submit a debug log if I see no improvement / solution. Have run out of time tonight to test further.

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi Let me know how it all works out. Not so keen on anyone having to go to drastic measure to get the artwork to show up, where it works ok in other skins.

EDIT: A debug log would help me to work out if i can improve the code or if it is a DB issue. That is why i asked. After release others may have a similar issue, so solving it now would be the best action without you having to make changes to your DB/nfo's (if i can that is).

[gibxxi]

@mistervee

There are several potential causes (none of which are the fault of Madnox) I need to do some more analysis to eliminate these 1st. I'll let you know.

Dan / Gib.

[meowmoo]

@mistervee

I set up a rpi for messing around, so it was a clean version, and noticed that I get a black screen after toggling the fix list option in various views, I than upgrade the skin on the chrome box and did a rest like suggested, same issue here.

[mistervee]

@meowmoo

Fixed.

[gibxxi]

@mistervee

A few visual bugs noticed, and a scaling issue for TV (PVR) icons which i'll post seperately in the PVR thread...

1. Leftover / erroneous "Toggle Switch" graphic in Programs -> Wall View (See Red Arrow / Pointer in screenshot as it's somewhat hard to see):

https://imgur.com/zsBkBgm

It's not the progress bar, as that can (just about) be seen partially off-screen in the above screenshot as well.

2. Dependancy Add-On area in Skin Settings is being populated with ALL installed add-ons, in addition to the add-ons that should be being shown for that category.

Required Add-ons: https://imgur.com/c5mS9wV

Recommended Add-ons: https://imgur.com/QTDmCQF

Optional Add-ons: https://imgur.com/KjZSELe

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

@mistervee

Just noticed a minor issue with language flags positioning in the Movie Library. The flags are encroaching onto the right edge of the "audio channels" logo. one or the other could do with being moved by about 5-6px at a glance.

https://imgur.com/FbNLfYE

EDIT: ...and in "Movie Info" too.

https://imgur.com/zEq11jC

Dan / Gib.

[gibxxi]

@mistervee

View settings changes for TV shows at the "season" and "episode" level for one TV show are not being reflected in the other shows, until such times as you back right out to the main menu, then re-enter the "TV Shows" section.

e.g: I set one TV show Seasons view to "Low List" and the Episode view to "Right", then back up to the list of TV shows, and select a different show / series, it will still show the previous (unmodified) settings for that show. Exit back to the main menu, then come back in and the changes are reflected across all TV shows in my library.

EDIT: This may be a carry-over from previous Madnox versions, as while I deleted the addon settings folder after updating, but prior to launch. I did not delete the ViewModes6.db file, which is where these view choice settings are stored predominantly, is it not?

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

@gibxxi

To reset the views without changing skin settings edit the guisettings.xml in your userdata folder. Delete <viewstates>. I had some odd behaviour after the last update and that seemed to have fixed the issue.

[gibxxi]

@gibxxi

To reset the views without changing skin settings edit the guisettings.xml in your userdata folder. Delete <viewstates>. I had some odd behaviour after the last update and that seemed to have fixed the issue.

Got it, thanks for the heads-up.

Dan / Gib.

[mistervee]

@mistervee

Just noticed a minor issue with language flags positioning in the Movie Library. The flags are encroaching onto the right edge of the "audio channels" logo. one or the other could do with being moved by about 5-6px at a glance.

https://imgur.com/FbNLfYE

EDIT: ...and in "Movie Info" too.

https://imgur.com/zEq11jC

Dan / Gib.

To fix this i would have to change the audio channel texture. No plans to change it anytime soon.

[Slipass]

@mistervee

in the Low List view for series, no video preview image is displayed in the last level (3), only the cover. Could you still adjust this?

View in Madnox 2 https://imgur.com/w9aiIsX

View in Madnox 1 https://imgur.com/ckYB6q2

Thank you.