I see that Ch1llb0 is currently working on a major skin revamp @ github so i thought its a good time to share a couple of ideas i have found most useful in my skin. I will post the screenshots here to show what i have done but i do not dare share the code as i am not a coder and all this is done with probably silly methods that will only make you laugh
In the first two, you see i have added another background colorization, a 2-tone color mode for all backgrounds, the top part is colored in this example cyan-blue cold tones and the bottom part is earthy warm tones. This applies in all views throughout the entire skin and its a combination of colors i liked after trying a lot, of course each user can add his own favorite color
In the first image you see the focused poster is a bit larger. Viewing a 55 inch TV at a distance of 2 to 3m needs a larger poster if you want to see details ( i do )
I have also added director and ) most important to me) the imdb rating
In the second image you see the changes i did in view Wide Low Info, and its my personal preferred view for movies and TV series. The poster moved to the left, leaving room at the center / center-right for the fanart elements to be visible ( in 90% of photo compositions, the important part is located at the center, center right, or right part of the photo.)
The poster is much larger ( i m thinking about even larger if i remove the text at the top left corner…)
you see the location of the title AND PLOT ( also very very important to me…)
Rating also included, so in this view, i have all that me personally i need and find important in a movie view. Title, Plot, Rating, duration, a big poster to enjoy, and a good glimpse of the fanart in the background)
The last 2 photos, show some modifications that may have some importance only for people who use subtitles. As you see i have moved the OSD subtitle button right next to the Pause, this saves me a lot of clicks to access subtitles EVERY time a video starts…
I have also re arranged the download subtitles coordinates, increased to max available the area of the subtitle name to make sure i see the type ( dvd bluray tv web etc) without having to wait for scroll… People using subtitles know what i m talking about
The SYNC label omitted as mostly useless, at least in my language i have yet to find one subtitle marked as in sync to be truly in sync.
A few mode details not important, like adding some extra elements in power pop up menu ( like link to file manager ) but, anyway, the most important are the rating, plot, and arrangement of elements in those 2 views…
Hope all this helps somehow
That’s just me constantly working on the skin - although I have to say, I’ll dial it back a bit now as most changes are done for the moment.
Atm, we’ve just got single coloured background gradients and as colours have posed a significant problem regarding the balance of visibility vs. maximum amount of customizability I’ve never dared thinking about adding even more. What I do have in mind is tinkering with the gradient entirely. But that’s for another time and would probably involve getting rid of the gradient all together as it’s a design nightmare anyway - not from the looks of it, but from a design guide standpoint. So, your approach does look nice, but it’s probably not what I’m gonna do some day.
Our skin is mostly taxing the device it’s running on a lot less than other skins which use a lot of addons, scripts, etc. I’ve noticed that too many animations that involve a lot of movement over lots of pixels distance make the whole GUI slower as well. Wide and wide info do pose a significantly higher burden on the device performance wise already that I wouldn’t want to increase (wide info is already not smooth enough anymore, I’d say, but that’s a different issue). What this means: I wouldn’t want to increase the difference in size between focused and non-focus covers even more for said reasons. Another issue: there’s not much room left for spacing. So, in your screenshots I can see all of these issues becoming more evident that they already are in our skin, unfortunately.
Adding more information to all screens is something I know a lot of other skins already do. But: we’ve decided not to do this as our skin follows a minimalistic approach and these information are meant to be found in the video info dialog. I wouldn’t want to add redundancy or frankly too many customization toggles.
That (most recently added) view is not 100% done, I admit. It works, but it’s not perfect yet. So, I might tinker with that a bit the next months and maybe I’ll include some of your ideas regarding positioning. No promises though
I can understand why you’ve changed this, but for general release it doesn’t make too much sense, to be honest. The left side of the OSD is for playback controls and all of the options are the right side. Disturbing that balance wouldn’t really work for all scenarios it’s used in (also PVR e.g.).
We’ve added direct access via a button click to our new OSMC remote button mapping specifically for this reason: quicker access to video, audio and subtitle settings during playback.
That dialog already got a major overhaul which will be available with the next update. It basically addresses all of what you’ve changed. The dialog was a mess before that I somehow didn’t notice.
There really shouldn’t be any reason to have to do this. You can have subs enabled by default and as long as your files as tagged/ext subs named correctly, and the language selected in settings it should pick the correct language. If for some reason you still need something tweaked frequently there is a lot of keymap options for the various aspects of subs.
Many thanks indeed for reply
I understand your points, a fan of minimalism myself -that’s why i m here after all IMHO rating & plot in movie views is a must, but, thats just me
Appreciate your work… AWESOME work!
Take care and again thanks for the reply
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The dialog was a mess before that I somehow didn’t notice.
